By MONTE DUTTON
I’ve been thinking about this since I heard the news of Willie Howard Mays’ death on Tuesday night.
I think three athletes have made me cry.
On the way from Fenway Park back to New Hampshire on a NASCAR weekend, I heard on the radio of the death of Johnny Unitas. I had to pull off the road.
Someone passed along a video of Carl Yastrzemski’s final game at Fenway, when he ran around the edge of the field shaking and slapping hands with fans in the lower rows. Watching it made me cry, and I’ve never been more surprised in my life. Tears are unlike me.
My eyes got damp last night and this morning.
Mays wasn’t just the best. He was the most entertaining. Mays’ body had a lot of moving parts. He was a perpetual-motion machine. I never saw Mays play in person until he was 35 (and I was eight).
Rudy Jones, my longtime sportswriting friend, and I both saw Mays hit home runs at Atlanta Stadium (Fulton County wasn’t added until later) in 1966. They were separate games. Mays hit two in the Braves’ maiden season. I saw one. Rudy saw the other.
This morning I heard something Reggie Jackson said, that fans went to see Babe Ruth for one thing, and they went to see Mays for everything.
Mays could do everything in baseball 90 percent as well as anyone who ever lived.
The Say Hey Kid. When he was 20, new to the major leagues, Mays had difficulty remembering names, so, when someone greeted him, he said, “Say … hey!”
I could never hit a curveball. My arm stank the last time I used it. I have trouble remembering names, though.
Now we say bye to the Say Hey Kid.
The Diamond Youth baseball teams representing the Clinton Family YMCA have gone together where only individual teams have gone gone before.
All three all-star teams – AA Coaches Pitch (7-8 age group), AAA Minors (9-10) and O Zone (11-12) – won the District 3 championships, meaning that all three qualify for the state tournaments in July.
The tournaments are in Walterboro for Coaches Pitch, West Columbia for Minors and Sumter for O Zone. The opening ceremonies are on Friday, July 5.
Four times in one College World Series game, one of the announcers fretted about a team’s hitting.
He said the team had averaged nine runs a game in the regular season but only six in the playoffs.
Duh.
They play better teams in the playoffs.
Recently-appointed Presbyterian College women’s soccer head coach Matt Smith has announced the team’s schedule. PC will participate in 17 regular-season matches beginning on Aug. 15, including eight Big South Conference matches.
The Blue Hose will compete inside Martin Stadium against eight opponents this fall.
Over 19 seasons as both an assistant and head coach, Smith has been apart of 175 victories as well as 14 postseason appearances and four trips to the NCAA Tournament.
The Big South Tournament’s quarterfinal round will be dueled on Nov. 2 from the site of whomever is the higher seed. Charlotte will serve as the location for the Semi’s and Championship, played on the 7th and 10th.
The winner of the Big South tourney will earn the league’s automatic bid to the 2024 NCAA Championship, joining the field of 64 in pursuit of a national title.
Check out the schedule here.
The bad news was that Golden Strip Post 271 lost its second game in a row, 4-3, to Easley Post 52 on Tuesday evening.
The good news was that ex-Laurens Raiders collected all eight of Golden Strip’s hits.
Coleman Coker and Joshua Hughes each had two hits. Ben Willis tripled and Asher Goss doubled. Bennett Edwards and Owen Pridgen each singled.
All three Golden Strip (4-2) pitchers – Goss, Connor Rice and Hughes – were Raiders, and they only allowed four hits. Goss, who toiled the first four innings, took the loss.
Chapin-Newberry Post 193/24 defeated Greenwood Post 20, 3-1, on Monday night, with Jake Peterson limiting the Braves to a single hit and a single walk, both by ex-Laurens center fielder Jaedon Goodwin, who also scored the only run.
Clinton left fielder Brett Young walked and scored a run for the American Legion baseball winners.
Chapin-Newberry (6-2) plays Greenwood (3-4) again on Wednesday at Newberry College.
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