By MONTE DUTTON
I saw several games at Rickwood Field when the Birmingham Barons played there.
The Barons have since moved twice and now play in a sparkling downtown stadium.
The San Francisco Giants are playing the Saint Louis Cardinals there on Thursday night. One reason for the game is to honor the few remaining veterans of the Negro League.
Another was to honor Birmingham, Ala., native Willie Mays, who played for the Black Barons at Rickwood as a teen-ager. Rickwood Field opened in 1910, two years before Fenway Park and four before Wrigley Field.
Mays informed MLB that he couldn’t make it last week. He wasn’t kidding. He died on Tuesday. As it turns out, Mays is being honored even more. Too many people never know what the world thinks of them while they are alive.
I expect Willie had an inkling, though.
As a young man, I never managed to anticipate what age really means.
It means not being able to do things. I couldn’t evade an assailant if he or she was in chains and handcuffs. It means sitting on the edge of a bed and getting my wits about me before I stand and walk into the bathroom, and when I awaken, that’s where I always go.
Make coffee. Push the power buttons, TV and laptop. Check the emails. Surf the net. Try to think of something to write. Then actually write. Use the guitar for contemplation.
What age actually means is losing heroes. I’m just about down to Jimmy Carter, A.J. Foyt, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Keith Richardson and Carl Yastrzemski.
I think of Lefty Frizzell’s “Gone, Gone, Gone.” I piddle with a few lines on the guitar.
Gone are Henry Aaron, Jimmy Buffett, Merle Haggard, Tom T. Hall, Bobby Hull, Elmore Leonard, Loretta Lynn, Mays, Jim McLaurin, Elmore Leonard, Larry McMurtry, Jimmy Orr, David Pearson, David Poole, Charley Pride, John Prine, Jeff Snipes, Johnny Unitas, Tim Wakefield, Jerry West, my parents, my grandparents and one of my sisters.
I’d hate to miss someone else who’s dead. He or she might haunt me. Oh, well.
The title of a Lewis Grizzard book, Elvis Is Dead and I Don’t Feel So Good Myself, just occurred to me.
The world is changing / Always rearranging / From birth to the end / With my Facebook friends.
Things aren’t so bad. It’s a long way to 93. I’m not sure I want to get there.
The first three games of the College World Series ended with walk-offs and the fourth was decided by a run.
Since then, most of the games have been mismatches, not because the teams that fell weren’t competitive. The games just didn’t work out that way.
I’m not going to write which team will win. I’m in a cold spell while the weather is hot.
In the NBA playoffs, I thought the Nuggets would defeat the Timberwolves and the Timberwolves would beat the Mavericks. Neither happened, though I did expect all along that the Celtics would win it all.
Templeton Center and Springs Student Center were the sites of basketball games matching high-school women’s teams at the FCA Camp hosted by Presbyterian College.
The camp concluded on Thursday.
Among the schools taking part were Laurens Academy, Seneca, Byrnes, Southside (Greenville), Ben Lippen, Dorman, Midland Valley, Blacksburg, ACE Academy and Crisp Academy (Cordele, Ga.).
What an American Legion baseball game was played in Newberry on Wednesday night.
One night after falling to Chapin-Newberry Post 193/24, Greenwood Post 20 held on to win the encore, 6-5.
The Braves scored five runs in the top of the first inning and never relinquished the lead, but Chapin-Newberry climbed to within a run with three in the sixth.
Center fielder Jaedon Goodwin and right fielder Jackson Martin, both ex-Raiders, each had a hit and scored a run. Martin drove in a run for Greenwood (4-4).
Designated hitter Carson Glenn, from Clinton, doubled in two runs and went 2/3 for Chapin-Newberry (6-3).
Clinton Post 56’s Junior American Legion team take a 3-2 record into a home doubleheader (at CHS) that begins at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday against Ridge Spring-Monetta.
Chapin-Newberry visits Camden Post 17 on Thursday and visits Greenwood again on Friday.
DeEarnest McLemore, formerly head coach at Mary Baldwin University in Staunton, Va., has joined Tiffany Sardin’s PC women’s basketball staff.
A native of Cary, N.C., McLemore played at Wagner College in Staten Island, N.Y., and afterwards as a professional in The Netherlands and the U.S. He also coached basketball, boys and girls, in several North Carolina high schools.
McLemore played in the 2003 NCAA Tournament at Wagner.
Men’s tennis coach John Collins is leaving PC to take a similar post at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville.
In his four seasons at the helm, Collins guided the Blue Hose to a Big South regular-season title, two Big South Tournament titles and two bids to the NCAA Tournament. He coached two Big South Players of the Year, three Big South Freshman of the Year and eight players who earned All-Big South accolades.
The search for a successor is self-evidently underway.
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