By MONTE DUTTON
It was great to get out.
After the usual – writing, assembling, choosing photos, playing guitar, sipping coffee and half paying attention to what’s on the tube – I went off whistle-stopping late Thursday afternoon.
First was watching the Junior American Legion baseball team play a doubleheader against visiting Ridge Spring-Monetta, which made a fruitless trip – lots of peaches are grown down there – to Clinton High’s baseball valley.
The Post 56 legionnaires rocked. They rolled. They had the rocking pneumonia and the boogie-woogie flu, which are performance-enhancing illnesses.
Clinton won 16-0 and 4-0. I left in the second inning, secure in the expectation of success because it was already 15-luv.
Then I walked to the truck and drove approximately a quarter mile to the CHS football practice field, where Corey Fountain and a bevy of his assistant coaches put kids from the Clinton Family YMCA through their paces at a day camp.
You want your heart warmed? The weather alone takes care of that, but it was warm and fuzzy anyway with the future Red Devils cavorting about.
The reason I’m playing catch-up today is that I devoted the rest of my evening playing songs on my guitar at The Lumberyard on Gary Street. I stood behind the mic already pre-sweatened from ballfields.
I missed the baseball game at Rickwood Field on account of I was singing songs.
The Junior Legion twinbill was bereft of tension, at least after the first inning of the first game, when Clinton Post 56 (5-2) scored nine runs – seven of them with two out – off five hits, a walk, a hit batter and three Ridge Spring-Monetta errors.
The doubleheader was scheduled for five innings in each game, but the run rule limited the former game to three. Tanner Finley pitched those frames and didn’t allow a hit. No one reached base against him, and he fanned six.
Third baseman Rhett Gilliam and left fielder Zack Lawson doubled. Right fielder Owen Glenn tripled. First baseman Luke Young went 3/3. Owen Glenn, Finley and Lawson each rapped two hits. Seven Clinton batters hit safely.
The latter game was less of the same, though more for Ridge Spring-Monetta, which managed two hits.
Jaydon Glenn and Lawson split the mound chores. Glenn allowed the two hits, walking one and striking out four in three innings. Lawson’s pitching line was clean except for five strikeouts.
Graydon Watkins rapped two of Clinton’s seven hits and drove in two runs. Also contributing to the total were Owen Glenn, Finley, Gilliam and William Addison.
Clinton scored its four runs in the second inning.
Over at the football practice fields, Fountain and staff were teaching fundamentals: how to pass, catch, get in a stance, etc.
Fountain was instructing a young passer on the fundamentals, playing catch from distance of about 10 yards. The first three tosses sailed far over Fountain’s head.
The Red Devils’ head coach trotted over, adjusted the kid’s grip and told him the problem was that he was releasing the ball early. Fountain trotted back, problem corrected, and soon the youngster was hitting him right in the hands.
Oh, they had a big time, zig-zagging through the lanes established by yellow pads, receiving passes, handoffs and general fundamental expertise. The kids ranged from seven to 12 years in age.
Fountain could have recorded reliable 40-yard dash times merely from using a stopwatch as the kids hightailed it to the water station.
They had fun. The coaches had fun. I had fun watching it.
Shutouts were all the rage on Thursday.
In its home park, Camden Post 17 held serve with a 5-0 victory over Chapin-Newberry 193/24 (6-4).
Camden only outhit C-N, 5-4, and each team committed three errors, but Camden scored single runs in the second, third and sixth innings, coupled with two in the fourth.
Clinton’s Brett Young patrolled left field for the visitors, going 0/2 at the plate.
Greg Porter is conducting Laurens’ youth football camp next week, holding daily sessions from 8-11:30 a.m. Monday (June 24) through Thursday at K.C. Hanna Stadium.
The LDHS camp is for grades 2-9 at a cost of $50 for each potential gridder.
Email Porter at gsporter@laurens55.org for more information.
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