By MONTE DUTTON
Baseball had quite a run in Laurens County, and it’s weird to write that before it’s June, but I’ve got to acclimate myself to the rest of it because mostly I’ve been paying attention to the Blue Hose, Raiders and Red Devils.
Presbyterian College’s team was the most unpredictable. En route to its first regular-season Big South title ever, the Blue Hose had two four-game and two three-game win streaks, as well as a six-game, a four-game and two three-game losing streaks. They won their last seven conference games, then went two-and-out in the tournament.
The center fielder, Joel Dragoo, batted .401, but the first baseman, Eli Lazio, batted .148.
The Blue Hose were fun to watch. Elton Pollock makes the best of what he’s got. It was more than the usual this year. At a high level, almost every team loses at the end.
I thought Laurens was going to win the Class 4A state championship, but they also went two-and-out with a couple agonizing and controversial losses in the finals.
One of the truths most fans don’t acknowledge is that the other teams try, too. Another is that they can’t actually see balls and strikes better than an umpire located directly behind the plate.
Two balks called against one pitcher who had been pitching that way all season were bizarre, but it didn’t cost the Raiders the game any more than three errors did. A game’s outcome cannot be conclusively measured in hindsight.
That being noted, the game was definitely in my all-time top 10 of heartbreaking losses. Mind you, I’ve seen a lot of them.
Tori Patterson was gracious in victory and defeat. He coolly coached an excitable team.
Clinton followed up a state championship with its third straight region crown. Sean McCarthy, in what was apparently his final season coaching the Red Devils, led a less experienced team that got better and better as the season wore on.
McCarthy’s absence will be duly reflected, but it is comforting to know that Peyton Spangler, his right-hand man and third-base coach, is waiting in the wings.
The S.C. High School League’s baseball coach of the year in 2023, McCarthy led the Red Devils to the Class 3A title. In seven seasons over two stints, his record was 129-55, with four region, three district and one state championship.
One pleasant – well, occasionally unpleasant – aspect of small-town life is that if one just circulates naturally and goes to the dollar, grocery, fuel and cafes enough, one runs into everybody. Just today, in the parking lot of Aldi, I encountered someone who used to put up the grocery order at my grandfather’s store with me. B.M. died in 1981. I don’t get a chance to reminisce about him much now.
The last time I stacked groceries or bagged them for anyone but myself was about a half century ago.
I can’t believe, as a lifelong resident of this state, that I watched Carolina play LSU in baseball twice.
When I left the house, the Gamecocks led, 8-0, on Saturday. I listened on the radio. When I left the grocery store, it was 8-6. When I got home, it was 10-6. Carolina lost the first meeting, 11-10, and the second, 12-11. Its inconsistency was consistent.
The reasons I’ve followed Carolina’s trek a bit more this season is, (a.) Furman does not currently play baseball, and, (b.) two ex-Blue Hose, Dalton Reeves and Chris Veach, have been unsung heroes in Columbia.
What I saw was almost mindless. Maybe it was me.
One of the reasons fielders make errors is never cited. I’ve felt this way for almost 40 years. They close their gloves a split-second too early. That was what Bill Buckner did that ultimately cost the Boston Red Sox the World Series in 1986. I’ve never heard anyone say it.
This is an inopportune time to point this out, but umpires make fewer mistakes than scorekeepers.
Avery Madden’s game-winning hit for Laurens against Easley in the Upstate finals was bound to be a play called one way in one team’s scoring and another in the other.
I didn’t have to look it up, but I did. I wasn’t there but saw it on video.
The Easley shortstop let the ball play him, tried to short-hop it and failed, but the circumstances dictated that he had to charge it. I’d have ruled it a hit, but it was a close enough call that I knew the teams would differ.
The Raiders won, 7-6, after trailing 6-1. Everything went the other way versus James Island.
Sunday wasn’t actually Memorial Day. Monday is for honoring those who gave their lives in service to the country.
Worldwide car-racing day is what Sunday was. Often the racing has had a memorial aspect. In 1964, neither the Indianapolis 500 nor the (then World) 600 was run on Memorial Day.
On May 24, a Sunday, NASCAR’s greatest hero at the time, Glenn (Fireball) Roberts, suffered severe burns in a crash at Charlotte that cost him his life on July 2.
The 500 was run on Saturday, May 30, and two drivers, Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald, perished in a gruesome crash. I was six years old. Our family went to Atlanta two years later to watch the Atlanta Braves play for the first time. My dad bought me a sports yearbook in a bookstore. Inside were gruesome photos of the Sachs-MacDonald crash. I’ve had a morbid fascination ever since.
During my 20 years on the NASCAR beat, having to write about tragedy was common. I’m glad that’s mostly untrue nowadays.
The whole day was marred, not by tragedy but by delay. In Monte Carlo, two crashes occurred on the first lap of the Grand Prix of Monaco, eventually won by Charles Leclerc, who was born and grew up there.
Then rain delayed the Indy 500 for hours, pushing the start back and preventing Kyle Larson from being able to arrive at Charlotte Motor Speedway in time to compete in the Coca-Cola 600. Larson was poised to take the wheel a little past the halfway point, but rain prevented another lap from being run. Christopher Bell won what ended up being the Coca-Cola 373.5.
Larson led late in the 500, but a pit-road penalty relegated him to 18th place at the finish.
Worldwide Formula One coverage is fantastic. I was amused at the crowd shots from the three venues. The fans were an upscale lot. It looked like the Kentucky Derby without the ridiculous hats.
I haven’t ever been to Monte Carlo, which is clearly above any pay scale I’ve ever been on. I haven’t been at the 500 since 2001 nor the 600 since 2015. Indy and Charlotte are separate pieces of Americana.
Indy is steeped in reverence and tradition. Charlotte is a place of gaudy celebration. Indy is the solemn playing of Taps. Charlotte is the annual Invasion of the Trioval. One year, when a deployment of soldiers was crawling toward the grass’s edge, they fired blanks in the direction of the grandstands.
My buddy and colleague Kenny Bruce, then employed as the motorsports writer in Kingsport, Tenn., said, “If this was Bristol, they’d have a fight on their hands.”
A crash delay ran Monaco into Indy, where rain pushed it into Charlotte, where rain stopped it after midnight. Fox’s Mike Joy said the same rain that postponed Indy arrived in Charlotte to shorten the 600.
It wasn’t the same rain. The drops were different. The storm left its payload in Indiana. It reloaded for Charlotte.
Decision time is approaching. What’s next? Do I keep doing it the way I am now? Do I amend this site? Do I continue to concentrate on local sports coverage, or do I change my priorities?
I’m thinking. I’m thinking.
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