By MONTE DUTTON
American Legion baseball is a slight step back. It doesn’t have the tension of high-school ball in the spring.
It’s the summer. It’s supposed to be fun. It is.
I’ve made quite the transition. For years, when I was away watching fast cars, I occasionally proclaimed that the worst sports beat on earth was American Legion baseball. Back in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, when I was first heavily involved, the games were nine innings without run rules.
Once I watched Easley score 18 runs in the top of the first inning … and lose to Laurens, which then had a team, 26-24. At the end, I was the exclusive customer of the fellow who was selling boiled peanuts.
I would fight over the need for the Memorial Weekend NASCAR race to remain 600 miles, but nine innings are too many for American Legion, where sometimes half a dozen ballplayers are throwing frisbees on a beach.
My view has completely changed. Maybe that’s in part because I haven’t recently sat through 600 miles at Charlotte.
On Wednesday night, a kid in the Clinton dugout (a favorite photographic site, conveniently) asked whether I liked football or baseball better.
I said whatever was in season was my favorite, but I didn’t much care for football in baseball season or baseball in basketball season (as a general rule, I’d rather be hot than cold, though Wednesday was a test of that preference).
What I love most about baseball is the intimacy. I get to know baseball players. Their game requires relaxed concentration. Football is motivated concentration.
A player gets criticism from his mates for failing to run out a ground ball. He denies this. A few feet away, I say, “That would be running it out if I did it.”
Teammates laugh. Even the kid smiles. I couldn’t get away with that on a football sideline. The players would want to hit me. They might if I wasn’t an old fat man.
Once I was a young fat man. I played football. I know how to behave. Back then, teammates would hit me across the head. Fortunately, I was wearing a helmet. I hit them across the helmet. I popped them with both hands to the shoulder pads.
Go Redddddd!
Basketball players are always on the move, doing layups, getting loose, launching treys and running out of and into locker rooms. The principal form of communication is the post-game interview.
Football players scream. Baseball players crack wise.
The opposition coach trots out for a huddle at the mound. Two players do a comedy routine.
One yells, “Take him out!”
His teammate yells, “He stinks!”
“Leave him in!”
“We’re rocking him!”
Football players do not need energy drinks. They have adrenal glands the size of cantaloupes.
I’ll be ready when it gets here.
One night after edging Saluda by a run, the tables turned as the homestanding Tigers trimmed Clinton Junior Legion, 5-4.
Second baseman Mason Collins singled in the winning run with two out in the bottom of the seventh inning.
The Post 55 Junior Legion Devils (6-3) were an out away from winning when the next four batters reached base on a hit batter, a walk and the two singles off Talan Campbell, who took the loss. The previous batter, Tristan Daniels, had tied it with another single.
Saluda (9-3) outhit Clinton 9-5, led by Daniels and Daniels with three safeties apiece.
Clinton DH Graydon Watkins doubled, the Devils’ only extra-base hit. Each team committed three errors. Catcher William Addison drove in two runs. Owen Glenn, Campbell and Rhett Gilliam collected the other hits.
Jaydon Glenn started for the Devils, allowing two runs (one earned) over the first four innings.
Josh Uhlar turned in a complete game for Saluda.
Friday’s American Legion baseball games boasting local connections are Chapin-Newberry at Golden Strip and Greenwood at Easley. Both games are scheduled for 7 p.m.
The Presbyterian College men’s wrestling program, an affiliate member of the Southern Conference since its creation five years ago, placed 13 on the SoCon’s academic honor roll and five on the academic all-conference team.
Michael Ramirez, Caleb Roe, Brayden Adams, Eli Holiday and Morvens Saint Jean earned All-SoCon Academic status. They were joined by Dakota Price, Joshua Roe, George Hopkins, Ryan Luna, Brandon Jacoby, Connor Garren, Reed Douglass and Malcolm Wiley on the honor roll.
In order to gain entry into the Southern Conference Honor Roll, one must acquire a 3.0 grade-point average over the full academic year..
The criteria for all-conference is more strenuous. Freshmen and transfers are not permitted, and all of those who qualify must have established a 3.3 GPA for their cumulative college careers while also competing in at least 50 percent of their team’s events in the regular season.
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