Furmanology: Accustomed to an absent mind

By MONTE DUTTON (Furman photo) Click here. On Saturday, I watched the closest finish in Kentucky Derby history. On Sunday, I watched the closest finish in NASCAR history. On TV, mind you. I’m not some globe-trotting bon vivant hiding behind a cloak of seeming poverty. I’m worse than a poor boy. I’m a poor old …

Furmanology: But first, a bit of aged philosophy …

By MONTE DUTTON Evidence suggests the rain-shortened game was justified. (Furman photo) Click here. All is tangible, and all is not. Time, for instance. Precise. Measurable. Inviolable. Examined another way, it is not. For me, time crawls every morning, and then it gets faster and faster until late at night, when it runs out of …

County Signs: Red Devils stay alive

By MONTE DUTTON Camden Finley connects. (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. The latest of life’s ironies occurred to me Thursday morning as I augmented, updated, corrected and reposted Wednesday’s crop. NIL (name, image and likeness) provides college athletes monetary compensation, yet the world “nil” means nothing. Thus could the athlete at an unmonied institution say, …

Blue Hose Blurbs: PC wins barrage of batters

By MONTE DUTTON (PC photo) Click here. It’s been almost 40 years since lights were installed at Wrigley Field. I can still immediately identify a night game there. Shadows cover the backs of all the players. The Friendly Confines have no light stands over the outfields. One reason I’m a good speller is that I …

Furmanology: Searching for a pot of gold

By MONTE DUTTON J.P. Pegues is moving along. (Monte Dutton photo) Click here. Ain’t gonna be no more Willie Totten to Jerry Rice at Mississippi Valley. Walter Payton blazing a trail at Jackson State? Ken Anderson quarterbacking Augustana? Walt Frazier at Southern Illinois? Centenary’s Robert Parish? Get outta town! Maybe this is how it should …

Blue Hose Blurbs: Baseball can’t shake the blues

By MONTE DUTTON (PC photo) Click here. Rather than seeing whether or not Scottie Scheffler can manage to hold a five-stroke lead in three holes at rain-delayed Harbour Town this morning, I’ve elected to apply myself to more substantive matters. Lawyers, chiropractors and analysts never end. I’m not experienced enough to make this judgment as …

Furmanology: Paladins win first softball series with Terriers

By MONTE DUTTON (Furman photo) Click here. My first impression when I watch Nikola Jokic is of one of those 1970s rasslers who claimed to be from a Communist country. Then I realize that Jokic takes the exact same clumsy shots I took when I played basketball, with the exceptions that he hits virtually all …

Furmanology: On the bright side, lacrosse wins

By MONTE DUTTON (Furman photo) Click here. It’s all busy work, mostly thankless. Thanks to staking out Laurens County as part of my territory, I’m aware of the importance of baseball. It’s big. Clinton won the state title in Class 3A last year. An inexperienced team is getting better by the week and still has …

Furmanology: How the duffer relates

By MONTE DUTTON (Furman photo) Click here. Augusta National is hell in heaven. It’s Oz, complete with witches both good and wicked flitting about. It seemed as if the first- and second-place finishers, Scottie Scheffler and Ludvig Aberg, were the only players on the course who seemed to be enjoying himself. Tiger Woods was a …

Blue Hose Blurbs: Baseball pounds Winthrop … again

(PC photo) Click here. On Friday night, I watched football, and in a way, it felt like spring practice for me, too. I started out at Clinton High School watching baseball, and when I got home from the Presbyterian College spring football game, I had two sets of photos to process, select and lay out. …