Gilmer's Gospel

     As my final week at the Herald-Journal looms ahead, I’ve decided to take the time and write about some of my favorites over the past nine years.
     Today is a list of my favorite stories that I got to do that little to do with high school athletics.
     Most of my time was spent covering high school sports. Every once in a while I would venture out of that realm to do something different.
     I've written video game reviews, music reviews, stories for other sections and for Spartanburg Magazine during my time here.
     Here are my five favorites.

    
     1. Talking umpiring with Fieldin Culbreth: I did a series last summer about four Spartanburg residents making their living in professional baseball without being players.
     Culbreth, a Chapman graduate, is a Major League umpire. I went to his house to talk with him for the story and got to see his collection of memorabilia and see photos of him in action.
     He was honest and professional and gave me a great interview.
     After doing a story, you never know how the subject will respond. Culbreth sent me a nice note thanking me.
     You also never know if you’re get to interview a subject again. A few months after our initial meeting, I was back at Culbreth’s house – he was calling the World Series.
     For the first story, he told me it was his dream to work the Series, then he got to do it.
     It was nice to take that story full circle.
     It was nicer for Culbreth to talk with me about it.



     2. Professional wrestling series: For two summers, I spent a lot of time researching local angles on professional wrestling. I met great people doing these stories, some who are former wrestlers and some who had retired.
     I got to speak with NWA legends Harley Race and Ivan Koloff. I traveled with local brother Kirby and T.J. Mack to an event in Columbia to watch them wrestle. I spoke with Dustin Rhodes and Rakishi on that trip.
     Those stories took me away from high school sports and during the summer it was a welcomed, relaxing venture.
     The trip with the Macks was my favorite part.              
     Photographer Tom Priddy and I hopped in the van with those guys, rode down to Columbia while talking about their lives in professional wrestling and then we watched them perform.
     We came back late that night and had a new understanding of how wrestlers earned their living trying to make the big show.
     And Tom slept on the way home.



     3. Seeing Kevin Pucetas pitch in the all-star game: Another long trip for Tom and I, but another well worth it.
Pucetas, a former Broome pitcher, was in the Double-A all-star game in Myrtle Beach.
     Since he was pitching for the San Jose (Calif.) Giants on the West Coast, this was our only chance to see him play last summer.
     Tom and I headed down to the beach, almost ran out of gas, never saw the ocean and ended up eating dinner at 1:30 a.m. Worth it, though.
     Pucetas is one of those players who’s great to work with, easy to contact and going to be in the Majors. I did get him yelled at by his manager though.
     I stood in the dugout during the all-star game and grabbed a quick interview after Pucetas threw his inning.      The game was still going on. I was trying to beat a deadline. Pucetas was just helping me out by standing off to the side answering my questions. His manager gave him a hard time. Hopefully, he didn’t have to run extra sprints for it.

     4. College football with Bobby Bentley: When the former Byrnes coach took over at Presbyterian College, I asked if I could join him for his first day of practice. And not just for practice.
     But for the ride to Clinton, meetings with players and assistant coaches, lunch and everything else that went along with his day. Having worked with Bentley for so long, he gave me unlimited access on that first day.
     I wandered in and out of meetings, watched film and talked to everyone. I showed up at Bentley’s house before the sun rose and watched him have breakfast with his kids, then hopped in the first seat as he dropped them off at school.
     It was a long, grinding day and I understand why college coaches (and Bentley, in particular) can get burned out.

     5. Goalball: A couple of years ago, the Sports staff here at the H-J was introduced to a sport for the blind called “goalball.”
     We knew nothing about it early on, when the Goalball National Games came to town.
     We quickly learned. We played it and got pounded by the high school team from SCSDB. Just imagine how bad we would have gotten beaten by the national teams.
     The sport is played in a gym, with long nets and three players trying to stop a jingling ball while being essentially blindfolded.
     When the World Goalball Games came back a few years later, we knew enough to give (what we thought to be) great coverage of the sport. We became small-level experts on the sport and knew the top players by name and what their strengths were.
     I don’t think we could field a team that would win a goalball match, but we’d at least know the rules.
     And I think we let the community know that even though they were blind athletes, they were still high-caliber athletes.

     My mom asked me on Friday why I wasn’t writing the story of Robby Chapman’s sudden death at 43.
     Some stories are just too tough to write.
     To me, Chapman wasn’t just a local businessman and former Clemson offensive lineman.
     To me, he was “Bubba,” my larger-than-life cousin who talked sports and always wore a big grin.
     He was never a cornerstone to any offensive line for the Tigers, but, more importantly, he was a cornerstone in our community and church.
     As much as his death shocked his former teammates, it rocked the close-knit community of Cannons Campground. That showed as the church overflowed into the gymnasium for his funeral on Sunday.
     At 6-foot-7, Robby was a tree of a man. His death shook our family to its roots.
     I won’t remember Robby as the Shrine Bowl offensive lineman from Broome. Instead, I’ll remember him as the gregarious father of two who had the personality to match his size.
     Open Mic Daily co-host Matt Smith called me on Friday to talk about Robby’s death and the first memory he had was of a recent meal we shared with Robby at the Spartanburg Touchdown Club.
     We sat in the back, cracked jokes as the guest speaker talked and hoped that we wouldn’t get called down by club president Art Peddigrew for giggling too loudly.
     He could talk politics or any other topic as easily as football. He wasn’t a dumb jock. He was the complete opposite.
     I remember last year when he showed up at Shrine Bowl practice and talked to everyone who walked near him. From out-of-state TV anchors to the son of a former teammate, Robby had something to say to everyone.
     Instead of watch from the sideline, he could have just as easily walked onto the field and threw around one of the defensive linemen.
     Robby was buried on Sunday, as the afternoon faded into evening. It was cold and windy – perfect football weather. There were enough former linemen there to start a backyard game that disallowed passing.
     The cap over his coffin looked like the front of a locker and had a larger Clemson Tiger paw on it.
     Even in death, Robby’s true colors shown through. He bled orange.
     Through the years, I can’t remember when Robby actually called me by name.
     He’d walk toward me, yell “Hey Cous” and either wrap my hand in one of his mammoth paws or slap me on the back.
     “Hey Cous, what do you know?” he’d ask.
     Well, Bubba, I know that Clemson just lost an outstanding fan.
     And the Cannons Campground community lost one of its best men.



If you'd like to comment on this blog, please send it to jason.gilmer@shj.com.

Yes, that dapper-looking fella is none other than Open Mic Daily co-host Matt Smith on my TV. (photo by Jason Gilmer)

    Tuesday evening I’m fixing dinner and have ESPN News on in the background.
     Peter Gammons is talking about the baseball playoffs.
     He’s great on TV. A former newspaper guy turned TV analyst.
     He’s in the Hall of Fame for what he’s done for baseball.
     Then, all of sudden, there’s another portion of the program on.
     “And from ESPN 1400 in Spartansburg.”
     Did he just say Spartansburg? Yeah, sure, I know the USC Upstate teams are the Spartans, but I thought the school changed its name, not the city.
     I walk over to watch and there’s ESPN 1400 Open Mic Daily host Matt Smith.
     Yes, my buddy Smitty is on the TV.
     And this isn’t someone I want to see in HD.
     Smitty was on ESPN’s Pregame Aircheck Tuesday evening around 6:30 p.m. He and two other hosts from ESPN affiliates come on to discuss the top topics of the day.
     Smitty was there to talk about Tommy Bowden’s departure from Clemson.
     “It’s Day 2 of the Tommy Bowden-Clemson coaching change,” Smitty said when given the chance to talk. “And we have to put Tommy Bowden’s resignation in quotes because it’s a lot like David Hasselhoff’s last album, no one who speaks English is buying it. He was forced out.”
     The last four words were said over some guffaws from the show’s host and the guests in the other two panels (one from Cleveland and one from Dallas).
     For those watching, something obvious was seen – Smitty outdressed everyone else on the screen. He looked better than Gammons did.
     No surprise there.
     Smitty likes his nice clothes like I enjoy a good pizza. Or a bad pizza for that matter.
     The host later guided the guests through some questions about Adam (Don’t Call me Pac-Man) Jones.
     Smitty said he understood the problems that a guy like Jones has, seeing as how Smitty also travels with an entourage. Sorry, dude, but Hauser doesn’t count as an entourage.
     “Matt is making a bid to become a regular on Aircheck,” the host said after Smitty’s zinger about Hasselhoff.
     That’s what we all need – Smitty on the TV more. We talked afterward and he told me that after being on TV, he’s too big to take my calls anymore.
     Still, Smitty’s few minutes on ESPN News were solid. I hope he gets to go back, because his humor fit in perfectly.
     Just make sure they get our city’s name right the next time, OK?

Dara Torres swims in the women's 100-freestyle preliminaries at the US Olympic swimming trials in Omaha, Neb., on Thursday, July 3. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

     In 2005, Dara Torres made a stop in Duncan, at the Middle Tyger YMCA to talk with young kids about swimming.
     She was trying to get athletes to work toward being an Olympian.
     Maybe, she was just angling for some new teammates.
     When I heard the news that Torres made the Olympics the other day, her name struck a chord to me.
     When announcers said she was 41 years old, I really remembered her.
     I covered the event the day she was in town. She showed off her Olympic medals to the kids. She let them hold them.
     Here was someone nicknamed “Grandma” by the younger swimmers on the Olympic team.
     She talked about her glory in the Olympics.
     Then someone asked the question everyone wanted to know – would she try to make another Olympic team.
     "Maybe," Torres said after giggling and smiling broadly at the question. "I don't know. I'll be 41 by that time and be like a great, great grandma. I have been looking at the times of the swimmers and the 50-meter freestyle time is only a second slower than I swam. I get motivated when I see that."
     So motivated that she went out and won the 100-meter freestyle event in the USA qualifier on Friday, with a time of 53.78 (0.02 seconds off her best time) and then broke her own American record in the 50-meter freestyle (24.25) on Sunday. She’s also a part of the 4X100 relay team.
     Her time of 53.78 in the 100m was 0.06 faster than her gold medal time in the 2000 Olympics.
     A comment from Torres that I now found a little laughable from that July morning a few years ago: "I could do it for years if my body could handle it, but it can't," she said. "I so miss the competition."
     She must have learned something about her body in the few years since she stopped in town to talk with young swimmers.

Torres talks to young swimmers at the Middle Tyger YMCA in 2005. (Photo by Alex Hicks)

 

Kevin Pucetas throws during the California-Carolina League All-Star Game at BB&T Coastal Field in Myrtle Beach on Tuesday night. (photo by Tom Priddy)

    Kevin Pucetas took a brief second to see a star.
     Vanna White, the letter-turner for Wheel of Fortune, was the biggest celeb in attendance at the California-Carolina League All-Star Game in Myrtle Beach on Tuesday.
     Yes, a bigger star than former Heisman winner Eddie George, who was also there.
     White cruised past the players who were loosening up in the left field grass in a 1968 Pontiac GTO convertible.
     Pucetas – and many others – stopped to watch her go by.
     White, who grew up in North Myrtle Beach, also threw out one of many ceremonial first pitches.
     She bounced it in.
     She didn’t get a “K.”
     … Pucetas threw one scoreless inning – the sixth – during the game and walked into the dugout after working up a sweat. He only threw 14 pitches, but that didn’t matter.
     “Welcome home,” he said after he walked back into the dugout and went straight to the water cooler.
     “Fourteen pitches and I’m soaking wet.”
     South Carolina heat is a bit different from California heat.
     … Journey’s “Wheel in the Sky” was played before the game. Apparently, they aren’t just an arena rock band anymore. They’re also “stadium rock.”
     … Getting to this game was a big deal for Pucetas, because it is likely the only chance he has to throw in front of his family.
     He also let his teammates from the San Jose (Calif.) Giants know about how nice it is on the East Coast.
     “It’s all he’s talked about, ‘hey, we’re going to a little slice of heaven,’” his manager, Steve Decker, said.
     It didn’t take long for the former major league catcher to figure out why.
     Pucetas took him to Bojangles to have a BoBerry biscuit.
     “I had one of those and I understand why he wanted to come back,” Decker said.
     … Going to a minor league baseball game with photographer Tom Priddy is like going to a rock concert with photographer Annie Leibovitz.
     Everyone knows him.
     Maybe not by face, but by name.
     And for good reason. His work has been on many Baseball America covers and on www.milb.com quite often.
     I had a photo celebrity riding around with me and I didn’t know it. This time, I made sure he didn’t get hit with a ball (sorry again about that!)
     … San Jose catcher Pablo Sandova made it to the finals of the home run derby after hitting four in the first round.
     He got five outs in his second at-bat. With one out to go, and just two balls out of the park, he decided to switch bats.
     “That’s Sammy Sosa’s bat,” yelled a fan in regard to a corked bat the slugger once used.
     I’m sure it wasn’t because it didn’t help Sandova. He didn’t launch a long ball with the new bat.
     … A beer girl came behind the visiting dugout and asked if anyone needed seconds yet.
     One of the California all-stars made a request.
     “What are you doing? You’re underage. You trying to get us all fired?” a coach yelled.
     … For the second time this year, I’ve gone to the beach without playing at the ocean.
     No getting my feet wet, no sand in my crack and no paperback by the water.
     Instead, I get to watch baseball.
     Nevermind. I take back my complaint.
     … The trip to the beach wasn’t void of adventure and intrigue.
     In my new car (i.e. my wife’s old car), I’m not too sure of the number of miles I get on a tank of gas.
     As I hopped on the new bypass around Conway, I knew I was getting low. The gas light quickly came on.
     For 19 miles, we drove without seeing a gas station.      Exits passed with no luck. Ten miles went without an exit.
     “I think we should get off at the next exit and hunt a gas station,” I told Tom.
     He agreed.
     Finally, an exit came up. We jumped at the chance to find some gas.
     We entered the Shell community. I mean, come on, there has to be a Shell station somewhere here.
     About 1.5 miles off the exit, we found one. It was a Shell station.
     The Astro van beside me made bets as to whether the cost of the gas would be more than his golf score for the day. If he shot higher than 100, he was wrong.
     “Give them $100 and tell them to keep the change,” his passenger said.
     I’ve never been happier to pay $57 for gas. Just having gas in the tank made us smile.


Former Broome and Limestone pitcher Kevin Pucetas is congratulated after throwing a scoreless inning. (photo by Tom Priddy)