The 20^th annual gathering for the North Carolina Baseball Museum's annual warm weather fundraiser, the Celebrity Golf Tournament, was a family reunion of sorts, with many of the guests making annual pilgrimmages to Wedgewood.

The tournament returned to its original May date after moving to August the last two years and was rewarded with a picture-perfect day. Fueled by Parker's Barbecue sandwiches, wings and sweet tea over crushed ice, 30 teams hit the course for a day of fun and fellowship. Like a family reunion, there were some who didn't make it this year and others who were back after missing a year or two. And there were new faces, first-time attendees who may have heard it from a friend that the Celebrity Golf Tournament in Wilson was a good time for a good cause.

Nearly everyone there was an ex-ball player, either baseball or football or basketball – or all three – and more than half of them were coaches because there's no such thing as ex-coaches. If you don't believe me, spend some time talking to Henry Trevathan and George Whitfield. You won't find two coaches with more games (“and practices!” adds Trevathan) under their belts than these two – and I do not use this term lightly – legends. Trevathan and Whitfield, with more than 175 years of living and over 125 coaching between them, did not participate in the golf tournament, but instead sat on the edge of the porch and watched the golf carts roll off one-by-one.

With a handful of his former players from the Fike High state 4-A championship football teams from the late 1960s present Wednesday, Trevathan seemed to like my suggestion that he hold an afternoon workout session just off the putting green.

SWINGIN' A'S RELIVED

All jokes aside, the Celebrity Golf Tournament is always a great chance to hear some stories I would probably not hear anywhere else. John Donaldson, a Charlotte native who played parts of six seasons in the major leagues, has been coming to Hot Stove banquets and Celebrity Golf Tournaments for years. Since I was wearing my Oakland Athletics T-shirt and he was wearing his A's hat, having played for the franchise all but one season of his MLB career, I asked him a bit about his time in the Green and Gold.

Donaldson was a left-handed-hitting second baseman who broke into the big leagues in 1966 with the Athletics – the Kansas City Athletics. He played two seasons in KC before moving with the team to Oakland before the 1968 season.

Ted Brzeczek, museum board member and noted memorabilia collector, pointed out that Donaldson had the distinction of getting the first base hit in Oakland A's history and was on the field when Ahoskie native Jim “Catfish” Hunter pitched a perfect game at the Oakland Coliseum on May 8, 1968.

Donaldson, a career .238 hitter, ended up playing three stints for the Oakland A's. After just 12 games in the 1969 season, he was traded to the start-up Seattle Pilots and started 90 games. Donaldson would return to Oakland for the 1970 season but spent the next three years kicking around various minor leagues before ending his career on top as a member of the A's 1974 World Series championship team.

“They bought my contract in '74 and I went back to Oakland,” he said. “So I went back in '74 with all the guys that had just come off two world championships.”

While Donaldson was probably the closest to fellow N.C. native Hunter in the A's clubhouse, he had plenty of other friends on the team.

“I had a good relationship with Ted Kubiak and Bert Campaneris and, of course, Sal Bando,” he said. “I had a good relationship with Reggie (Jackson) and my locker was beside Rollie, Rollie Fingers. They were all great guys. They were cocky and knew that they were good.”

Donaldson also liked playing for controversial Oakland owner Charles Finley, who didn't always get along with the players.

“He treated me great,” Donaldson said. “I got married out there and he paid for the wedding, sent me on a honeymoon to Lake Tahoe. He paid for everything. He treated me great.I have nothing bad to say about Charlie Finley.”

Donaldson did allow that Finley was notorious for low-balling his players during contract negotiations.

“I had a good year in '67 and I was thinking I was going to get about a $10,000 raise but I ended up getting about a $2,000 raise because he talked me out of $10,000,” Donaldson said, shaking his head.

But the A's owner was happy to re-sign Donaldson twice.

“Finley liked me, evidently,” Donaldson said. “So I went back in '74 with all the guys that had just come off two world championships.”

ANALYZING ANALYTICS

Another guy who knows a couple of things about world championships is Dick Such. The Lee County native pitched one season in the big leagues as a member of the Washington Senators staff in 1970. But Such spent 16 seasons as the pitching coach of the Minnesota Twins including both their World Series titles in 1987 and 1991.

A long-time Hot Stove banquet attendee, Such was making his first appearance at the Celebrity Golf Tournament, which he said was to honor late Wilson County native and former Lee County High football coach Paul Gay.

“One of the incentives was Paul Gay and we lost him this past year. And so that's part of the reason,” Such said,

The other part is that he is finally retired after coaching in the minors for more than 20 years.

“You can't say no to Kent,” Such said of tournament director Kent Montgomery's request that he play in the golf tournament.

When asked what had changed about major league baseball since he was last coaching inn the big leagues, Such said the rush to rely completely on analytics is subverting the human element of baseball.

“They're losing fans because games are getting longer, they're changing pitchers every inning,” he said. “Analytically they're trying to play the game that way, instead of just letting players go out and play the game and let the human part of the game exist. Umpires, players, fans - let the human part of the game be like it's always been.”

Pitching, as an art, is being reduced a math equation.

“That's what they're developing or trying to do in the minor leagues,” he said. “They're not developing pitchers, they're developing throwers that can throw the ball an excessive amount of speed.”

And don't expect that to change anytime soon, Such said.

“They're changing the personnel to work on analytics and get them involved,” he said of team front office people. “It seems like the veteran minor league player or major league player is getting pushed aside by these analytics people.”

TIME TO STOP

Dwanya Williams-Sutton didn't need any analytics people to know when it was time to stop playing baseball. The Greenfield School product was set to begin his fifth season of professional baseball this spring and first at the Double-A level in the San Diego Padres organization.

Instead, Williams-Sutton tendered his voluntary retirement and stepped away from the sport at the age of 24.

“This spring training, I decided to retire just because I wasn't having fun any more with the game and kind of lost interest,” he said. “So I decided to come home and spend time with my family and now I'm working at Taylor Law Office.”

Williams-Sutton, who was a standout student, also revealed that he started summer school at East Carolina University on Monday. Dealing with the return to action in 2021 after COVID-19 wiped out the 2020 minor league baseball season was unexpectedly difficult, Williams-Sutton said.

“Just sitting at home for a whole year, just like not even doing any baseball activity and then just kind of getting up off the couch and then going back to playing,” he said. “Getting your body how it used to be because you're used to playing consecutive years. So I think that played a huge role in it and then just kind of everyday, same thing, minor leaguers not being paid enough. That's like the huge thing. And the lockout, as you saw, like minor leaguers, we gotta get paid more and I'm just happy to be home now and living my best life and I'm going to college now.”