Hometow n By Bill Fields

By Bil l Fiel ds The first celebrities I saw

T hey were the Budweiser Clydesda les, parading dow n Broad Street in Souther n Pines in the 1960s, and they didn’t y ield to the lef t if they didn’t want to. To a 60 -pound k id, a one-ton horse seemed as big as a brontosaur us.

My celebr it y encounters veered f rom the equine over the years, but star sightings outside the golf world — on which I’ve repor ted for four decades — have been few and far bet ween.

Sadly, Mer yl Streep never looked for ward to commuting on a train to Grand Centra l Ter mina l w ith me as she did as Molly to Rober t De Niro’s Frank in Falling in L ove. I did get a hello f rom Massachuset ts gover nor and presidentia l candidate Michael Duk ak is on a 1988 flight to Boston. Fr iendly, lots of hair, not a lot of height. In a long check-in line at L aGuardia A ir por t, Chr is Farley, in sunglasses and a hoodie, nodded in my direction when we made eye contact. On a flight to L ondon, Robin Givens, sans Mike Tyson, sat a few rows away.

It wasn’t unusua l for folk s to see Paul New man out and about in Connecticut. I wa lked past him once on a sidewa lk in Westpor t, and his eyes were as blue as you thought they were.

Cover ing a PGA Tour Champions event at Pebble Beach, I needed a few minutes f rom Ber nhard L anger for an inter v iew af ter his round, which concluded on the ninth hole a long way f rom the L odge. L anger asked me to join him in the shut tle van so we could ta lk dur ing the shor t r ide back to civ ilization. Clint E ast wood, who had played in L anger’s g roup, was in the f ront passenger seat, and seeing an interloper clamber into the vehicle didn’t make his day.

“You can take the next one,” E ast wood said to me.

“Ber nhard told me to come w ith him,” I replied.

“It’s OK, Clint,” L anger inter jected.

E ast wood still seemed peeved when we reached the clubhouse. His demeanor to a stranger was much dif ferent f rom that of another Holly wood A-lister, Jack L emmon, w ith whom I had crossed paths at a golf tour nament at Pebble Beach years earlier. L emmon was wa lk ing his standard poodle across a park ing lot and of fered a smile and a f r iendly hello.

L emmon was a fi xt ure each w inter on the Monterey Peninsula, where he tr ied in vain to make the amateur cut and play on Sunday in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro -A m, the old Bing Crosby Pro -A m. I didn’t expect to see Glenn Frey of the E agles under the big live oak at Aug usta Nationa l Golf Club on Masters Wednesday in 1997. But Frey loved golf and was there, in a white caddie jumpsuit, to loop for pa l Brad Fa xon in the Par-3 Contest. I lament hav ing not seen the E agles in concer t dur ing the band ’s heyday, but I got to meet Frey and shake his hand that day.

Two iconic fig ures in spor ts and enter tainment, John Madden and Bet t y W hite, passed away w ithin a couple of days of each other near the end of 2021. Tr ibutes focused not only on how much they accomplished dur ing their respective careers but how well they treated people throughout their long lives. I never met either icon — saw Madden dining in a Ca lifor nia restaurant once — but the coverage made me think of the time I met one of my childhood baseba ll heroes, Brook s Robinson.

Back in the late 1980s, I k new the for mer Ba ltimore Or ioles third baseman was going to be play ing in a celebr it y golf event in F lor ida that I was cover ing. Once on-site, a lot of people were pay ing at tention to the for mer New York Jets receiver Don May nard, a Texan who was teeing it up in shor ts and spiked cowboy boots. I pr ior itized finding the baseba ll Ha ll of Famer who had wor n No. 5 and won 16 Gold Glove Awards.

If R obinson had g row n tired of g row n men ask ing him to sig n a baseba ll while hear ing about how he inspired them to play the hot cor ner in Lit tle L eag ue, he sure didn’t show it. He was g racious and genuine, and as he sig ned the brand-new R awlings baseba ll I’d brought a long, I was 29 going on 12. PS South er n P in e s n at ive Bill Fi el d s, wh o w r it e s about golf an d oth er things, m o ve d n or th in 1986 b ut h a sn’t l ost his a ccent.