Columns

By: John Curtis White The MLB season has been off to a very exciting start such as the Braves bouncing back after a tough 2025 season, the Rays coming out to be one of the best teams after 2 under .500 seasons, and the White Sox being above .500. However some players are off to a great start. Here are the 2026 MLB all stars based on how players have performed so far in the 2026 season. First, I would like to list some people who I believe have made a really good argument for the all star spot but are just off the list. First, Arron Judge I believe deserves a...

While the old nine-hole Pineville golf course was the first one I ever played as a high schooler in the 1980s, the first 18-hole course I ever played was General Burnside Island Golf Course in General Burnside State Park. Burnside was the third golf course I ever played behind the old Pineville golf course and Indian Springs Country Club in Knox County, which is a nine-hole course still in use today. Compared to Pineville or Indian Springs, I remember Burnside seemed huge when I first played it. The then 14-year-old or so me found having 18 different holes on a course cool to play. This was the first course I had ever...

By: John Curtis White This season the MLB has had some divisions where 1st place is basically guaranteed to win the division. Also, there are some where it is more contested. Here are the MLB divisions that are over in my opinion. First, the NL East. Here are some reasons that I believe that the NL East is over. Right now, the Braves have a 9.5 game lead on the Phillies who are in 2nd place. Even though the Phillies are getting hot going 7-3 in their last 10 games, the Braves have gone 8-2 in their last 10 games. Another reason that I believe the division is over right now...

I can still remember the first golf course I ever played. I was either in eighth grade or a freshman in high school when I first took up playing golf. My dad started playing golf about one year prior to this. I would see him out in the yard practicing and then I started practicing myself. The first course I ever played was this little public course in Pineville. I don’t remember if it was part of the state park system at the time. It was this pretty short fun little course. Almost everyone walked this course because it was a short distance. I think the longest hole on the course was hole number...

My dad, Mike White, finally got one of his Christmas presents earlier this month. For Christmas, I had gotten us two tickets to see “Elvis! The Concert of Kings,” show at Renfro Valley. The show features three different Elvis impersonators representing his early days, the era of the famous 1968 Elvis comeback special, and the era of Elvis’ Las Vegas residency years. If you liked Elvis, or his music, then this was a pretty good concert to see. I only wish our cousin, Terry Profitt, was still with us. He died approximately five years ago. Terry was a huge Elvis fan. It did not matter if it was the music, Elvis’ movies or...

By John Curtis White The 2026 MLB season has just begun, and a lot of teams have different goals. Teams would probably like to win 80 games, make the playoffs or even stay above .500. The main goal for all of these teams is the same - to win the World Series. In my opinion, these are the top 5 teams so far in the 2026 MLB season. First, The Atlanta Braves have surprised a lot of people this year after a tough 2025 season where the team went 76-86 and struggled a lot with keeping players healthy; however, this year the Braves, at this time, are the best team in...

One of the things I did not realize would become one of my favorite parts of being a reporter is the relationships I have made in the community. I would consider myself a mix of an extrovert and introvert. It honestly just depends on the day and how I am feeling. Sometimes I am full of energy and want to socialize with everyone around me, but once I hit my limit, I crash out. Other times, I enjoy just being quiet and listening to the conversations happening around me. As a reporter, relationships matter. Depending on the story you are covering, you rely on people in the community to help...

Only once in my more than three decades as a journalist have I been asked to demonstrate my knowledge about a subject before someone would let me interview them about it. It happened one day in late April 2017. I was sitting in my Williamsburg office after lunch when local horse enthusiast Phillip Perkins stopped by my office. Phillip told me he had a good story to tell me about the Kentucky Derby, but first I had to demonstrate to him I knew something about horse racing. Fortunately, I know a little something about the sport. I told Phillip I knew the first leg in the Triple Crown of horse racing was the...

When it comes to golf, I am what most people would call a hacker, or at least I used to be back when I played. There are a lot of us out there. For any non-golfers reading this column, a hacker is generally someone, who isn’t necessarily very good at golf most days but still enjoys getting out on the golf course to play. We enjoy spending time with friends or family while knocking the ball around the course on a pretty day. While we enjoy shooting the occasional good round and posting a lowish score – at least by our standards – we are not driven so much by our...

Dinosaurs are not usually part of baseball. You may have recently seen the story of Jerry, a toy triceratops that accompanies UCLA Bruins pitcher Angel Cervantes on the mound. The tiny dinosaur that fits in the pitcher’s pocket is circulating on social media as a ‘mound mascot.’ A few weeks ago, I was covering one of our local teams when during warmups, a child carried a toy dinosaur onto the field. I texted a colleague saying, “I do not remember this being a part of the game.” They responded with, “Not normally.” With two dinosaur incidents this season, I began to wonder - are the dinosaurs more prevalent than...