Anyone who has played much baseball will tell you that often times the ball that is most difficult for a fielder to handle is the one that is hit straight at him. A shortstop may find it easier to make the spectacular diving play into the hole than to come up with the sinking screamer that explodes at his feet; a left fielder may have the going-away over-the-shoulder catch routine down pat, but be mesmerized by the rocket-propelled line shot headed squarely at his Adam’s apple.

It’s the same in the column-writing business. Sometimes, the ones hit straight at you are the toughest ones to field, which is to say that the column idea that would seem to be an obvious sure thing can quickly turn into something too hot to handle. That is pretty much where I find myself this morning as I ponder two recent newspaper clippings that have “can’t miss” written all over them.

The first, of course, would be Tuesday’s court story about the shotgun-wielding ATV rider who ran amok on the Streamside Golf Course out back here in Winterport last summer, and got 21/2 years in prison for his effort. Like a hanging curve ball waiting to be hit out of the ballpark was this gem in BDN reporter Walt Griffin’s account of the incident: “Some of the golfers threw rocks in [the man’s] direction and demanded that police shoot him so they could get on with their rounds of golf…”

The second story would be the road-rage item in Wednesday’s newspaper about the unlucky kid motorist who rammed a Bangor cop car from behind while giving the time-honored middle-finger salute to another driver in critique of the latter’s dubious driving skills. There but for the grace of God goes most any one of us, I dare suggest.

The reason that the story concerning the golf course caper might easily jump up and bite an unwary columnist who proceeds without caution is because the incident was partly a sad tale of serious alcohol abuse, which is never humorous, especially for the abuser’s family and friends. So I’ll tread lightly there, thank you very much.

On the other hand, a golfer’s reaction to anything that deters him from his appointed rounds is often a hoot to anyone familiar with the species. And so it is the Winterport golfers’ handling of their unplanned shotgun start that seems to me to be the memorable portion of this story, and about par for the course, too. (Have you heard the one about the golfer who accidentally hits his partner in the back of the head with his tee shot, instantly killing the poor bugger, who keels over, face down, just in front of the tee box. The coroner, inspecting the body where it lays, says that would explain the head wound. But what was he to make of the golf ball lodged in the man’s rectum? “Oh,” replied the golfer. “That was my provisional shot.”)

Perhaps it takes a golfer to appreciate a golfer. I can’t say. Still, if you didn’t guffaw at the mental picture of the Winterport golfers chucking rocks at the intruder and demanding that sharpshooters pick him off his ATV so they could get on with their game, you – along with the police officers involved in the road rage incident – probably also didn’t smile at the thought of the kid ramming a patrol car while flipping the bird to his antagonist, and I am just spinning my wheels here.

In any case, let the record show that I have been on golf courses where a guy doing wheelies on an ATV in the fairway while randomly firing off a shotgun would have been a welcome diversion from the massive thrashing around of sorry weekend hackers, fore and aft. But if my e-mail on the subject is any indication, readers connected more with the rock-throwing Streamside golfers. One up-country wag, who shall go mercifully unidentified, even sent along what he called “dawgerel for an Old Dawg,” to immortalize the event, to wit:

“He chipped the ball on to the green

To see it flattened by a rogue machine

Driven by a man with a wild-eyed stare

Brandishing a Remington pump in the air.

Do you think our guy was scared, or shook?

Not so, by the action he undertook.

He unleashed all the rocks he had saved since birth

And added some he found on the torn-up turf.

He peppered that man with rocks big and small

(Plus one special white one he’d found last fall.)

And when every last one of the rocks was tossed

He sent the club a bill for mementos he’d lost.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.