Sports on vacation

WELCOME, N.C. -- While Mrs. Last Honest and I were on vacation in the Carolinas last week, I was chatting with the woman behind the desk at the Richard Childress Racing Museum as she was ringing up my purchases, a Dale Earnhardt shirt and two Kevin Harvick die-casts, one of which was autographed, for $20 each ... score!

During our conversation, she mentioned there were people who complained about the $12 admission price.

This isn't the dumbest thing I've ever heard, but it was probably the dumbest thing I heard that day. If you go to the museum, among the things you will see are:

* both of RCR's Daytona 500-winning cars.

* Harvick's car that won in Atlanta three races after Earnhardt died in 2001.

* video of the end of all three of those races, as well as others.

* all of Earnhardt's special paint schemes for the Winston all-star race.

* the car Harvick won his first Busch (now Nationwide) series title with, including the tires he destroyed doing his post-race burnout.

* cars from Childress' racing career.

* other memorabilia from Childress' career.

* a representation of Earnhardt's old shop, which is where the museum is located.

And once you're done with that, you can visit the new shop around the back, where you can watch crew members work on the current cars.

All in all, it's a bargain at twice the price.

What Dale Earnhardt fan wouldn't pay $12 just to see this?

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Any guess what this is?

Yes, someone use to drive this.

It's the remnants of this, Geoff Bodine's truck crash in 2000, which he somehow survived. 

What's left of Bodine's truck is part of the "WRECKS!" display at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The whole museum provides an impressive history of NASCAR, but the temporary display from some of the sport's most-spectacular crashes, along with a video that plays along with the exhibit, is guaranteed to get your attention. It's a wonder the drivers survived all of them.

If you look carefully, you can see where Mike Harmon was sitting when this happened ...

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FORT MILL, S.C. -- Last year, Freddy Garcia was pitching in Yankee Stadium.

Last week, he was pitching in front of a crowd generously listed as 1,377 for the Norfolk Tides against a Charlotte Knights team that not only doesn't play in its home city, until BB&T Ballpark opens next year, doesn't even play in its home state.  

When plans to meet with a college friend of mine fell through, Mrs. Last Honest suggested taking the short trip across the South Carolina border to the game. It was actually a pretty depressing scene, between the tiny crowd and the home team getting blown out. In about the third inning, a bunch of people who I believe had been tailgating came and sat behind us, and while they were pretty obnoxious, they and the guy in our section who randomly yelled "baseball" in a Southern drawl that made it sound like "base-bawl" provided most of the entertainment.

But we got front-row seats behind home plate for $15, and it was neat to see Garcia pitch. At this stage of his career, he pretty much throws slop, and when it's not working, he can get pounded. (I certainly saw enough of that with the Yankees.) But when it does work, he knows what he's doing out there, and can get major league hitters out.

I'm surprised he's not a fifth starter or long reliever for some big league club, and I have a feeling he will be soon.

Don't worry, Freddy. It shouldn't be much longer now.

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CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Ever since baseball became part of my life, I have always hated rain. 

When I was a kid, rain meant I couldn't play. As an adult, rain means I can't watch. At least when I'm home, if it's raining on the game I want to watch, I can watch another one or something else. But when I'm at the ballpark, all rain does is make me mad.

So after a week of mostly perfect weather, of course it rained the night I wanted to see the Yankees' Class A Charleston RiverDogs take on the West Virginia Power. It started raining when we got the ballpark, and it rained at the 7:05 start time, and it rained, and it rained a little more. And given that the forecast for later in the night called for more rain, I wasn't feeling encouraged.

You never want to see this at the ballpark.

But then it stopped raining. The grounds crew took the tarp off, and they started playing baseball.

And Mrs. Last Honest and I never went to our seats.

During the rain delay, we, like a lot of other fans, hung out upstairs by the picnic tables where it was dry. After the game started, I went to check on our seats, but no amount of paper towels could dry them off, so we stayed where we were. The nice thing about Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park ("The Joe" for short) is that it's small enough so that sitting by the picnic tables isn't too far away.

Not a bad view, and it was dry.

The night didn't start well, but other than Charleston losing, it wound up not being too bad.