-- More than 30 players with South Carolina connections were drafted in this week's Major League Baseball draft.

-- No wonder college baseball is so big around here. Just look how many great high school programs we have in the Palmetto State.

-- Another sign of the times is USC-Salkehatchie reinstating baseball in my hometown of Allendale.

-- Remind me again how soccer was going to take over the world.

-- Baseball, however, has a downside. Teresa McKenzie of Isle of Palms wrote to say how disappointed she was to witness how vicious parents are toward volunteer coaches. "I must admit that the view from the cheap seats was rather ... cheap," she said.

-- I think my father saw me play one baseball game when I was a kid. Priorities were different back then.

-- Maybe we got too much of what we asked for -- parental involvement.

"Cool down Papa, don't you blow your top/ Ain't no use in diving/ What's the use in jiving/ Straighten up and fly right/ Cool down Papa, don't you blow your top." "Straighten Up And Fly Right," Nat King Cole

WHAT A VIEW

-- Ask most college students what they're going to do after graduation and they'll say something in sports management or pharmaceutical sales. Considering the current steroid problem in sports, they can now do both.

-- The U.S. Open returns to Pinehurst next week for the first time since the late Payne Stewart won the event there in 1999. To stand next to the statue of Stewart celebrating the winning putt is chilling.

-- Last weekend I played golf in the mountains with some high school buddies. The views are great, but the golf is all uphill.

-- Speaking of views. I had the opportunity recently to go to the top of the new, new Cooper River Bridge, aka the Ravenel Bridge. From the top of the towers (572-1/2 feet above the water) you can almost touch the moon.

"It's only a paper moon/ Sailing over a cardboard sea/ But it wouldn't be make believe/ If you believed in me." "It's Only A Paper Moon," Nat King Cole

PROMISES, PROMISES

-- Satellite radio is cool, but even with 247 channels you can't always get what you want. I asked them if I could get SEC football with Larry Munson calling the Georgia games. They said they had ACC, PAC-10 and Big Ten games and were working on getting the SEC. Promises. Promises.

-- My old pal Arnie Burdick, head media man for the Heritage golf tournament, says the purchase of Family Circle Magazine by Meredith Corp. will be good for our local tennis tournament. "I see this as a shot-in-the-arm for the Family Circle and therefore Charleston," he wrote.

-- Burdick should know. At 85, his memory of when the Family Circle Cup had a long run on Hilton Head Island is crystal clear.

"Unforgettable, in every way/ And forever more, that's how you'll stay/ That's why darling, it's incredible/ That someone so unforgettable/ Thinks that I am unforgettable, too." "Unforgettable," Nat King Cole

Ken Burger can be reached at kburger@postandcourier.com or 937-5598.