Sports

Meditation, a pond exploration, hiking, and historical walking tours are on the outdoors agenda in the coming weeks.

The Montauk Playhouse Community Center Foundation’s Virtual Swim Challenge to benefit the construction of an aquatics center at the Playhouse will run from Saturday through July 31.

We are getting close to August and it's clear that the fishing scene has shifted into full summer mode. The summer menu of fish includes everything from wahoo to swordfish, codfish to red hake, as well as dozens of other fish in between.

Absent from the summer's sports scene last year, triathlon competition returned to the South Fork last weekend, with one on Saturday at Long Beach in Noyac that benefited Theresa Roden's award-winning I-Tri program for teenage girls and one on Sunday with a dramatic finish at the Montauk Lighthouse.

The teams that contested the finals of the town men's slow-pitch softball league last summer met for the first time this season in Amagansett, with the Clubhouse, the 2020 runner-up, soundly defeating McMahon's, the defending champion.

Maidstone Market's 7-on-7 men's soccer team clinched the top playoff seed by virtue of playing to a 2-2 tie with the East Hampton Soccer Club at East Hampton's Herrick Park last Thursday.

"I'm not sure what I would have done if I were not a fisherman," reflected Capt. Steven Forsberg Sr. of the Viking Fleet in Montauk, the largest privately owned fishing fleet in the Northeast. "I can't see doing anything else. I think I was born with it in my blood." There's probably a good bit of salt water mixed in that blood, too. 

This week's enriching outdoor excursions include a buck moon hike, a trek to the Truman Capote marker at Crooked Pond, and an exploration of a salt marsh in Northwest.

Last week, I was mugged. Someone pulled my lobster traps, whatever lobsters they may have contained, and three dozen oysters I had placed in the traps and left the rope tangled in knots. "Some people really suck," said my companion, who helps me on deck.

Kai Alversa struck out 14 of the 17 batters he faced when East Hampton's 11-12 traveling all-star tream played Southampton in a District 36 playoff game last week. And it might just be the first time that's ever happened in a playoff game here.

East Hampton's Little League 9-and-10-year-old softball team routed Eastport-South Manor 17-5 at the Pantigo fields last Thursday evening, becoming the first Bonac softballers to win a District 36 championship since 2013.

East Hampton's 9-10 boys Little League all-star team came close to joining the 9-10 girls in the District 36 winner's circle this past week, but fell short in a championship game played at Riverhead's Stotsky Park Saturday morning.