B League Picayune
Often in error, never in doubt.
Volume 6, Issue 13 – May 13, 2024
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Weather: Temperature was at 72 degrees with 93% humidity and cloudy skies at the start of the 10:30 game. Toward the end of the game, the skies darkened, thunder could be heard, and a light rain began. That rain strengthened as Purple and Blue prepared to take the field, and the teams agreed to call it a day, both the 11:30 and 12:30 games wisely cancelled, as the rain came down pretty hard for the next hour or so.
Game of Monday May 13:
10:30 a.m., Green (2-4) at Maroon (4-2):
1 2 3 4 5 BUFFET FINAL Green 0 2 2 0 1 8 13 Maroon 0 5 1 0 4 0 10 Pitchers: Green – Tommy Deleon; Maroon – Chunky Wright. Mercenaries: Maroon – Tim Coles (entered for Tom Brownfield in the buffet) and Ray Pilgrim. Umpires: home plate – Jeff Stone and Rick Jensen; bases – Peter Sundquist and Mike Velaney. Perfect at the plate: Green - ? Mike Hill, I think, was 3 for 3. Neither team scored in the first, both pitchers retiring the first two batters they faced – Chunky Wright got Ralph Villela and Paul Rubin both to fly out to left fielder James Chavana to start the game, and Tommy Deleon got Jack Spellman and Joe Roche both to ground out to second baseman Mike Hill to begin the bottom half. Green loaded the bases on three singles, but did not score; Anthony Galindo doubled with one out in the bottom of the inning, but was stranded. Green drew first blood with two runs in the second, Jeff Broussard driving them in with a drive to center over the outfielders – only a single, as Jeff was taking a runner from home, but two runs scored. Maroon took the lead with five runs on six singles and a double by Jack Spellman in the bottom half. Spellman's hit drove in two runs, but Ray Pilgrim was thrown out at home, 9-4-2 (Jack McDermott to Mike Hill to Jeff Broussard) trying to score the fifth run. No matter, as Joe Roche followed with a single to right field to drive in pinch-runner Alvin Gauna. Green cut the lead to 5-4 with two runs in the top of the third, Mike Hill's triple to right-center the key hit. Maroon got one back in the home half: Anthony Galindo led off with a triple to left (surprisingly close play at third base as Mike Garrison made a strong throw from the fence) and scored on Jimmy Sneed's single. Neither team scored in the fourth. Chunky Wright led off the home half with a single, but Tommy Deleon got the next three batters to hit into ground outs. Green made it a one-run game when they scored a singleton in the top of the fifth. It came on a sacrifice fly to left fielder James Chavana off the bat of … not sure, but James made an outstanding play, getting an excellent jump on the ball, charging in and catching it just above his shoelaces on a dead run. He then fired to third baseman Joe Roche, who had a chance to gun down the runner trying to score, but Joe's throw home was wide to the right of catcher Marvin Krabbenhoft and skipped past him. Paul Rubin then tried to score on the overthrow, but Marvin made a quick retrieval and underhanded toss to Chunky Wright, covering home, and got the inning-ending out on a bang-bang play, for an SF-7, 7-5-2-1 double play, just like they taught us in Little League. The first six Maroon batters hit safely to start the bottom of the fifth, and four wound up scoring: Anthony Galindo singled through the 5-6 hole; Jimmy Sneed doubled to left; James Chavana singled them both in; Tom Brownfield doubled; and Marvin Krabbenhoft got a hit to center, technically a single, would have been a double except he took a runner from home, both James and Tom scoring. Tom, however, pulled a hamstring coming into home, and barely made it ahead of the throw. He was the fourth run of the inning. Alvin Gauna followed with a single, but Tommy Deleon retired Chunky Wright on a fly to right field, then got Ray Pilgrim to ground into an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play, Ralph Villela to Mike Hill to Daniel Baladez. While Chunky batted, Jack Spellman asked Gary Coyle and Donnie Janac to draw a chip from the bucket to replace Tom Brownfield for the buffet. With Donnie holding the bucket hight, Gary drew Tim Coles's chip. Eddy Murillo called foul, and we all ignored him. Tim took over at shortstop for Maroon, with Jimmy Sneed moving to right-center. Eddy didn't like this, either, citing the non-existent rule that an injury replacement must play the position of the player he is replacing. We all ignored him some more.
Green was chasing five runs entering the buffet. They put together a tremendous rally, batting around their 11-person order, and scored eight runs. Trey Wall, Phil Stanch, and Daniel Baladez led off with singles, loading the bases. Jeff Broussard hit a two-strike foul down the right-field line for the first out, and Ralph Villela hit an infield fly for the second, but Maroon struggled to record the third. Paul Rubin singled, a hard grounder to the 3-4 hole that Jack Spellman knocked down, but couldn't make a play on, Trey scoring. Mike Hill doubled, Phil and Daniel's pinch-runner scoring to tie the game, and when the relay to the infield was boxed around, Paul scored the go-ahead run. David Pittard walked. Mike Garrison singled to left, another run scoring. Tommy Deleon's hit a hard grounder directly at Jack Spellman, and through the wickets, for a two-run single that completed the scoring.
Maroon needed three to tie in the home half. Spellman got under a pitch and popped out to Phil Stanch in right field. Joe Roche singled up the middle. Anthony Galindo, who'd completed three-quarters of a cyle in his first three at bats, got under a pitch and flied out to Jack McDermott in left-center. Singles by Jimmy Sneed and James Chavana loaded the bases. That brought up Tim Coles. Tommy Deleon threw three pitches way short of home plate; Tim took them all, then declined the walk. We all had dreams of a walk-off grand slam. Tommy put the next pitch over the plate and Tim took a big cut, but Mike Garrison made the catch in left-center, first going back to the fence and then working his way in – he actually made a two-handed snowcone catch fairly low to the ground.
Mike Garrison demonstrates the positioning of his hands on his game-ending catch of Tim Coles's drive. That was the ballgame, and, as it turned out, all of the day's action, as the rain soon followed. Final score: Green 13, Maroon 10
It’s been a minute since my last Mike Velaney-as-a-critter picture, but jokes never get old, so here we go again: here’s Mike umpiring the bases in today’s game. As always, he did stellar work.
Standings – Session Two:
Games Runs Runs Run W/L
W L Win %: behind: for: allowed: differential: streak:
Purple 4 1 .800 — 81 57 +24 W4
Red 5 2 .714 — 106 95 +11 L2
Gray 4 2 .667 .5 84 61 +23 W2
Maroon 4 3 .571 1 99 91 + 8 L1
Green 3 4 .429 2 80 91 -11 W1
Blue 2 4 .333 2.5 66 76 -10 W1
Orange 0 6 .000 4.5 62 107 -45 L6
Home Visitor Walk-off Extra-inning Flip-flop 1-run games
W-L: W-L: Wins: W-L: W-L: W-L:
Purple 2-1 2-0 0 0-0 1-1 0-0
Red 2-1 3-1 0 0-1 2-0 1-1
Gray 2-0 2-2 1 0-0 1-0 2-2
Maroon 1-3 3-0 1 0-0 1-1 1-0
Green 1-4 2-0 1 1-0 0-1 1-1
Blue 1-2 1-2 1 0-0 0-0 1-0
Orange 0-3 0-3 0 0-0 0-2 0-2
2024 total victories (read across) and losses (read down):
Blue Gray Green Maroon Orange Purple Red TOTAL
Blue X 0 1 1 1 1 1 5
Gray 2 X 1 0 2 0 1 6
Green 1 0 X 1 0 0 1 3
Maroon 0 2 2 X 1 0 1 6
Orange 0 0 1 0 X 0 1 2
Purple 1 0 2 1 2 X 0 6
Red 1 1 1 1 1 1 X 6
________________________________________________________________
TOTAL: 5 3 8 4 7 2 5 31
Season home run leaders:
Tim Coles – 5
Gregory Bied – 2
Jimmy Sneed – 2
David Brown – 1
Tim Bruton – 1
Jack Crosley – 1
Jeff Fisher – 1
Clint Fletcher – 1
David Kruse – 1
Eddie Ortiz – 1
Dave Pittard – 1
Morgan Witthoft – 1
Schedule for Thursday May 16:
10:30 a.m.: Red (5-2) at Blue (2-4), Green umpiring
11:30 a.m.: Green (3-4) at Purple (4-1), Blue umpiring
12:30 p.m.: Orange (0-6) at Maroon (4-3), Purple umpiring
Gray has the bye, with priority for its players out of the bucket.
Preview: Today’s washout means the top of the standings remain unchanged – Purple and read tied for first, Purple listed first because of winning percentage and run differential, Gray a half-game behind. Thursday, both Red (at 10:30 versus Blue) and Purple (at 11:30 versus Green) face sub-.500 teams. If both are upset, idle Gray will move into a three-way tie for first. There’s a high likelihood of rain, according to my app. Will we play? Only one thing is certain: Time will tell.
Keggy’s Korner:
The Kegster’s heading out of town on vacation following Thursday’s games, so reports for games through May 28 are going to be showing up late and probably with a bit less detail.
You can catch Mike Mordecai every Monday night, 9:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m., at the Elephant Room: https://elephantroom.com/calendar