B League Picayune
Often in error, never in doubt.
Volume 6, Issue 53 – October 17, 2024
Quick note from B League President Anthony Galindo:
Dave Jaffe is back from knee surgery and has been assigned to Maroon. Also, just a reminder that tomorrow is the last day to sign up for the luncheon. Please let Terry Thompson or your manager know if you haven’t already.
Games of Thursday October 17:
10:30 a.m., Blue (8-2) at Purple (4-6):
1 2 3 4 BUFFET FINAL Blue 3 3 5 5 X 16 Purple 1 2 1 1 0 5 Pitchers: Blue – Joe Bernal; Purple – Tom Kelm. Mercenaries: Blue – Scott Wright; Purple – Tim Bruton and Eddy Murillo. Umpires: home – Dave Berra and Spike Davidson; bases – Jim Maloy. Perfect at the plate: Blue – Dale Fugate and Jerry Mylius (both 2 for 2 with a walk) and George Romo (3 for 3 with a walk); Purple – Tim Bruton (2 for 2 with two doubles) and Tom Kelm (2 for 2). Home run: Steve Sandall (inside the park) (1).
Weather: A brisk 59 degrees (!) at the start of the game, dry and sunny.
Purple didn’t play badly, Blue played great on both sides of the ball and didn’t give Purple much chance to get in the game, decisively winning all four innings in which both teams batted. Blue scored three times in each of the first two innings, Tony Garcia’s double to right field the key hit in the top of the first, Steve Sandall’s inside-the-park homer to right field accounting for all of Blue’s runs in the second. Purple scored a single run in the first, Tim Coles’s double, a drive to center that one-hopped the fence, scoring Rick Jensen from first, and then two runs in the second, Tim Bruton doubling home the pinch-runners of Tom Kelm and Mark Hernandez after Tom singled and Mark doubled to open the inning.
Steve Sandall receives a Pluckers coupon from teammate Pat Scott following his three-run inside-the-park home run in the top of the first.
So it was 6-3 in Blue’s favor going into the third, at which point Blue went into overdrive, outscoring Purple 5-1 in both the third and fourth, the four batters at the bottom of the Blue batting order – Dale Fugate, Terry Thompson, Jerry Mylius, and mercenary Scott Wright – reaching base in each of the frames, scoring seven of the runs, and driving in five. Purple managed just a single run in response each time: in the bottom of the third, Tom Kelm’s two-out hit to center rolled most of the way to the fence, Rip Wright scoring from first on what technically was a single because Tom took a runner from home; and in the fourth Tim Bruton doubled again, with two out, and scored on Peter Sundquist’s single to left-center.
Blue led 16-5 entering the buffet, and the teams flip-flopped. Birthday boy Joe Bernal said afterward that Purple was treating him like a piñata, but it wasn’t really the case, as Joe held them to just ten hits over the first four innings, then retired the side in order in the buffet. Final score: Blue 16, Purple 5
11:30 a.m., Orange (4-6) at Green (5-5):
1 2 3 4 5 6 BUFFET FINAL Orange 3 0 1 3 5 5 1 18 Green 3 0 3 0 0 4 4 14 Pitchers: Orange – Spike Davidson; Green – David Pittard. Mercenaries: Orange – Tony Garcia, Jack Spellman, and Peter Sundquist. Umpires: home – Rick Jensen; bases – Larry Young. Perfect at the plate: Orange – Peter Sundquist (4 for 4 with a double); Green – Paul Rubin (4 for 4). Home run: Larry Fiorentino (inside the park) (3).
A well-played, hard-fought game. Both teams scored three times in the first inning. Larry Fiorentino opened the scoringwith an inside-the-park hmoerun on a drive to right field in the top of the first, and Orange added two more on three singles and Jim Maloy’s run-scoring force-out grounder. Green’s first five batters hit safely in the home half, Ralph Villela leading off with a double to center and the next four batters knocking singles, Ralph, Paul Rubin, and Mike Hill coming around to score. Green had three in, no out, and runneres on first and second, but Spike Davidson retired the next three batters on balls in the air, getting Trey Wall on an infied fly to second baseman Tony Garcia (Tony didn’t make the catch, but Trey was out, and there was no advance by the runners), Mike Garrison on a line drive to Peter Sundquist in left-center (Jack McDermott tagging up and advancing to third), and Jack Crosley on another pop to Tony, who caught this one.
Orange manager Dave Berra presents Larry Fiorentino with a Pluckers coupon following Larry’s inside-the-parker in the top of the first. Too bad there’s no Pluckers in San Marcos.
Then neither team scored in the second. David Pittard retired the first two batters in the top half, gave up a double to Peter Sundquist and a single to Fritz Hensel, then got Larry Fiorentino to ground out to second baseman Mike Hill. Spike Davidson retired the side in order in the home half.
Orange briefly took the lead in the third inning, as Peter Atkins doubled and scored on Jim Maloy’s two-out single, but Green went ahead with three runs in the bottom half. Ralph Villela led off with a single and wound up at third as Orange threw the ball around returning it to the infield. Paul Rubin grounded a single to right, driving in Ralph, and Mike Hill followed with a triple to left field, making a mockery of our batter-tendency charts. Spike Davidson got Jack McDermott to ground to second and David Pittard to pop out, Tony Garcia making both plays and Mike holding at third. Tony couldn’t make a paly on Trey Wall’s grounder, however, and it went through for a run-scoring single.
Green held a 6-4 lead through three, but Orange’s bats came to life over the next three frames, as they scored 13 of a possible 15 runs, while meanwhile Spike Davidson blanked Green in the bottom of the fourth and fifth. Orange scored three runs on four singles, Fritz Hensel’s walk, and Peter Atkins’s second double in the top of the fourth; Spike worked around Jeff Broussard’s one-out single in the home half.
In the fifth, Orange put across five runs on six singles and another double by Peter Atkins, that and the last two singles coming with two out. Tony Garcia continued to play stellar defense behind Spike Davidson, in the bottom half of the inning making a good play on Ralph Villela’s hard-hit grounder to his left and snapping a throw to first baseman Gary Kubenka that beat Ralph by a step. (How insanely fast is Ralph that he almost beat it out?) Paul Rubin followed with a single, but Tony turned the pivot on a 6-4-3 double play off the bat of Hit Man Mike Hill to end the inning.
In the sixth, Orange scored another five, on four singles and doubles by Jack Spellman and Larry Fiorentino, Larry’s driving in the fourth and fifth runs. Green’s first six batters singled in the home half, four scoring. Green had runners at the corners and none out, but wasn’t able to get the fifth run across. Daniel Baladez hit into a 6-4-3 double play for the first two outs. Jim McAnelly followed with a grounder to the 5-6 hole; shortstop Jack Spellman fielded the ball cleanly and might have been able to throw out Mike Garrison running from home for Jim, but I elected to throw home to put out Jack Crosley, whose back was to play, so he may not have realized I was throwing for him. Catcher Fritz Hensel made a good stretch and catch on the play for the third out.
Orange led 17-10 entering the buffet and went ahead and batted rather than flip-flopping one run early. Gary Kubenka singled to right-center to start the inning. Peter Atkins lost his bid for a perfect day at the plate with a force-out grounder to third baseman Trey Wall. Spike Davidson singled. Jim Maloy grounded to shortstop Ralph Villela, who threw to third for the force on the lead runner. Matt Levitt’s single loaded the bases. Jack Spellman lofted a fly to short right-center; Jack McDermott raced in for it and got a glove on it, but couldn’t hold on, the ball falling safely and Larry Fiorentino, running for Spike, scoring from third to make it 18-10.
Now the teams flip-flopped.
Ralph Villela led off the bottom of the inning with a liner to the left of second base – Jack Spellman was able to make a clean grab on the short hop, a quick transfer, and as strong and accurate a throw (aided by my trademarked grunt) as it’s possible for me to make, and still Ralph came within half a step of beating it out. Mercy. Paul Rubin, Mike Hill, and Jack McDermott followed with singles, Paul completing a 4-for-4 game, the trio loading the bases. Paul scored on David Pittard’s sacrifice fly to Larry Fiorentino in right-center. A single by Trey Wall re-loaded the bases, and Mike Garrison drew a walk to bring in Mike Hill. Jack Crosley singled to right-center, Jack and Trey both scoring, Orange’s lead down to four runs. But Spike got Jeff Broussard to pop a ball down the third-base side and Peter Atkins was able to run it down, making the catch in foul territory for the final out. Final score: Orange 18, Green 14
12:30 p.m., Gray (4-6) at Maroon (6-5):
1 2 3 4 5 BUFFET FINAL Gray 2 5 1 1 3 2 14 Maroon 5 2 0 5 0 3 15 Pitchers: Gray – Jack Kelly; Maroon – Chunky Wright. No mercenaries. Umpires: home – Jack Crosley; bases – Mike Hill. Perfect at the plate: Gray – Ivan Budiselic (2 for 2 with a walk) and Gary Coyle (4 for 4); Maroon – Anthony Galindo and Dave Jaffe (both 3 for 3), Chunky Wright (3 for 3 with a double), and Scott Wright (3 for 3 with a double and a walk). Home run: David Kruse (inside the park) (7).
Dave Berra’s weather report: 71 degrees (Heat Index 71), 30% humidity, wind from the East at 5 MPH. Blue sky, wispy white clouds – High Plains Drifter weather.
Another battle, first one in a while in which neither team employed mercenaries. Gray scored two runs on four hits in the top of the first, Tommy Gillis’s double scoring David Kruse from first, Tommy then scoring on Gary Coyle’s single. Jack Kelly retired Maroon’s second and third batters in the bottom half, after Scott Wright led off with a single, but the next seven batters hit safely and five runs came across. For the second game in a row Joe Roche smashed a multi-run-scoring triple in his first at bat, driving in the first two runs of the frame with a drive to deep right field.
In the second it was Gray that scored five times and Maroon two. Gray’s came on three singles, Mark Dolan’s walk, and an inside-the-park grand slam by David Kruse – Maroon might have had a shot at David if the outfield relay hadn’t gotten past second baseman Scott Wright. Or maybe not – David was flying.
My favorite file photo of David Kruse accepting a Pluckers coupon. His home run today, his seventh of 2024, put him atop the season’s leader board.
In the home half, Dave Jaffe, making his debut with Maroon, led off with a single and Scott Wright drew a walk. Jack Spellman grounded to second baseman Mark Dolan, who moved smoothly to his right to make the play and flip to shortstop David Kruse for the force on Scott; David’s throw to first sailed into the visitors dugout, however, allowing Dave to score and Spellman to advance to second. Spellman took third on Tom Bellavia’s fly to right-center, then scored on Anthony Galindo’s single, tying the game.
Gray went ahead with a run on three singles in the top of the third. Jack Kelly drove it in with a flare into right field, then held Maroon scoreless in the bottom half, working around Marvin Krabbenhoft’s one-out single.
Gray got another singleton in the fourth, on consecutive two-out singles by Ivan Budiselic, Ken Brown, and David Kruse. But Maroon grabbed the lead with five runs in the home half, as the first seven batters singled., four runs scoring; Buddy Gaswint came up with the bases loaded and none out and did exactly what he needed to do, lofting a fly, to left field, that was deep enough to score Tom Bellavia with the fifth run.
Gray tied the game back up with three runs in the top of the fifth. Four of the first five batters singled, everyone advancing one base at a time, one run scoring. Don Solberg came in on Mark Dolan’s sacrifice fly to Anthony Galindo in left-center, Anthony throwing to third to prevent the other runners – Johnny Lee’s pinch-runner (David Kruse, I think?) and Donnie Janac – from advancing. This proved huge, as Chris Waddell knocked a hit to left field, in front of Dave Jaffe; David (I’m going to say) scored easily, but Dave made a good, quick relay to shortstop Jack Spellman, whose one-hop throw home to catcher Marvin Krabbenhoft just beat Donnie to the line for the third out.
Jack Kelly retired Maroon in order in the bottom of the inning, so it was tied 12-12 entering the buffet. Ivan Budiselic completed a perfect day at the plate by drawing a lead-off walk, and his pinch-runner took third on Ken Brown’s single. David Kruse grounded a ball to the left of second base that Jack Spellman was able to get to, going to his knees to field the ball and making a quick flip to second baseman Alvin Gauna that beat Ken to the bag by a step; Ivan’s runner (Mark Dolan, maybe?) scored on the play, putting Gray ahead. Tommy Gillis and Gary Coyle both singled, David coming around to score. A single by Don Solberg loaded the bases, but Chunky Wright escaped the jam. First he got Jack Kelly to hit a pop to first baseman Joe Roche. Then he got Johnny Lee to hit a grounder to shortstop Jack Spellman. As the ball came my way, Gary Coyle took off for third, and I knew I couldn’t get him, so I looked to second, but Alvin Gauna had been playing Johnny Lee in the 3-4 hole and had no chance of beating Don to second. My only play was to first, and my hurried throw just beat Johnny Lee for the third out.
Maroon was chasing two to tie, three to win. Chunky Wright led off with a clean hit to center field that rolled under Tommy Gillis’s glove, Chunky chugging into second with a double, completing his perfect day at the plate. Dave Jaffe smacked a clean single to left, also completing a 3-for-3 game. Scott Wright delivered a double to center, Chunky scoring and Dave stopping at third. Jack Spellman came up, got a pitch on the outside half of the plate, and drove it on a line over first base and into right field, fair by about three feet; the ball had enough English on it that it immediately spun into foul territory and to the fence, and both Dave and Scott scored easily, Maroon walking off the victory. Final score: Maroon 15, Gray 14
Standings – Session Four:
Games Runs Runs Run W/L
W L Win %: behind: for: allowed: differential: streak:
Blue 9 2 .818 — 153 111 +42 W2
Maroon 7 5 .583 2.5 155 137 +18 W3
Green 5 6 .455 4 155 153 + 2 L2
Orange 5 6 .455 4 140 145 – 5 W1
Red 5 6 .455 4 141 159 -18 L1
Purple 4 7 .364 5 128 140 -12 L1
Gray 4 7 .364 5 135 162 -27 L3
Home Visitor Walk-off Extra-inning Flip-flop 1-run games
W-L: W-L: Wins: W-L: W-L: W-L:
Blue 6-0 3-2 1 0-0 4-0 1-0
Maroon 4-2 3-3 2 0-0 3-2 2-2
Green 2-3 3-3 1 0-0 1-3 1-2
Orange 2-3 3-3 0 0-1 2-2 1-2
Red 1-5 4-1 0 1-0 2-4 1-1
Purple 1-4 3-3 0 0-0 2-3 0-0
Gray 3-3 1-4 1 0-0 2-2 2-1
2024 total victories (read across) and losses (read down):
Blue Gray Green Maroon Orange Purple Red TOTAL
Blue X 4 3 5 5 4 4 25
Gray 4 X 4 4 5 0 5 22
Green 3 2 X 5 3 6 5 24
Maroon 2 4 4 X 6 1 4 21
Orange 1 3 4 2 X 5 3 18
Purple 4 4 3 6 3 X 2 22
Red 5 3 3 2 5 4 X 22
______________________________________________________________
TOTAL: 19 20 21 24 27 20 23 154
Season home run leaders:
David Kruse – 7
Tim Coles – 6
Ken Brown – 4
Peter Atkins – 3
Gregory Bied – 3
Tim Bruton – 3
Larry Fiorentino – 3
Pat Scott – 3
George Brindley – 2
Clint Fletcher – 2
Doc Hobar – 2
Gary Kubenka – 2
Paul Rubin – 2
Jimmy Sneed – 2
Ralph Villela – 2
David Brown – 1
Jack Crosley – 1
Jeff Fisher – 1
Anthony Galindo – 1
Buddy Gaswint – 1
Tommy Gillis – 1
Rex Horvath – 1
Rick Kahn – 1
Denny Malloy – 1
Bobby Miller – 1
Eddie Ortiz -1
David Pittard – 1
Joe Roche – 1
Steve Sandall – 1
Morgan Witthoft – 1
Schedule for Monday October 21:
10:30 a.m.: Gray (4-7) at Green (5-6), Blue umpiring
11:30 a.m.: Blue (9-2) at Orange (5-6), Green umpiring
12:30 p.m.: Red (5-6) at Purple (4-7), Orange umpiring
Maroon has the bye, with priority for its players out of the bucket.
Preview: Monday is Trafalgar Day, traditionally celebrated by lining up your ships-of-the-line and blasting cannons at your opponents. We’ll be doing the B League equivalent, though if we were to have any hope of denying Blue the Session 3 title, we’d be better off ganging up on them. As Maroon has the bye, Blue is the only above-.500 playing Monday. They’ll be facing Orange, coming off a big win against Green today, at 11:30. Will anyone be wearing a tricorn hat? One thing is certain: Only time will tell.
Keggy’s Korner:
George Brindley has been doing hurricane relief work, is why we’ve missed him. He checks in:
I drove my RV almost 1000 miles to Perry, Florida in two days. We are helping residents of Perry who were hit by Hurricane Helene and a coastal town, Steinhatchee, which took the brunt of the hurricane. That small coastal town had a 20-foot surge of water, which led to some of the houses having 4 to 8 feet of water inside. We are moving furniture out, removing sheet rock from the floor to the ceiling, scrubbing the 2×4’s and spraying shockwave on them to prevent mold. In Perry, we are basically doing lots of tree and brush removal. We usually go in with a team of 15 to 25 people and have performed work at over 25 homes.
I am with the organization, Samaritan’s Purse, that Billy Graham started.
After my 16-day trip, I should return by next Thursday the 24th.
-George
Here’s a link to Samaritan’s Purse:
https://www.samaritanspurse.org/disaster/hurricane-helene/?utm_source=Ggl&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=m_YGND-B24V&utm_content=HurricaneHelene&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw68K4BhAuEiwAylp3kqzibYD1KTst4S4S4DY_5wR9YCw3WStXoWvXJLMeqN5AYsVS2rah_BoCEioQAvD_BwE