B League Picayune
Often in error, never in doubt.
Volume 6, Issue 60 – November 11, 2024
Correction: Anthony Galindo points out that it was Peter Sundquist, not Anthony, who caught David Kruse’s drive to end this past Thursday’s Purple-Gray game. (In my defense, I only saw this with my own eyes.) (George Romo, here’s your opening.)
Colonel Rick Jensen, US Air Force (retired), provides “a very short lecture from an old veteran”:
Veterans Day is for honoring those who chose to or were dragged into the work of defending our country.
Veterans, singly or as a group, do not equal your Country
Your Country does not equal its flag
Its flag does not equal your politics
Hence, there is nothing political about Veterans Day
You wanna honor the veterans among us, that’s nice. Honor us by not arguing over this.
Here’s our own Mike Mordecai performing The Star Spangled Banner prior to the first game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zw5BLwvcDc
Games of Monday November 11:
10:30 a.m., Green (8-8) at Orange (7.5 – 8.5):
1 2 3 4 5 BUFFET FINAL
Green 5 5 4 0 0 X 14
Orange 2 0 2 0 1 0 5
Pitchers: Green – David Pittard (innings 1-4) and Tom Kelm (5 and buffet); Orange – Spike Davidson. Mercenaries: Green – George Brindley, Tom Kelm (entered for David Pittard in the fifth inning; David turned his ankle and left the game as a precautionary measure), and Scott Wright; Orange – Tim Bruton, Hal Darman, and Jack Spellman. Umpires: home – Marvin Krabbenhoft and Joe Roche; bases – Tommy Gillis and Marvin Krabbenhoft. Perfect at the plate: Green – Mike Hill and Trey Wall (both 3 for 3; not sure whether they got any extra-base hits, there was no scoresheet for Green); Orange – Peter Atkins (3 for 3).
Weather: 78 degrees (heat index also 78) with 47% humidity. Wind from the north at 2 MPH. Lots of sun, no clouds.
Green manager Jeff Broussard credited his team’s hot offensive start today – five runs in each of the first two innings, making no outs in the first, two in the second – to Mike Mordecai’s inspirational trombone performance. Eddie Ortiz started a 5-4-3 double play for Orange in the top of the third, and that frame ended with Scott Wright thrown out 8-6-2 (Matt Levitt to Tim Bruton to Hal Darman) trying to score the fifth run. Green didn’t score again after that, but had more than enough lead to flip-flop for the buffet. Orange turned another double play in the top of the fourth, 4-6-3, Tim Bruton on the pivot.
Doc Hobar (3 for 3, two runs scored) and Peter Atkins (3 for 4, two runs scored) did their job at the top of Orange’s lineup, with number-three hitter Eddie Ortiz scoring the team’s only other run of the day. Aside from Doc and Peter, Orange went 8 for 21 (.381 average), all singles. Larry Shupe did draw two walks. Orange’s three mercenaries each went 1 for 3, not really helping out much.
As he does, Green shortstop Ralph Villela made a number of fine defensive plays: he ranged back and to his right to run down Matt Levitt’s pop to short left field in the bottom of the first, Doc Hobar (running for Spike Davidson) barely making it back to second before Ralph’s throw; he leaped and knocked down Jack Spellman’s liner up the middle in the bottom of the second and made a quick throw to second for a force on what I thought off the bat was a sure hit; and he very nearly made a leaping grab of Peter Atkins’ line single to left-center in the bottom of the fifth. Mercenary third baseman Scott Wright also made four good plays, starting an around-the-horn double play to end the bottom of the third, and picking three grounders and making strong throws for outs in the fourth and fifth.
David Pittard pitched the first four innings for Green, but took himself out of the game after turning his ankle. Joe Roche warmed up, ready to take over, but Tom Kelm wound up throwing the final two innings, holding Orange to a single run in the fifth, nothing in the buffet. Final score: Green 14, Orange 5
11:30 a.m.: Maroon (10-7) at Gray (5-11):
1 2 3 4 5 BUFFET FINAL
Maroon 5 4 1 2 5 X 17
Gray 1 0 0 3 0 0 4
Pitchers: Maroon – Chunky Wright; Gray – Jack Kelly. Mercenary: Maroon – Steve Sandall. Umpires: home – Spike Davidson; bases – Eddie Ortiz. Perfect at the plate: Maroon – Joe Dayoc (3 for 3), Jimmy Sneed (3 for 3 with a double), and Jack Spellman and Scott Wright (both 4 for 4). Home run: David Kruse (inside the park) (8).
With Terry Watts (Phoenix) and Dave Berra (St. Louis) both out of town today, I didn’t have scoresheets for Green in the 10:30 game and Gray in this one, limiting how well I can recap what they did. (Wicked sorry, Clementine.) This game was similar to the 10:30 contest, with the visiting team building a big early lead. Maroon scored five runs on seven consecutive singles without making an out in the top of the first inning, then added four runs on five more singles in the second. Meanwhile Gray scored just a single run over the first three innings, on David Kruse’s inside-the-park home run on a drive over right-center fielder Buddy Gaswint’s head in the bottom of the first. (From my angle, at third base, I initially thought Buddy might have made a fantastic catch on the ball, and I think he got a bit of glove on it, but it fell in and David was off to the races. It was his league-leading eighth home run of the season.
Alvin Gauna is on the mend and stopped by Krieg to take in the action and present David Kruse (and Kayla) with a Pluckers coupon following David’s first-inning inside-the-park home run for Gray.
Chunky Wright pitched a terrific game for Maroon, allowing only a handful of balls out of the infield. Jimmy Sneed made an excellent catch in short left field of Johnny Lee’s short fly in the first inning. Chunky retired the side in order in the second on a pop to second baseman Scott Wright and two two-strike fouls, then recorded another 1-2-3 inning in the third, getting the first batter on yet another two-strike foul and the next two on ground outs.
Jimmy Sneed made his last B League game of the season for Maroon count, going 3 for 3 with an RBI single in the first, a lead-off single in the third (in which he scored Maroon’s one run of the innings), and an RBI double that capped Maroon’s three-run outburst in the top of the fourth.
Gray broke through for three runs in the home half, but wound up leaving two runners on base. Maroon put the game out of reach with five runs on seven singles in the top of the fifth. Gray didn’t score in the bottom of the inning, and the teams flip-flopped for the buffet. Gray didn’t score in that inning either. In one of those last two innings, Tommy Gillis hit a soft grounder down the third-base side and beat it out for a single, but was hit in the back of his left shoulder by Jack Spellman’s errant throw. (Fortunately, I don’t throw hard enough to actually hurt anyone. But still: sorry, Tommy.) Final score: Maroon 17, Gray 4
12:30 p.m.: Purple (7-9) at Blue (12-4):
1 2 3 4 BUFFET FINAL
Purple 0 0 3 2 0 5
Blue 5 5 0 4 X 14
Pitchers: Purple – Jeff Stone; Blue – Joe Bernal. Mercenaries: Purple – Anthony Galindo, Tommy Gillis, Chris Waddell, and Morgan Witthoft; Blue – Eddie Ortiz and Jimmy Sneed. Umpires: home – Jack Kelly; bases – David Brown, Jack Spellman, and Scott Wright. Perfect at the plate: Purple – Anthony Galindo (2 for 2 with a walk); Blue – Joe Bernal and Pat Scott (both 3 for 3), Tony Garcia (2 for 2 with a walk), Eddie Ortiz (1 for 1 with a walk), and Steve Sandall (3 for 3 with a double).
Weather report: 84 degrees, 44% humidity, sunny and clear.
Blue led this one by ten runs before Purple was able to get on the board, scoring five times while making one out in each of its first at bats, on six singles and George Brindley’s double in the top of the first, on four singles, Eddie Ortiz’s walk, and rally-capping back-to-back doubles by Steve Sandall and Jeff Fisher in the second.
Joe Bernal held Purple scoreless in the first, working around Clint Fletcher’s lead-off single, and second. Tom Kelm and Anthony Galindo both singled down the third-base side in that frame; Joe then got Chris Waddell to ground a ball that Jimmy Sneed was able to handle, Joe himself covering second to take Jimmy’s throw for the force there.
Purple broke through in the third, as the first four batters hit safely (three singles by Morgan Witthoft and Clint Fletcher, Daniel Carvajal’s RBI double, and a run-scoring single by Jeff Stone), two runs scoring. Joe Bernal then retired Mike Velaney on a fly to Steve Sandall in left field and got Jim Foelker to hit a two-strike foul tip, but Purple got a third run on Tom Kelm’s infield single down the third-base side.
Jeff Stone retired Blue in order in the bottom of the third, getting Richard Battle and Jimmy Sneed to fly out, and catching Jerry Mylius looking at a called strike three.
Purple was able to cut their deficit to five runs by scoring twice in the top of the fourth. Anthony Galindo walked and Chris Waddell singled to start the inning, and both advanced on Morgan Witthoft’s fly to deep left field. Clint Fletcher hit a sharp grounder down the left side; third baseman Jimmy Sneed looked Anthony back to third, then threw to first, where Eddie Ortiz made an outstanding play to scoop the short-hopped throw for the second out, the runners holding. Daniel Carvajal got them both home, however, with a clean single to left-center.
That temporarily cut Blue’s lead to 10-5. Blue scored four runs on five singles, two walks, and George Brindley’s sacrifice fly, and though they left the bases loaded, they took a nine-run lead to the buffet.
Mike Velaney and Jim Foelker both singled to third base, Mike on a grounder, Jim on a pop behind the bag. Tom Kelm grounded to shortstop, Tony Garcia throwing to Jimmy Sneed to force out the lead runner. (Anthony Volpe could take a lesson.) Tommy Gillis flied out to left field, Steve Sandall coming in to make a nice basket catch on the ball. Anthony Galindo singled up the middle, completing a perfect day at the plate; Jim possibly could have scored on the hit, but down by nine made the good decision to not chance it, leaving the bases loaded for Chris Waddell. Joe Bernal got Chris to pop out to shortstop Tony Garcia for the final out. Final score: Blue 14, Purple 5
Standings – Session Four:
Games Runs Runs Run W/L
W L Win %: behind: for: allowed: differential: streak:
Blue 13 4 .765 — 219 163 +56 W1
Maroon 11 7 .611 2.5 222 198 +24 W2
Green 9 8 .529 4 209 201 + 8 W3
Red 7.5 9.5 .441 5.5 218 226 – 8 L2
Orange 7.5 9.5 .441 5.5 193 207 -14 L1
Purple 7 10 .412 6 184 200 -16 L1
Gray 5 12 .294 8 187 237 -50 L4
Home Visitor Walk-off Extra-inning Flip-flop 1-run games
W-L: W-L: Wins: W-L: W-L: W-L:
Blue 9-0 4-4 2 1-0 5-0 3-0
Maroon 6-3 5-4 4 0-0 4-2 4-3
Green 4-4 5-4 2 0-0 3-4 2-3
Red 2.5-6.5 5-3 1 1-1 3-4 2-3
Orange 4-4 3.5-5.5 1 0-1 2-5 2-2
Purple 3-5 4-5 0 0-0 2-4 0-0
Gray 4-5 1-7 1 0-0 2-2 2-4
Orange and Red tied their game of October 24.
2024 total victories (read across) and losses (read down):
Blue Gray Green Maroon Orange Purple Red TOTAL
Blue X 4 3 6 6 5 5 29
Gray 5 X 4 4 5 0 5 23
Green 4 3 X 5 4 7 5 28
Maroon 2 5 5 X 6 2 5 25
Orange 1 4 4 3 X 5 3.5 20.5
Purple 4 5 3 6 4 X 3 25
Red 5 4 4 2 5.5 4 X 24.5
_________________________________________________________________
TOTAL: 21 25 23 26 30.5 23 26.5 175
Season home run leaders:
David Kruse – 8
Tim Coles – 6
Ken Brown – 4
Peter Atkins – 3
Gregory Bied – 3
Tim Bruton – 3
Larry Fiorentino – 3
Paul Rubin – 3
Pat Scott – 3
George Brindley – 2
Clint Fletcher – 2
Doc Hobar – 2
Gary Kubenka – 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 Thursday November 14:
10:30 a.m.: Orange (7.5 – 9.5) at Blue (13-4), Purple umpiring
11:30 a.m.: Purple (7-10) at Red (7.5 – 9.5), Blue umpiring
12:30 a.m.: Green (9-8) at Gray (5-12), Red umpiring
Maroon has the bye, with priority for its players out of the bucket.
Preview: Final day of the regular season! I’m already missing the doughnuts, breakfast tacos, and other treats so generously brought in every Monday and Thursday. The first three places in the Session Four standings (see above) and the first two seeds of the end-of-season tourney (Green and Blue) are set and cannot be changed by Thursday’s results. Blue is 9-0 as the home team this session, and is home versus Orange at 10:30 – we’ll see if they can make it 10-0. The big game, though, will be at 11:30, with Purple taking on Red. The winner finishes fourth for the session and also clinches the third seed in the EOY tourney, which will make them the home team for the first game – so, something to play for. Will last-minute injuries and absences impact the tourney? One thing is certain: Only time will tell.
Keggy’s Korner:
Received this nice note from Annie Malay:
Hi,
I just wanted to send a shout out to everyone for helping our grandson celebrate his 3rd birthday yesterday [Thursday November 7]. He will turn 3 on Saturday [November 9] and Mike Malay took a small cookie cake to celebrate and he came home so excited to be able to share his birthday with “his guys”… TBone says thank you so much.
Many thanks,
The Malays
Mike & Annie