B League Picayune
Often in error, never in doubt.
Volume 8, Issue 8 – March 30, 2026
Department of Corrections:
1. Anthony Galindo checks in:
It was Tommy Gillis and not me who caught the fly balls in the buffet [of Red’s 16-5 win over Orange on Thursday March 26].
2. Mark Dolan updates:
The two double plays by Red you mention were made by Larry Fiorentino.
The Picayune regrets these and the many future errors I will make due to my inability to remember who played which position.
Games of Monday March 30 (first games of Session 2):
10:30 a.m.: Blue at Gray:
1 2 3 4 5 BUFFET FINAL Blue 5 4 0 5 5 X 19 Gray 0 1 3 1 1 2 8 Pitchers: Blue – Joe Bernal; Gray – Jack Kelly (innings 1, 4, and buffet) and Luis Sanchez (innings 2 and 3). Mercenaries: Blue – Jack McDermott; Gray – Ray Pilgrim, Jack Spellman, and Ralph Villela. Umpires: home – Rick Jensen and Joe Roche; bases – Larry Shupe and Daniel Baladez. Perfect at the plate: Blue – Joe Bernal (4 for 4 with a home run – Ohtani Award), David Brown (4 for 4 with a triple), Jack McDermott (3 for 3 with a double), and George Romo (4 for 4); Gray – Clint Fletcher (4 for 4 with a double) and Ralph Villela (3 for 3 with two doubles and a triple). Home run: Joe Bernal (inside the park) (1).
Weather report: I never checked my weather app, but it was another beautiful spring day – mix of clouds and sun, temperature rising into the low to mid 80s, not too humid, a fairly steady and stiff wind blowing the ball in and from right to left-center field.
The Blue picked up where it left off in Session One, posting three five-run innings and scoring nine times before Gray pushed across its first run, allowing Joe Bernal to cruise to a pretty easy victory. Joe helped his own cause by going 4 for 4 with a two-run inside-the-park home run in the top of the fourth inning, burning Jack Spellman in right field – Spellman’s almost as much a pretend outfielder as he is a pretend journalist, and Joe’s drive down the right-field line had me sprinting (such as that is) with my back to the plate while Joe circled the bases, as depicted pretty accurately in this picture:
Blue led pillar to post, scoring five times in the top of the first on five singles and triples by Ken Mockler and David Brown; even the one out Gray recorded in the inning was hard hit, shortstop Ralph Villela making a leaping grab of Larry Young’s liner.
Jack Kelly pitched the first inning for Gray, then swapped positions with Luis Sanchez. Blue kept hitting, scoring four runs in the top of the second on six consecutive one-out hits – Jack McDermott’s double, four singles, and a two-run triple by Ken Mockler, who also burned Spellman with a drive down the right-field line. Luis stranded the fifth run in scoring position thanks to good catches in left-center by Bobby Miller, who took away a bid for extra bases from JC Schmeil leading off by going back and to his right to haul in a JC’s liner, then made a good catch on Donnie Janac’s drive for the third out.
Joe Bernal held the top of the Gray lineup scoreless in the first, allowing a lead-off single to Clint Fletcher, then getting the next three batters to ground into force plays. Gray got on the board in the second, as Luis Sanchez and Jack Kelly singled with one out, and Luis scored on Ralph Villela’s double. Larry Young made a good play on Jack Spellman’s hard one-hop liner down the first-base side, knocking it down and beating Spellman to the bag – Larry ran to the foul-side, orange bag while I ran to the fair-side, white bag, all in the service of avoiding a collision, and I was correctly called out. Joe then retired Ray Pilgrim on a grounder to second baseman JC Schmeil.
Luis Sanchez held Blue scoreless in the bottom of the third, aided by an interference call on Phil Stanch that resulted in a 6-4-3 double play: Phil ran to the second-base bag on JC Schmeil’s grounder to shortstop, and second baseman Mike Velaney was unable to throw safely to first, resulting in the (correct) call. (Live and learn.) Jack McDermott and George Romo followed with singles, but Ralph Villela made a good catch behind shortstop of Tom Bellavia’s pop for the third out.
Gray scored three runs in the home half to win the third inning, as its first four batters hit safely – Clint Fletcher and Bobby Miller opened the frame with back-to-back doubles for the first run, and Daniel Carvajal and Jim Foelker followed with singles, Bobby coming around to score. Joe got Mike Velaney to hit into an around-the-horn double play, George Romo to JC Schmeil to Larry Young, Daniel advancing to third. Luis Sanchez doubled Daniel in with the third run. Jack Kelly grounded out to JC for the third out, and at that point Joe Bernal had recorded all nine of Gray’s outs on ground balls.
Gray was within hailing distance of Blue at this point, trailing 9-4, but Blue made short work of that, scoring five runs without making an out in the top of the fourth, on Ken Mockler’s lead-off double, Joe Bernal’s aforementioned home run, and six consecutive singles, the first of which was a liner off David Brown’s bat that winged Jack Kelly, as the prophecy, or anyway the B League Bingo Card, foretold:
| B LEAGUE BINGO 2026 | ||||
| Hit for the cycle | Mad beef re: infield fly rule | Triple play | Ken Brown scores from first on single | Walk-off grand slam |
| Jim Aaron home run for last-place team | Creative Johnny Lee nickname catches on | Batter takes a runner from home, runs past the 1B commit line | Both teams score 5 runs in each of the first 3 innings | Spellman plays 5 games (C and B) in 1 day |
| New guy pops a hammy | Double play, second out at home | David Brown makes a great defensive play up the middle | 7-inning game | 3-pitch half-inning |
| 3 Ohtani Awards in 1 day | Over-the-fence home run at Krieg 2 | Base runner hit by batted ball | Don Solberg throws out a runner trying for an extra base | Rick Jensen delivers St. Crispin’s Day speech |
| Line drive hits Jack Kelly, he brushes it off | Ralph Villela hits 2 inside-the-park home runs in 1 game | Team flip-flops opponent but loses game | Inside-the-park home run at Krieg 3 | Shutout |
Ralph Villela led off the bottom of the inning with a triple, but his was the only run Gray scored in the inning, on Clint Fletcher’s two-out single. Gray did manage to make an out on a ball in the air, Jack Spellman lining a ball that David Brown made a good jumping grab of for the first out.
Rinse and repeat in the fifth inning: Blue scored five runs on seven singles in the top half, with George Romo, Joe Bernal, and David Brown joining Jack McDermott in completing perfect days at the plate, and Joe then held gray to a single run on three singles in the bottom half, the inning ending with Jack Kelly hitting into an unassisted double play to first baseman Larry Young, who caught Jack’s liner and beat Luis Sanchez back to the bag.
With Blue leading 19-6, the teams flip-flopped for the buffet. Gray’s first four batters hit safely – Ralph Villela led off with a double, to complete a 3-for-3 game, all of his hits going for extra bases, and the next three batters singled, two runs scoring – but Joe Bernal kept the next three batters from getting the ball out of the infield, getting outs on a grounder to second baseman JC Schmeil, a pop to shortstop David Brown, and then a grounder to David.
Final score: Blue 19, Gray 8
Joe Bernal earned his third Ohtani Award of the season, presented by Punch, the adorable, internet-famous monkey who’s also a UT hoops fan.
The UT women’s basketball team and Gray team mascot Gray Wolf helped the great Mike Velaney celebrate his birthday.
11:30 a.m.: Purple at Orange:
1 2 3 4 BUFFET FINAL Purple 3 0 4 0 4 11 Orange 2 5 2 4 X 13 Pitchers: Purple – Ray Pilgrim; Orange – Tommy Deleon. Mercenary: Orange – Anthonyh Galindo. Umpires: home – George Romo; bases – David Brown. Perfect at the plate: Purple – Shane Hill (3 for 3) and Rick Kahn (3 for 3 with a home run); Orange – Peter Atkins (3 for 3 with two doubles), Anthony Galindo (2 for 2 with a double), and Don Solberg (3 for 3). Home run”: Rick Kahn (inside the park) (1).
Hard-fought game. Purple broke on top with three runs in the top of the first. Peter Sundquist and Jimmy Sneed led off the game with extra-base hits, a double and a triple, Jimmy then scoring the second run on Shane Hill’s line-drive single to right field. Shane took third on Rick Kahn’s single to right-center and scored on Ray Pilgrim’s sacrifice fly to Don Solberg in left field. Orange got two back in the home half. First baseman Joe Roche made a good play to snag Jack Spellman’s low liner leading off. Peter Atkins followed with a double. Ray Pilgrim made a really good play on Adam Reddell’s one-hopper up the middle for the second out, but the next three batters – Don Solberg, Pat Scott, and Mark Hernandez – singled, Peter and Don coming around to score.
Tommy Deleon held Purple scoreless in the second, getting Daniel Baladez to ground into a 5-4-3 double play after Larry Shupe singled with one out – nice turn by Tommy Langa on the pivot. Orange then took control, scoring five runs in the bottom of the frame on six consecutive one-out hits – five singles and Peter Atkins’ second double – and a sacrifice fly to Shane Hill in left field by Pat Scott that delivered the fifth run.
Purple tied the game with four runs in the top of the fourth, all coming after two were out. After Joe Roche drew a lead-off walk, Tommy Deleon retired Peter Sundquist on a pop to third baseman Adam Reddell and Jimmy Sneed on a fly to Don Solberg in deep left field. Mike Malay and Shane Hill followed with singles, Joe’s runner coming around to score. Rick Kahn then hammered a drive to right-center field (as I recall) that gapped the outfielders and went to the fence for an easy three-run, game-tying inside-the-park home run, Rick’s first of the season. Here it is:
Orange untied the game with two runs in the bottom half. Mark Hernandez led off with a single and Tommy Deleon followed with a walk. On Tommy Langa’s grounder to shortstop, Tommy Deleon’s pinch-runner (Peter Atkins, I think, not certain) was forced out, but the relay to first skipped past Joe Roche, and Jack Spellman, running for Mark, was able to score. Hal Darman’s liner to left field was caught by Shane Hill for the second out. Anthony Galindo followed with a double to drive in Tommy Langa. Jack Spellman then took a called strike three on a pitch that definitely reached 11 feet, 11 inches at two points in its journey to the mat.
Tommy Deleon preserved the two-run lead by throwing a scoreless top of the fourth inning, working around Patrick Schmidt’s lead-off single – Tommy got both Rick Jensen and Larry Shupe to ground into 5-4 force outs, Adam Reddell to Tommy Langa, and then induced a two-strike foul by Daniel Baladez.
Orange increased its lead to 13-7 with four runs in the bottom of the fourth. Peter Atkins led off with a base hit to right-center. When Rick Kahn bobbled the ball, Peter sped for second, looking to leg out his third straight double, but Rick’s strong, on-the-fly throw to shortstop Jimmy Sneed beat him by a step. Adam Reddell, Don Solberg (completing a 3-for-3 day), and Pat Scott followed with singles, Adam coming around to score. Mark Hernandez flied out to Peter Sundquist in deep left-center, good catch by Peter, for the second out. Tommy Deleon’s single loaded the bases for Tommy Langa, who delivered a clutch two-bases hit that drove in all three runners ahead of him.
That put Orange up by six entering the buffet. Purple put a scare into the defenders, as its first six batters singled, four runs scoring, with Shane Hill and Rick Kahn completing 3-for-3 days at the plate. That put the tying run on base with none out, but Tommy Deleon retired the next three batters to secure the win – he got Ray Pilgrim to pop out to third baseman Adam Reddell; Billy Hill to ground to Adam, who tagged third base to put out the leader runner; and Patrick Schmidt to hit a foul pop behind the plate that Hal Darman grabbed for the final out, notwithstanding having the sun in his eyes.
Final score: Orange 13, Purple 11
12:30 p.m.: Green at Red:
1 2 3 4 BUFFET FINAL Green 1 5 2 5 3 16 Red 1 1 3 3 3 11 Pitchers: Green – Rex Horvath; Red – Trent Peacock. Mercenaries: Green – Patrick Schmidt and Scott Wright. Umpires: home – Adam Reddell; bases – Dave Berra. Perfect at the plate: Green – Tom Brownfield (3 for 3 with a double) and Rex Horvath (3 for 3 – Ohtani Award (1)); Red – Mark Dolan (4 for 4), Tommy Gillis (3 for 3), and Marvin Krabbenhoft (1 for 1 with two walks). Home run: Mike Garrison (inside the park) (1).
Both teams scored in every inning; Green did so a little more.
Rex Horvath and Trent Peacock held the tops of the lineups to just one run in the first inning. Steve Sandall and Doc Hobar led off the game with singles; Trent then got Mike Garrison and Larry Fiorentino to ground out to the left side. On Mike’s grounder to third baseman Tim Coles, Steve stopped running and actually started retreating back to second, so Tim tossed to shortstop Ralph Villela, who’d gone to cover third base/back up the possible rundown, for the first out. Ralph fielded Larry’s grounder up the middle and tagged second for the force there. Tom Brownfield then lined a hit to right-center – Doc scored, and Larry tried to follow, but was thrown out 9-4-6-2 (Anthony Galindo to Mark Dolan to Ralph Villela to Marvin Krabbenhoft) for the third out.
Not so much drama in the bottom of the first: Ralph Villela and Mark Dolan singled to start the inning; after Anthony Galindo popped out to second baseman Tom Brownfield, Tim Coles skied a ball to left field – it had a lot of hang time, which allowed Mike Garrison to drift in, then drift in some more as the wind knocked the ball back toward the infield, and finally make a shoetop-high catch on which Ralph tagged up and scored to tie the game.
Green took control of the game with five runs in the top of the second on five singles, Doc Hobar’s double, and Chunky Wright’s sacrifice fly to Anthony Galindo in right-center. Rex Horvath limited Red to a single run in the bottom half, helping his own cause by starting a 1-6-3 double play after walking Johnny Lee and allowing a single past third base by Tommy Gillis. Richard Battle’s line single past second base drove in Ralph Villela, running for Johnny Lee. Marvin Krabbenhoft’s line single to center field extended the inning, but Rex got Ralph Villela to pop out to third baseman Ivan Budiselic to strand the runners.
Green scored twice in the top of the third, on Larry Fiorentino’s lead-off, pop-fly double to right field and three singles. Trent Peacock escaped without further damage thanks to good infield play. The first out came on Ivan Budiselic’s hard grounder to first base – Johnny Lee made a good play to his backhand to field the ball, then snapped a throw to second for the force there, Ralph Villela making a good, clean catch of the short-hopped toss. Following Chunky Wright’s RBI single to center field, Ralph ranged back on Scott Wright’s opposite-field pop behind shortstop – he didn’t catch the ball, but Ivan had to hold up at second in case he did, then had no chance to beat Ralph’s throw to Tim Coles at third for the force. Mark Dolan then made a good play on Patrick Schmidt’s hard grounder to his right, flipping to Ralph covering second for the inning-ending force.
Red won the inning with three runs in the home half, on five singles and Johnny Lee’s sacrifice fly to right field, caught by Scott Wright, who’d moved there after Doc Hobar had moved to catcher after straining his hamstring running the bases in the second inning.
That injury came into play in the top of the fourth inning, when Doc took a runner from home, then almost ran past the commit line on his grounder to shortstop, stopping himself just in time.
Quote of the Day: Doc Hobar: “That hurt worse than running.”
Green had two out and none on at that point, but rallied for five runs. Mike Garrison hit an inside-the-park home to left field, his first home run of the season, as seen here:
Larry Fiorentino and Tom Brownfield followed with back-to-back doubles to right field, Larry scoring. Rex Horvath (completing a perfect day at the plate, as had Tom), Ivan Budiselic, and Chunky Wright each singled, the third, fourth, and fifth runs coming across.
Red got three runs back in the home half on a lead-off walk by Marvin Krabbenhoft and three singles, the third run scoring on Tim Coles’ 4-6 force-out grounder.
Entering the buffet, Green led 13-8. Scott Wright flied out to Tommy Gillis in left-center to open the inning, but the next five batters hit safely – four singles sandwiching a double by Steve Sandall – three runs scoring. With runners on first and second, one out, and Green up by eight runs, the teams flip-flopped.
Tommy Gillis led off the bottom half with a single, completing a 3-for-3 game, but was erased on a 6u., 6-3 double play turned by shortstop Larry Fiorentino on Rip Wright’s grounder up the middle. Down to its last out, Red did manage to get the tying run to the plate. Richard Battle singled to left field, Marvin Krabbenhoft walked, and Ralph Villela singled to right-center to load the bases. Rex Horvath got a piece of Mark Dolan’s sharp grounder up the middle, but deflected it into center field, Richard scoring. Anthony Galindo lined a single to right field that drove in Marvin’s runner and Ralph, cutting Green’s lead to just three runs. Tim Coles drove a ball to right field, looking to gap Patrick Schmidt in right-center and Scott Wright in right. But Patrick got an excellent jump on the ball and wound up making the game-ending catch even though the drive was tailing away from him – he probably ran close to 30 yards to get to a ball that wound up about five yards from Scott, who wisely decided to avoid any chance of collision with a real outfielder.
Final score: Green 16, Red 11
Rex Horvath earned his first-ever Ohtani Award today, going 3 for 3 while pitching Green to victory.
2026 standings:
| Session 2 standings: | ||||||||
| Games | Runs | Runs | Runs dif- | W/L | ||||
| Wins | Losses | Win %: | behind: | for: | allowed: | ferential: | streak: | |
| Blue | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | 0 | 19 | 8 | 11 | W5 |
| Green | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | 0 | 16 | 11 | 5 | W1 |
| Orange | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | 0 | 13 | 11 | 2 | W1 |
| Maroon | 0 | 0 | #DIV/0! | 0.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | L3 |
| Purple | 0 | 1 | .000 | 1 | 11 | 13 | -2 | L1 |
| Red | 0 | 1 | .000 | 1 | 11 | 16 | -5 | L1 |
| Gray | 0 | 1 | .000 | 1 | 8 | 19 | -11 | L1 |
| Home | Visitor | Walk-off | Extra-inning | Flip-flop | 1-run games | |||
| W-L: | W-L: | wins | W-L: | W-L: | W-L: | |||
| Maroon | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | ||
| Blue | 0-0 | 1-0 | 0 | 0-0 | 1-0 | 0-0 | ||
| Red | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 0-0 | ||
| Purple | 0-0 | 0-1 | 0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | ||
| Gray | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 0-0 | ||
| Green | 0-0 | 1-0 | 0 | 0-0 | 1-0 | 0-0 | ||
| Orange | 1-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | ||
2026 total victories (read across) and losses (read down):
| Blue | Gray | Green | Maroon | Orange | Purple | Red | TOTAL | |
| Blue | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 6 | |
| Gray | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |
| Green | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| Maroon | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | |
| Orange | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 | |
| Purple | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | |
| Red | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | |
| TOTAL: | 1 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 24 |
2026 season home run leaders:
Richard Battle – 1
Joe Bernal – 1
Mark Dolan – 1
Tony Garcia – 1
Mike Garrison – 1
Rick Kahn – 1
George Romo – 1
Paul Rubin – 1
Ralph Villela – 1
Ohtanis (winning pitcher + perfect at the plate):
Joe Bernal: 3 (March 2, March 19, March 30)
Ray Pilgrim: 3 (March 5, March 23, March 26)
Rex Horvath: 1 (March 30)
Lawrence Page: 1 (March 26)
Trent Peacock: 1 (March 9)
Jeff Stone: 1 (March 2)
Schedule for Thursday April 2:
10:30 a.m.: Red (0-1) at Purple (0-1), Orange umpiring
11:30 a.m.: Orange (1-0) at Blue (1-0), Red umpiring
12:30 p.m.: Gray (0-1) at Maroon (–), Blue umpiring
Green has the bye, with (secondary) priority for its players out of the bucket.
Preview: One of Red or Purple will get on the winning track at 10:30. Orange is next up, at 11:30, to try to end Blue’s winning streak, now at five games. Maroon plays its first game of Session Two at 12:30, facing a Gray team that put up a creditable performance against a tough pitcher and team today. Will footage of the UT women hoopsters running amuck at Buc-ees after last night’s game ever show up on the internet or the socials? One thing is certain: Only time will tell.
Umpire chip status:
David Brown: 2 green chips (1 green + 2 red chips)
Rex Horvath: 1 green chip
Rick Jensen: 1 green chip
Jim McAnelly: 1 green chip
Jack McDermott: 1 green chip
Adam Reddell: 2 green chips
George Romo: 1 green chip
Jeff Stone: 3 green chips
Rip Wright: 1 green chip
Scott Wright – 1 green chip (2 red chips)
Larry Young: 1 green chip
George Brindley: 1 red chip
Ken Brown: 1 red chip
Jim Foelker: 1 red chip
Marvin Krabbenhoft: 1 red chip
Tommy Langa: 1 red chip
Jim Maloy: 1 red chip
Trent Peacock: 1 red chip
Steve Sandall: 1 red chip
Larry Shupe: 1 red chip
Peter Sundquist: 1 red chip
Mike Velaney: 1 red chip
Larry Young: 1 red chip
(1 green chip for umpiring a full game behind the plate. 1 red chip for umpiring a full game on the bases. 2 red chips = 1 green chip. 1 green chip gets a player priority out of the bucket.)
Keggy’s Korner:
This batting tee was left behind. David Brown’s got it, get in touch with him if it’s yours.
Podcast review: Michael Lewis’s Against the Rules
Against the Rules is a podcast series that has, mostly, examined fairness and the breakdown of rules in American life. It’s hosted by the author Michael Lewis, best known for Moneyball and The Blind Side and a bunch of books that make the quagmire of high finance comprehensible. Each season of the pod has gone in depth on aspects of fairness and competition: season one (2019) was about referees; season two (2021) was about coaching; season three (2022) was about experts; season five (2024-25), particularly strong, was about sports betting. Seasons four (2023) and six (2025) were companions to Lewis books – season four, Judging Sam, is a companion to Going Infinite, about crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried; and season six, The Big Short Companion, is for the 15th anniversary of the publication of The Big Short. Lewis is smart, funny, and an outstanding interviewer. Researcher and occasional co-host and co-interviewer Lidia Jean Kott is pretty funny, too. It makes for a very entertaining and informative podcast. The examination of the explosion of sports betting was the best season; the one about Bankman-Fried, who pretty well snookered Lewis (who hasn’t really come to terms with or even admitted being thoroughly taken in), the weakest, though not without merit. New England content: incidental, not much to speak of. (Lewis is from New Orleans, and there’s some good New Orleans content throughout the different seasons.) Canadian content: Likewise, not much.
Rating: 