B League Picayune
Often in error, never in doubt.
Volume 8, Issue 11 – April 13, 2026
My first, last, and only opportunity to use this in a headline: StoneCoin Kaput:
President George Brindley has announcements:
We gave it a try and it just didn’t meet the objectives that we thought it would. We are canceling the Green and Red chip program. We will continue to honor those that have those chips until the end of the month.
We encourage every player to read the rules that are posted on our website, this would be especially helpful for those that volunteer to Ump.
We are going to move Daniel Baladez to the Blue Team and Phil Stanch to the Purple team effective this Monday.
Games of Monday April 13:
10:30 a.m.: Green (2-1) at Blue (2-0):
1 2 3 4 BUFFET FINAL Green 0 1 4 5 0 10 Blue 2 4 1 4 X 11 Pitchers: Green – Rex Horvath; Blue – Joe Bernal. Mercenary: Blue – Phil Stanch. Umpires: home – Scott Wright and Marvin Krabbenhoft; bases – Marvin Krabbenhoft and Trent Peacock. Perfect at the plate: Green – Mike Garrison (3 for 3 with a double and a home run); Blue – David Brown (2 for 2 with a double), Ken Mockler (2 for 2 with a walk), and Phil Stanch (2 for 2). Home run: Mike Garrison (inside the park) (2).
Weather report: 74 degrees, 89% humidity, wind SSE at 8 MPH, overcast.
A hard-fought battle for first place. After Joe Bernal pitched a scoreless top of the first, escaping a two-on, one-out jam thanks to a 4-6-3 double play started by second baseman Ken Mockler on Larry Fiorentino’s hard grounder, David Brown on the pivot, Blue took the lead with two runs in the bottom of the first, on a double by Joe Bernal, singles by Ken Mockler and Tom Bellavia, and Larry Young’s sacrifice fly to Larry Fiorentino in right-center.
Blue won the second inning as well, holding Green to a single run in the top half on back-to-back singles by Rex Horvath and Terry O’Brien and Chunky Wright’s sacrifice fly, a liner to left-center fielder Tom Bellavia. Blue then scored four times in the home half, six straight batters reaching with one out on David Brown’s double, three singles, and walks drawn by George Romo and Ken Mockler. The fourth run was driven in by Tom Bellavia with a sacrifice fly, again to Larry Fiorentino in right-center.
Green got back into the game in the third inning, scoring four runs in the top half on Ivan Budiselic’s walk, Mike Garrison’s double down the third-base side, and four singles. Rex Horvath then limited Blue to a single run in the bottom of the frame: Lawrence Page led off with a triple to center field, then scored on Donnie Janac’s sacrifice fly to Steve Sandall in left-center, Steve racing in to make an excellent shoestring catch to rob Donnie of a hit. David Brown followed with a single, but Rex got more help from his defense, as shortstop Terry O’Brien made a fine play on Daniel Baladez’s grounder to his left, starting an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play, Tom Brownfield on the pivot.
Green then scored five times in the top of the fourth, taking the lead for the first time. After Boo Resnick led off with a single, Jim Maloy hit a pop to third baseman George Romo, but plate umpire Marvin Krabbenhoft had called time, so it was no pitch. Given a second change, Jim singled up the middle. Joe Bernal got Steve Sandall to pop out to second baseman Ken Mockler for the first out. Ivan Budiselic lined a single to right-center field, driving in Boo. Mike Garrison then stepped up and crushed a pitch to left field, over everybody and to the fence, for a three-run inside-the-park home run that put Green ahead 9-7.
Mike Garrison hit his second home run of the season, tying for the league lead with Tony Garcia. The Green and Blue mascots were engaged in a dance-off and barely noticed, and meanwhile I saw a Texas leaf-cutter bee, one of the region’s great pollinators, in right field.
Green pushed across its fifth run of the inning on consecutive singles by Larry Fiorentino, Tom Brownfield, and Rex Horvath – Rex’s actually a drive to center field that would have been good for extra bases but for the fifth run scoring and Rex employing a runner from home.
Blue reclaimed the lead with four runs on five singles in the bottom of the fourth. After Phil Stanch (completing a 2-for-2 game) and George Romo opened the inning with singles, Joe Bernal was robbed of a hit by first baseman Boo Resnick, who made a nice snag of Joe’s hard opposite-field grounder despite having his view partially blocked by George breaking for second. Ken Mockler came up and singled through shortstop, finding a space that Terry O’Brien had just vacated by moving to his left. That drove in Phil. Tom Bellavia singled to center field, George scoring, Ken’s pinch-runner David Brown taking third, and Tom taking second on the throw to third. Ken scored the tying run on Larry Young’s grounder to second baseman Tom Brownfield. Lawrence Page’s Texas League single to left field brought in Tom Bellavia with the go-ahead run.
Green came up needing a run to tie in the top of the buffet. Blue second baseman Ken Mockler didn’t let it happen. First he made a good catch to his right of Terry O’Brien’s liner. Then he cleanly fielded Chunky Wright’s grounder and snapped a throw to first baseman Larry Young that beat Mike Garrison, running for Chunky, to the bag. Ken couldn’t get to Boo Resnick’s hard grounder to his right, which went through for a single, but the game ended with Jim Maloy grounding to shortstop David Brown, who threw to Joe Bernal covering second for the 6-1 force.
Final score: Blue 11, Green 10, Blue holding on to extend its winning streak to seven games.
11:30 a.m.: Red (0-2) at Maroon (1-1):
1 2 3 4 BUFFET FINAL Red 3 0 0 4 0 7 Maroon 5 5 0 3 X 13 Pitchers: Red – Ray Pilgrim; Maroon – Jeff Stone. Mercenaries: Red – Ray Pilgrim, Steve Sandall, and Pat Schmidt. Umpires: home – Chunky Wright; bases – Jim Foelker. Perfect at the plate: Red – Anthony Galindo (2 for 2 with a walk and two doubles), Trent Peacock (2 for 2 with a walk), and Patrick Schmidt (3 for 3); Maroon – George Brindley (2 for 2 with a walk), Fritz Hensel and Scott Wright (both 3 for 3), and Allen Phillips (2 for 2).
Weather update: 78 degrees, felt like 83; 79% humidity; wind from the South at 10 MPH; mix of clouds and sun.
Red jumped off to an early lead, scoring three runs on four singles and Anthony Galindo’s double in the top of the first, but then Maroon scored five times on six hits in each of its first two at bats (six singles and Steve Browne’s sacrifice fly to Patrick Schmidt in right-center in the first; Dale Fugate’s lead-off walk, five singles, and Steve Browne’s two-run double down the third-base side in the second).
Jeff Stone blanked Red in the second and third, and Maroon effectively had the game in hand. Patrick Schmidt led off the second with a pop-fly hit to short left field, but was thrown out 5-4 trying to stretch it into a double, third baseman David Pittard hustling after the ball and throwing to Scott Wright for the out. Steve Sandall walked and Anthony Galindo knocked another double, putting runners on second and third with two out, but Jeff retired Johnny Lee on a grounder to second, Dale Fugate making a good play on Scott Wright’s hurried, low throw to beat Mark Dolan, running from home for Johnny Lee. (Scott robbed Johnny Lee of a hit in the first inning, grabbing his line drive.)
Jeff walked Trent Peacock with one out in the third, but two good defensive plays ended the inning. Shortstop Tony Garcia moved to his left to get to Richard Battle’s hard grounder up the middle, and tossed to second for the force. Marvin Krabbenhoft lined a ball to left field, but Steve Browne came in and made an excellent catch, inches above the turf.
Maroon didn’t score in the bottom of the third, Ray Pilgrim working around a two-out single by Allen Phillips.
Red cut Maroon’s lead to 10-7 with four runs in the top of the fourth. Ray Pilgrim led off with a single through the 5-6 hole and advanced on Patrick Schmidt’s single. Steve Sandall grounded a ball to short for a 6-4 force-out grounder; Ray started for third on the play, then returned to second once the force on him was off, a repeat of a ploy he used successfully last week. Ray then scored on Mark Dolan’s single to right field. Steve took third on that hit, but Mark was gunned down 10-4-5-6, Allen Phillips to Scott Wright to David Pittard to Tony Garcia (if I’ve got it right, about 50-50 chance), trying to take second on the throw to third. That was the second out, but the next four hitters reached base, pushing three more runs across: Anthony Galindo walked, and Johnny Lee, Tim Coles, and Trent Peacock singled, Steve, Anthony, and Mark Dolan running for Johnny Lee all scoring.
Maroon got three runs back in the bottom of the fourth, the day’s most entertaining half-inning. George Brindley walked and Tony Garcia and Steve Browne singled to start the frame, George coming around to score, Steve recording his fourth RBI of the game and taking second on the throw in. Jeff Stone hit a sacrifice fly to right fielder Steve Sandall to bring in Tony. (After the game, Jeff and I had a borderline theological conversation about what constitutes a “perfect game at the plate.” The way I’ve determined it, since I started tracking such things, is that the batter has to reach base in each of his plate appearances. Jeff pointed out that a sacrifice fly does not count as an at bat (true), so a player who is 2 for 2 with a sac fly has batted 1.000 in the game (also true). But the SF does count as a plate appearance and is included in the calculation for on-base percentage – in this case, the OBP is .667 (2 for 3). It’s a bit of a hard-assed approach, but one I’ve applied consistently. It’s not like I can just give away Ohtani Awards willy-nilly.) (Well, actually, I can, but I choose not to.)
This was not the most entertaining thing in the inning, however. That came in the next at bat, with Scott Wright at the plate. Looking to complete his own perfect game at the plate, Scott swung at Ray Pilgrim’s first pitch, and it was truly, magnificently ugly, resulting in a beaten-into-the-ground foul in front of the plate, and taunts from the first-base-side Beer Garden. Scott then regrouped and smacked a single to center field, and as he ran to first gleefully shouted out, “Ah-HA-HA-HA-HA!” while pointing at his taunters, as more or less seen here:
(Scott noticed neither Johnny Lee setting up to trip him, nor Viktor Orbán and Peter Magyar discussing Hungarian election results. Everyone always ignores the introverted Red Bell Pepper mascot anyway.)
George Brindley ran for Scott at first, and was involved in the inning’s second-most-entertaining moment. Fritz Hensel completed his 3-for-3 game with a single past second and into right field, George stopping at second. David Pittard lined a single to right-center, loading the bases. Dale Fugate hit a fly to Steve Sandall in right field. George tagged up and started for home, but Steve uncorked a great throw in; George looked to retreat but saw that Tony Garcia, running for Fritz, was well on his way to third, so George continued on to the commit line, intending to stop before it to see whether catcher Marvin Krabbenhoft would be able to handle the throw. Marvin was, and George was out, because he actually stopped on the commitment line, which meant he had to continue home. That F-10, 10-2 double play ended the inning, with Maroon leading 13-7.
Jeff Stone closed out the game with a scoreless top of the buffet. Marvin Krabbenhoft singled leading off and one out later Patrick Schmidt hit a looper in front of shortstop that went for a hit, Patrick completing a 3-for-3 game. Allen Phillips ran down Steve Sandall’s fly to right field for the second out. The game ended with Tony Garcia moving to his left to field Mark Dolan’s grounder up the middle, stepping on second for the game-ending 6u. putout.
Final score: Maroon 13, Red 7
12:30 p.m.: Orange (2-1) at Gray (2-1):
1 2 3 4 5 BUFFET FINAL Orange 5 2 5 0 5 X 17 Gray 0 0 3 0 0 0 3 Pitchers: Orange – Tommy Deleon; Gray – Luis Sanchez (innings 1 and 2) and Jack Kelly (innings 3-5). Mercenaries: Orange – David Brown and Tim Coles. Umpires: home – Scott Wright; bases – Jeff Stone. Perfect at the plate: Orange – Tim Coles (3 for 3 with two doubles and a triple), Matt Levitt (4 for 4), Adam Reddell (4 for 4 with a triple), and Jack Spellman (4 for 4 with a double); Gray – Dave Jaffe (2 for 2).
Somewhat hard to reconcile the Orange team that came out hitting and playing solid defense today with the lackluster squad that lost a 12-4 double-flip-flop to Green this past Thursday. They exceeded Thursday’s offensive output in just the first inning today, scoring five runs on six singles and Tommy Deleon’s walk, with that walk, the last four singles, and the last four runs all coming after two were out. Orange added two runs in the top of the second, on Tim Coles’s lead-off triple and three singles; a nice 7-6-5 relay, Jim Foelker to Scott Rokita to Clint Fletcher, cut down Adam Reddell trying to go first to third on Don Solberg’s hit and was Gray’s defensive highlight of the day.
Jack Kelly swapped positions with Luis Sanchez and took over on the mound for Gray in the third. Orange scored five again in both that inning and, after being blanked in the fourth, the fifth, in each instance getting a two-out single to complete the rally. Tim Coles doubled in both of those innings – he had a great game, absolutely crushing the ball in each of his three at bats, for seven total bases, scoring each time. Adam Reddell tripled in the third inning. Everyone on Orange was squaring up on the ball, there wasn’t much Gray could do about it.
Meanwhile, Tommy Deleon had brought his A game. He walked no one and didn’t allow a run until the bottom of the third, by which point he was working with a 12-0 lead. He got three fly ball outs in the first inning and another to start the second. Mark Hernandez made the defensive play of the day to end the second, after Jim McAnelly singled with one out. Mark fielded Mike Velaney’s hard grounder to first, made a strong throw to shortstop David Brown covering second, then got to the bag in time, and ahead of Mike, to receive David’s return peg for a gorgeous 3-6-3 double play, as seen here:
(Well, kind of. David Brown was actually at second base, not backing Mark up at first, and I don’t know who the guy in the camo shorts is. Scott Wright pole dancing, that’s 100% accurate.)
Gray finally got on the board with three runs on five singles and Bobby Miller’s double in the bottom of the third. They looked poised to get more in the fourth when Mike Velaney and Dave Jaffe singled to open the inning. But Tommy Deleon got Jack Kelly to pop out to shortstop David Brown for the first out, then got out of the inning thanks to an outstanding play by left-center fielder Matt Levitt, who caught Bobby Miller’s line drive and then made a strong throw to second to beat Dave, who’d tagged and tried to advance on the play, for an F-8, 8-6 double play.
Matt made another good play on Clint Fletcher’s drive to center for the second out in the fifth inning, a 1-2-3 inning by Tommy Deleon. With Gray trailing by double digits, the teams flip-flopped for the buffet. Jim Foelker led off with a single, but Tommy retired the next three batters, Luis Sanchez on a fly to Peter Atkins in right-center, and Jim McAnelly and Mike Velaney on carbon-copy 6-4 force plays, David Brown to Tim Coles.
Final score: Orange 17, Gray 3
2026 standings:
| Session 2 standings: | ||||||||
| Games | Runs | Runs | Runs dif- | W/L | ||||
| Wins | Losses | Win %: | behind: | for: | allowed: | ferential: | streak: | |
| Blue | 3 | 0 | 1.000 | 0 | 38 | 23 | 15 | W7 |
| Orange | 3 | 1 | .750 | 0.5 | 49 | 36 | 13 | W1 |
| Maroon | 2 | 1 | .667 | 1 | 36 | 24 | 12 | W1 |
| Green | 2 | 2 | .500 | 1.5 | 56 | 45 | 11 | L1 |
| Gray | 2 | 2 | .500 | 1.5 | 47 | 65 | -18 | L1 |
| Red | 0 | 3 | .000 | 3 | 28 | 44 | -16 | L3 |
| Purple | 0 | 3 | .000 | 3 | 31 | 48 | -17 | L3 |
| Home | Visitor | Walk-off | Extra-inning | Flip-flop | 1-run games | |||
| W-L: | W-L: | wins | W-L: | W-L: | W-L: | |||
| Blue | 2-0 | 1-0 | 0 | 0-0 | 1-0 | 1-0 | ||
| Orange | 2-0 | 1-1 | 0 | 0-0 | 1-1 | 0-0 | ||
| Maroon | 2-0 | 0-1 | 0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | ||
| Green | 1-0 | 1-2 | 0 | 0-0 | 2-0 | 0-2 | ||
| Gray | 1-2 | 1-0 | 1 | 0-0 | 1-2 | 1-0 | ||
| Red | 0-1 | 0-2 | 0 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 0-0 | ||
| Purple | 0-1 | 0-2 | 0 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 0-0 | ||
2026 total victories (read across) and losses (read down):
| Blue | Gray | Green | Maroon | Orange | Purple | Red | TOTAL | |
| Blue | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 8 | |
| Gray | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 5 | |
| Green | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | |
| Maroon | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 4 | |
| Orange | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | |
| Purple | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | |
| Red | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | |
| TOTAL: | 1 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 33 |
2026 season home run leaders:
Tony Garcia – 2
Mike Garrison – 2
Richard Battle – 1
Joe Bernal – 1
Mark Dolan – 1
Rick Kahn – 1
Allen Phillips – 1
George Romo – 1
Paul Rubin – 1
Luis Sanchez – 1
Ralph Villela – 1
Ohtani Awards (winning pitcher + perfect at the plate):
Joe Bernal: 3 (March 2, March 19, March 30)
Ray Pilgrim: 3 (March 5, March 23, March 26)
Tommy Deleon: 1 (April 6)
Rex Horvath: 1 (March 30)
Lawrence Page: 1 (March 26)
Trent Peacock: 1 (March 9)
Jeff Stone: 1 (March 2)
Schedule for Thursday April 16:
10:30 a.m.: Gray(2-2) at Red (0-3), Maroon umpiring
11:30 a.m.: Maroon (2-1) at Green (2-2), Gray umpiring
12:30 p.m.: Blue (3-0) at Purple (0-3), Green umpiring
Orange has the bye, with priority for its players out of the bucket.
Preview: It’s Purple’s turn to try to throw some sand into Blue’s gears, looking to end Blue’s seven-game winning streak and their own three-game losing streak at 12:30. One of Gray or Red will get back in the win column at 10:30. The best game might be the 11:30 contest between Maroon, which is allowing only eight runs per game this session, the league’s lowest, and Green, which is scoring 16 runs per game, the league’s highest. Their run differentials (Maroon +12, Green +11) are nearly identical. Thursday is the 3483rd anniversary of the Battle of Megiddo, at which the Egyptian forces of Thutmose III defeated a large Canaanite coalition under the King of Kadesh, the first reliably recorded battle. Will this be what we celebrate at Krieg 2, or will we just go with recognizing the 83rd anniversary of Swiss scientist Dr. Albert Hofmann discovering the psychedelic effects of LSD? One thing is certain: Only time will tell.
Keggy’s Korner:
Reminder that Boo Resnick and Hotcakes will be playing at Donn’s Depot on this coming Saturday April 18 from 9:00 p.m. (-ish) to 1:00 a.m. (-ish).
Podcast review: Autocracy in America, from The Atlantic
Host Anne Applebaum has seen some shit, and has a good sense of more bad shit coming down the pike. She very early on understood how bad an actor Vladimir Putin is, and has been broadcasting that truth loud and long. In this series, a previous season of which was hosted by Russian chess guy/dissident Garry Kasparov, Applebaum looks at the adoption by American institutions of autocratic tactics; the use of violence, physical and informational, in the public sphere; and the dismantling of democratic norms. It’s not a feel-good podcast, but necessary listening in these fraught times. New England content: Incidental and minimal. Canadian content: Not much to speak of, aside from noting when the president threatens to make Canada the 51st state.
Rating: 