League Picayune
Often in error, never in doubt.
Volume 5, Issue 9 – April 3, 2023
Weather: Spring-like 72 degrees at the start of the 10:30 game, with 93% humidity and thin, high clouds. Those burned off as the day proceeded, and the temperature climbed to 80 degrees by the start of the 12:30 game, humidity down to 77% (though it still felt pretty sticky), mostly sunny. Felt warmer still by the end of the extra-two-innings finale, but I neglected to check the temperature.
Games of Monday April 3:
10:30 a.m., Red (0-1) at Purple (0-1):
1 2 3 4 5 BUFFET FINAL Red 5 0 5 2 3 0 15 Purple 5 0 3 1 1 1 11 Pitchers: Red – Jack Kelly; Purple – Tommy Deleon. Mercenaries: Red – Donnie Janac and Boo Resnick. Umpires: home plate – Tom Kelm and Rex Horvath; bases – Mike Velaney and Scott Wright; scoreboard – Dave Berra. Perfect at the plate: Red – Donald Drummer (2 for 2 with two walks); Purple – Don Solberg (4 for 4 with two doubles).
Tied through two, both teams scoring five times in the first inning – Red on seven singles, Purple on two walks, two doubles (by Doc Hobar, leading off, and Don Solberg, driving in two runs), and two singles, without making an out – and then not scoring at all in the second, both teams stranding a runner at second. Purple second baseman Don Roets made an excellent play going back to haul in Boo Resnick’s pop in the top of the second, that half-inning ending with shortstop Ralph Villela going into short left field to track down George Brindley’s pop fly; Red first baseman Hal Darman made a terrific play on Tommy Deleon’s hard one-hopper in the bottom half.
Mike Mordecai made an excellent play on Ken Mockler’s sinking liner to start the third, catching it for the first out. Paul Rubin then singled and came around to score on a double by hot-hitting Hal Darman, who gapped the left- and left-center fielders. Hal took third on the throw home, then scored on Scott Sovereen’s ground out. Red then got singles from its bottom three hitters, Jack Kelly, Donnie Janac, and Boo Resnick, Jack’s pinch-runner scoring; a bases-loading walk to Donald Drummer; and singles by Terry Thompson and George Brindley, bringing in the fourth and fifth runs of the inning. Purple seemed poised to match that in the bottom half, as the first six batters reached base: Doc Hobar tripled to right-center; Ralph Villela walked; Don Solberg hit his second two-run double in as many at bats; and Gil Delossantos, Jack Crosley, and Larry Bunton each singled, Don scoring and the bases left loaded for Mike Mordecai. Mike hit a sharp grounder to third baseman Donald Drummer, who tagged third and made a strong throw home to catcher Hal Darman for a 5u., 5-2 double play. Jack Kelly then got Don Roets to hit into a force to second baseman Boo Resnick for the third out.
Red now led 10-8, and would never relinquish the lead, first scoring two runs in the fourth (Ken Mockler and Hal Darman each doubled and scored, Ken on Hal’s hit, Hal on Scott Sovereen’s single). Purple got one run on three singles in the bottom of the inning, Don Solberg collecting his fifth RBI of the game. In the fifth, Red got three more on a walk (Donald Drummer’s second of the game) and three singles, all with one out, the third run scoring on a force out at second. Purple again got only one back in its half, loading the bases with two out for Marvin Krabbenhoft, who worked a base on balls to force home Mike Mordecai.
Entering the buffet, Red was ahead 15-10. Tommy worked a scoreless top half, Ralph Villela converting two grounders to shortstop into outs, 6-3 and, following Jack Kelly’s single, 6-4 both very close plays. Ralph, Don Solberg, and Gil Delossantos started the bottom half with singles, Ralph scoring, and it looked like Purple had a good chance to catch up. But Paul Rubin caught Jack Crosley’s fly to right-center, Donald Drummer cleanly fielded Larry Bunton’s grounder to third base, tagging the bag to retire the lead runner, and then Donald snagged Mike Mordecai’s liner for the final out. Final score: Red 15, Purple 11
Rick Jensen shows off his excellent new Beebe cleats. Says the B League president emeritus, “I put ’em above Tunnell cleats – they’ll last longer.”
www.beebesports.com
11:30 a.m., Maroon (1-0) at Blue (1-0):
1 2 3 4 5 BUFFET FINAL Maroon 3 0 3 5 5 3 19 Blue 1 2 5 3 5 0 16 Pitchers: Maroon – Joe Bernal; Blue – Spike Davidson. Umpires: home plate – Jack Kelly; bases – Donald Drummer. Perfect at the plate: Maroon – Johnny Lee, Peter Sundquist, and Scott Wright (each 4 for 4); Blue – Spike Davidson (3 for 3 with a walk).
High-scoring game, but neither team was able to put much daylight between them – the game was tied after two, four, and five innings played. Maroon jumped to a quick lead in the top of the first with three runs on five singles, with the first three batters – Peter Sundquist, Rex Horvath, and Scott Wright – coming around to score; that trio wound up reaching base 11 times in their 12 total plate appearances. But Spike Davidson stranded Paul Atkins at third in the first, then worked a scoreless second, working around two singles. Blue caught up with a single run in the bottom of the first (Bobby Miller tripled leading off and scored on Richard Battle’s 1-4-3 ground out, Mike Velaney making a nice play on a ball deflected off Joe Bernal’s glove), and two in the second (on four singles and Dale Fugate’s sacrifice fly to left field).
In the third and fourth Maroon scored three and five runs, Blue scored five and three runs. Maroon’s scoring highlights: In the third the team knocked seven singles, but had a runner out on the bases, Ken Brown gunned down 7-6-5 (Richard Battle to George Romo to Morgan Witthoft) trying for third on Mike Velaney’s hit; then left the bases loaded. In the fifth, the first two Maroon batters went out, Richard Battle in left making a terrific catch of Dave Jaffe’s fly, but the next seven reached, on a walk and six more singles. Blue scoring highlights: Five runs on eight singles in the bottom of the third, the last seven coming consecutively with one out. Then three more runs as the first five batters in the bottom of the fourth singled; with the potential fourth and fifth runs on second and first, Joe Bernal retired the next three hitters, on two pops to shortstop Rex Horvath and a foul third strike.
Both teams scored five times in the fifth, the final five-run inning. Mike Velaney led the top half with Maroon’s first extra-base hit of the game, a double, which was followed by five singles and Larry Shupe’s base on balls, the last two hits coming after two were out. Joe Bernal got two quick outs to start the bottom half, but couldn’t get the third. Richard Battle walked and Anthony Galindo doubled (Maroon’s second and last extra-base hit of the game; Bobby Miller’s triple in the first was the other). George Romo and Fritz Hensel singled, Richard and Anthony scoring. A walk to Spike Davidson loaded the bases. Morgan Witthoft drove in two runs with a single to left field, he and Spike’s pinch-runner advancing to second and third on the throw home. Dale Fugate then singled home the fifth run.
So it was 16-all entering the buffet. Rex Horvath flied out to Anthony Galindo in left-center to start the top half. Scott Wright singled, his fourth hit in as many at bats. Paul Atkins smashed a drive to right field that one-hopped the fence and was good for a triple, Scott scoring the go-ahead run. Ken Brown also tripled, gapping the left-center and right-center fielders, Paul scoring. Ken scored on Mike Velaney’s sacrifice fly to Richard Battle in left field. With two out, none on, and three in, Johnny Lee and Chris Villareal both singled. So did Joe Bernal, on a liner to right field, but a terrific 10-6-5 relay, Jimmy Schull to George Romo to Morgan Witthoft, cut down Chris trying for third base, the out coming before Johnny Lee was able to cross the home line.
That left Blue chasing three runs in the bottom half. Jimmy Schull singled to right field to start the frame. Stan Fisher hit a grounder to the 5-6 hole – Scott Wright made a good play to knock it down, then a quick backhanded flip to second to get the force on Jimmy for the first out. Bobby Miller squared up on a pitch and lined it down the right side, but first baseman Johnny Lee reached high and snagged it for out number two. Richard Battle singled Stan to second, bringing up Anthony Galindo representing the tying run. Anthony grounded a ball to shortstop; Rex Horvath moved to his right, fielded it cleanly, and tossed to Scott Wright for the force at third, ending the game. Final score: Maroon 19, Blue 16
Quotes of the Day, both from Don Solberg:
I, to Tom Brownfield: ”Go on home. Take the toll road, it’s quicker.”
II, to Larry Young: “We were having a pretty good conversation here till you showed up.”
12:30 p.m., Gray (0-1) at Gold (0-0):
1 2 3 4 5 BUFFET EXTRA1 EXTRA2 FINAL Gray 2 0 2 1 3 3 2 0 13 Gold 1 0 4 0 4 2 2 1 14 Pitchers: Gray – Greg Lloyd; Gold – Joe Roche (first inning) and Jeff Stone (second inning on). Umpires: home plate – Anthony Galindo; bases – Jimmy Schull. Homeruns: Tim Bruton (two, both inside the park). Perfect at the plate: Gold – Joe Roche (4 for 4).
Wow, this was one heck of a game. All three pitchers were terrific, and there were a number of outstanding defensive plays.
Joe Roche hurled the first inning for Gold, and held the top of the Gray lineup to just two runs, retiring the first two batters on a fly to Denny Malloy in right field (by Greg Lloyd) and a liner to Mike Garrison in right-center (by David Kruse), both catches at the waist. The next five batters reached, two scoring, on three singles and two walks, before Joe made a good play on Jim Maloy’s hard grounder back to the box for the third out. Gold got one run back in the bottom half, on Tim Bruton’s lead-off inside-the-park homerun to right field.
Dave Berra presents Tim Bruton with a Plucker’s coupon. There have been insinuations that I’ve been making the presentations in order to get my picture in the Picayune. Totally true, but man, you can’t cut a guy some slack?
Jeff Stone took over on the mound for Gold and worked a 1-2-3 top of the second. Gold got singles by Denny Malloy and Joe Dayoc to strt the bottom half, but second baseman Tom Brownfield made an excellent play on Rip Wright’s grounder to his left, throwing to second for the force, and Rick Jensen started an around-the-horn double play on Larry Young’s grounder to third. Gray took the lead, briefly, with two runs in the top of the third: David Kruse led off with a triple and scored on Tom Brownfield’s single; Tom advanced on Rick Kahn’s fly to deep left-center, then advanced to third and home on base hits by Daniel Carvajal and Rick Jensen.
On Rick’s hit, to right-center, Daniel ran to the right of second base, and a collision resulted when the relay came in short of the base and shortstop Tim Bruton moved forward – to Daniel’s right – to catch the ball. Boom! Two pretty big guys, so it was a significant crash. Tim left the field for a couple of innings, but eventually returned, first for an inning at first base, then back at shortstop. Daniel was called out on the play, per the letter of the B League’s avoid-collisions-at-all-costs law. There was no bad intent whatsoever on Daniel’s part, but on a ball hit to the right of second base, a runner coming from first should run to the left of the base – or way, way to the right – in order to forestall any possibility of making contact with a fielder near the bag.
Gold took the lead with a two-out, four-run rally in the bottom of the third. Greg Lloyd retired Oscar Ledesma on a pop to shortstop David Kruse, ranging into short left field, and Tim Bruton on a grounder to David. (First baseman Daniel Carvajal, as Tim was running for first: “Don’t run into me!” Props for maintaining a sense of humor.) The next five batters singled, four scoring – Mike Garrison, running from first for Jack Spellman, came all the way around on Jeff Stone’s single to right-center for the fourth run.
Gray tied with a single run in the top of the fourth, when Jim Maloy tripled leading off and scored on Jim McAnelly’s sacrifice fly to left-center. Gold did not score in the bottom half, which ended with David Kruse again robbing Oscar Ledesma of a hit by running down his looping liner to short left-center.
Gray in the fifth inning put across three runs on a lead-off walk by Tom Brownfield and four singles. Gold reclaimed the lead in the bottom half with four runs. Tim Bruton started the rally with a lead-off triple, Denny Malloy ended it with a two-run double, and there were three singles in between.
So entering the buffet, Gold was up by one run. Greg Lloyd drew a lead-off walk. David Kruse squared up on a pitch, but third baseman Joe Roche snagged his liner for the first out. The next four batters singled, three runs scoring. Frank Delmonte lined a pitch up the middle, but Jeff Stone made a terrific catch of it, then snapped a throw to first, doubling up Rick Jensen to end the inning with Gray leading 11-9.
Greg Lloyd retired Rip Wright on a grounder to second to start the bottom half, Tom Brownfield making a terrific play to his left to reach a ball that the Gold bench was certain would get past him. Larry Young singled, but was forced out at second on Oscar Ledesma’s grounder to third baseman Rick Jensen. Denny Malloy ran for Oscar. Tim Bruton stepped up and lined a hit to center field that got past the outfielders and rolled to the fence; Tim raced all the way around the bases for his second inside-the-park homerun of the game, this one tying the game at 11-11. Mike Garrison lined out to end the buffet.
This is definitely a completely different picture of Tim Bruton receiving a Plucker’s coupon from Dave Berra.
The extra inning began with David Kruse, Frank Delmonte’s runner from home in the buffet, at second base, with one out and one-pitch rules in effect. Jim Maloy knocked a single to left, David racing home. Jerry Mylius took a one-pitch walk. Jim McAnelly popped a pitch up, and catcher Oscar Ledesma caught it – I’m not sure whether he was in fair or foul ground – for the second out. Greg Lloyd’s single loaded the bases. David Kruse walked, forcing home Jim Maloy. Tom Brownfield skied a ball to right-center, and Mike Garrison came charging in and made a terrific shoestring catch – the defensive play of the game, as it saved at least two runs, perhaps four if the ball had gotten past him.
Instead, Gold was chasing two runs in the bottom of the extra inning, with one out and Mike Garrison at second base. Jack McDermott singled to center and Mike scored. Joe Roche singled also, Jack stopping at second. On Jack Spellman’s fly to right field, Jack McDermott took third, and then he scored the tying run on Jeff Stone’s single to center. Greg Lloyd then caught Denny Malloy looking at a called strike three, a perfect pitch that just clipped the mat.
On to extra inning number two. Tom Brownfield started at second base, and took third on Rick Kahn’s single. Daniel Carjaval hit a high fly to short right-center, high enough that Mike Garrison was able to reach it and make a tumbling catch. I had my back to the play, but as I understand it, Tom was a couple steps down the third-base line when Mike make the catch, and like everyone else who witnessed it was a bit gobsmacked – in the event, Tom didn’t have the wherewithal to tag up and score, so credit Mike with saving another run with his superlative defensive play. Rick Jensen was up next; he tried to golf a pitch to right, but was just a bit late on it, and it fell foul on the first-base side for the third out.
Gold came up needing just one run to walk off the victory, with Denny Malloy starting off at second and Joe Dayoc at the plate. I’m pretty certain Joe wouldn’t normally have swung at Greg’s pitch, which was a bit high, but it was too close to take, so Joe tomahawked it, lofting it over third baseman Rick Jensen and into left field. As Denny approached third, Gold manager/third-base coach Dave Berra waved him home, but when Denny hesitated, Dave told him to stay. Denny came almost to a stop, but then took off for home anyway. Left fielder Jerry Mylius threw to shortstop David Kruse, who threw home to catcher Frank Delmonte. From my angle, the throw got to Frank just before Denny’s foot came down on the line, but the ball hopped half out of Frank’s mitt before he got full control of it. Home-plate umpire Anthony Galindo was perfectly positioned to see this, to see Denny hit the line, and to call the runner safe and the game over. Final score: Gold 14, Gray 13
Standings – Session Two:
Games Runs Runs Run W/L
W L Win %: behind: for: allowed: differential: streak:
Maroon 2 0 1.000 — 33 24 + 9 W2
Green 1 0 1.000 .5 18 11 + 7 W4
Gold 1 0 1.000 .5 14 13 + 1 W1
Blue 1 1 .500 1 39 37 + 2 L1
Red 1 1 .500 1 26 29 – 3 W1
Gray 0 2 .000 2 31 37 – 6 L3
Purple 0 2 .000 2 19 29 -10 L2
Home Visitor Walk-off Extra-inning Flip-flop 1-run games
W-L: W-L: Wins: W-L: W-L: W-L:
Maroon 1-0 1-0 0 0-0 0-0 0-0
Green 0-0 1-0 0 0-0 1-0 0-0
Gold 1-0 0-0 1 1-0 0-0 1-0
Blue 0-1 1-0 0 1-0 1-0 0-0
Red 0-1 1-0 0 0-0 0-1 0-0
Gray 0-1 0-1 0 0-2 0-1 0-1
Purple 0-1 0-1 0 0-0 0-0 0-0
2022 total victories (read across) and losses (read down):
Blue Gold Gray Green Maroon Purple Red TOTAL
Blue X 1 2 0 0 1 0 4
Gold 0 X 1 1 0 0 0 2
Gray 0 1 X 0 0 0 1 2
Green 0 0 1 X 0 1 2 4
Maroon 1 1 0 1 X 1 0 4
Purple 0 0 0 0 1 X 1 2
Red 1 0 0 0 1 1 X 3
___________________________________________________________
TOTAL: 2 3 4 2 2 4 4 21
Schedule for Thursday April 6:
10:30 a.m.: Purple (0-2) at Gold (1-0), Green umpiring
11:30 a.m.: Green (1-0) at Gray (0-2), Purple umpiring
12:30 p.m.: Red (1-1) at Maroon (2-0), Gray umpiring
Blue has the bye – players from that team will have priority out of the bucket.
Preview: Purple and Gold meet for the first time in 2023 at 10:30. Gray, coming off consecutive extra-inning losses, looks get in the winning column against undefeated-for-the-session Green at 11:30. Red and Marron will look to snap each other’s winning streaks at 12:30
Keggy’s Korner:
Dream world Keggy: Keggy dreamed last night that he was playing in a pickup game and batting ahead of Adam Reddell, a good move by the fictional manager to put a slow guy ahead of the guy who hit homeruns. The fictional opposing manager had the not-so-bright idea to set up his defense with two infielders, shortstop and first baseman, and six outfielders, which might have made sense except that they were arrayed equidistantly along the 120-foot line. Adam kept hitting the ball over their heads. It was great.
Virtual world Keggy: Keggy’s been without internet access at home for the last couple days because AT&T is the worst. This edition is being emailed from Keggy Jr.’s apartment. As the Keggy clan discussed how to get internet access, we had the following exchange:
Keggy: “I could go to Junior’s and use her wifi.”
Mrs. Keggy: “Or you could wait till tomorrow to email the Picayune.”
Keggy Jr.: “Do you know how crazy you sound?”
Keggy: “Seriously. There would be old men rioting in isolated pockets across greater Austin.”
Moment of zen – Morgan Witthoft took this picture near Krieg 3 today:
