B League Picayune
Often in error, never in doubt.
Volume 7, Issue 44 – August 18, 2025
Games of Monday August 18:
10:00 a.m., Purple (7-6) at Green (5.5 – 7.5):
1 2 3 4 BUFFET FINAL Purple 3 3 3 2 4 15 Green 1 0 2 4 0 7 Pitchers: Purple – Spike Davidson; Green – Chunky Wright. Mercenaries: Purple – George Brindley and Scott Wright; Green – Jack Spellman. Umpires: home – Anthony Galindo; bases – Marvin Krabbenhoft and Donald Drummer. Perfect at the plate: Purple – Larry Fiorentino (4 for 4 with two doubles, a triple, and a home run), Matt Levitt (4 for 4), and Scott Wright (3 for 3 with a triple); Green – Mike Garrison (3 for 3 with a double) and Phil Stanch (3 for 3). Home run: Larry Fiorentino (inside the park).
Dave Berra’s weather report: 88 degrees, felt like 96; humidity 57%; wind from the SSW at 5 MPH. Sunny. High humidity, low humility.
Purple won this one convincingly, putting up crooked numbers in each of its five at bats and winning every inning except the fourth. One-two hitters Matt Levitt and Larry Fiorentino went a combined 8 for 8 with eight runs scored, Matt driven in each time by Larry, who had seven RBI on the day and actually exceeded the cycle by not stopping at first on his fourth hit, instead taking his second double.If AI is to be believed – and why wouldn't it be? – Larry Fiorentino has ditched the sleeves and gone full Hulk. No wonder nobody wants to pitch to him. Especially if he's batting cross-handed. Scott Wright also was perfect at the plate, 3 for 3 with a two-run triple in the third. Green played well in the field, Purple simply hit the ball really well. Chunky Wright turned Rick Jensen's liner back to the box into a first-inning-ending L-1, 1-3 double play, snapping a throw to first to double up Matt Levitt, running for Fritz Hensel. Phil Stanch made a good play to run down George Brindley's drive to right-center to end the top of the third inning. And Ralph Villela was his usual dependable self at shortstop, recording four putouts and two assists. Green knocked five consecutive singles after Ralph grounded back to the pitcher to start the bottom of the first inning, but came away with just a single run. Phil Stanch came around on hits by Mike Garrison and Chris Waddell, but Mike was thrown out trying to score from second on Doc Hobar's single to right-center, on a perfect 9-4-2 relay, Raul Deleon to Larry Fiorentino to Fritz Hensel. Donnie Janac's single loaded the bases, but Spike Davidson got Johnny Wimpy to fly out to right-center to strand the runners. Spike threw a 1-2-3 bottom of the second, and limited Green to two runs after four of the first five batters hit safely in the bottom of the third (lead-off double by Ralph Villela and three singles) by starting an inning-ending 1-6-3 double play, Rick Jensen, back and fully hydrated, on the pivot. Green had one really solid inning, scoring four times in the bottom of the fourth on six consecutive one-out singles. The inning opened with Matt Levitt making a good catch of Johnny Wimpy's drive to left-center, and ended with Spike getting Chris Waddell to hit a two-strike foul and Doc Hobar to line out to Larry Fiorentino at second. That outburst cut Purple's lead to 11-7 entering the buffet, but they quickly built it up to eight runs, prompting a flip-flop, by knocking seven consecutive hits – six singles and Larry Fiorentino's second double – and scoring four runs. They left the bases loaded with one out in case they needed to resume the inning. They didn't need to resume the inning. Donnie Janac and Johnny Wimpy opened the home half of the buffet with singles, but Spike Davidson retired Billy Hill on a pop fly to Larry Fiorentino, then got Chunky Wright to ground to third baseman Scott Wright, who started a game-ending 5u., 5-4 double play. Final score: Purple 15, Green 7 11:00 a.m., Red (4-11) at Blue (4-9): 1 2 3 4 5 BUFFET FINAL Red 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 Blue 1 0 4 5 X X 10 Pitchers: Red – Joe Bernal; Blue – Tommy Deleon. Mercenaries: Red – Hal Darman and Paul Rubin; Blue – Phil Stanch and Johnny Wimpy. Umpires: home – Chunky Wright; bases – Mike Garrison. Perfect at the plate: Blue – George Brindley (3 for 3 with a triple), Phil Stanch (2 for 2), and Steve Sandall (3 for 3 with a double). Dave Berra's weather update: 92 degrees, felt like 99. Humidity 49%. Wind from the SSW at 5 MPH. Sunny – summer continues!
The battle to escape last place was close until it wasn’t. Tommy Deleon very nearly pitched a shutout, keeping Red off the board through five innings even though he allowed three hits in each of the first three. He retired the first two batters of the game, Jack McDermott on a grounder to third baseman David Pittard and Jack Spellman on a liner back to the box.
Quote of the Day: Jack McDermott’s grandson Goku, after Jack grounded out to start the game: “PoPo, you didn’t power up!” (Jack and Goku above left; Goku demonstrates proper powering-up technique above right, a lesson Red very much failed to heed.)
Tommy then allowed singles to Anthony Galindo and Joe Bernal. Dale Fugate grounded a ball toward shortstop George Brindley; Anthony, trying to block George’s view, stutter-stepped toward third, but got hit by the grounder when it took a higher hop than Anthony anticipated. (All day the hops on the Krieg 3 infield were unpredictable; more on this both sooner and later.) The ball hit Anthony, who was declared out, Dale credited with a single.
Guest analyst Rick Kahn offers this color commentary; for illustrative purposes, I’ve prompted the accompanying, truly terrible AI-generated picture that supposedly depicts Anthony getting hit by a grounder (look behind “Anthony” – it’s George Brindley!):
Jack, After a few hours of thought, I think Anthony, as president, was actually trying to stop the ball from taking a bad hop and injuring the shortstop. My bigger concern was Scottie [Wright] throwing at the runner heading for first. There’s also a chance he was actually throwing at the opposing team’s dugout, we’ll never know. But it gives new meaning to “Got him out” and “send him home.” But if rules aren’t created discouraging throwing at runners or victims in the dugout, I fear a third baseman could actually throw at a runner heading to third, then pick up the ball next to the body and throw at another runner, giving new meaning to “double play.”
Blue scored just a single run in the home half: Steve Sandall doubled leading off, tagged and took third on Tom Bellavia’s fly to Paul Rubin in right-center field, and scored on Tom Brownfield’s sacrifice fly to Donald Drummer in right.
Tommy Deleon made that slim early lead stand through the top of the third. He stranded three runners in the second after two-out singles by mercenaries Paul Rubin and Hal Darman loaded the bases. Then, after Joe Bernal worked a 1-2-3 bottom of the second, Tommy got out of the third thanks to a strong relay home cut down Anthony Galindo 8-4-2 (Tom Bellavia to Tom Brownfield, who hilariously pumped himself up while throwing home – “Make this throw, Tom!” – to Johnny Wimpy) on Gil Delossantos’s two-out single up the middle.
Blue took firmer control of the game by scoring four runs on four singles and Tom Brownfield’s double in the bottom of the third. The second hit of the inning was a hard grounder by Steve Sandall just to my left that I thought I had a bead on, only for it to take a ridiculously high hop – I got some glove on it and knocked it down, but had no play. It seemed like all day the less-talented infielders were bedeviled by bad hops while the good infielders got playable balls. That’s what it is, right? There is no justice in this cruel world.
Fourth inning: Red again did not score; Tommy Deleon walked Mark Dolan to start the inning, then retired the next three batters. Blue blew it open (or maybe simply Blue it open) with five runs in the home half on five singles and George Brindley’s two-out, two-run triple that would have been George’s fifth inside-the-park home run of the season if the fifth run hadn’t scored ahead of him. (See the paragraph above concerning lack of justice in a cruel world.) George, Steve Sandall, and Phil Stanch all completed perfect days at the plate with hits in this inning; Phil’s was his second perfect game of the day, as he was 3 for 3 at 10:00.
When Red failed to score in the top of the fifth, despite two more singles, the rare double-flip-flop was invoked. (At this point in the game, Red batters were 3 for 5 with two out and runners in scoring position, yet hadn’t gotten a run in. I have no good explanation for this.)
Gil Delossantos grounded back to Tommy Deleon to start the buffet, but Red managed to avoid the humiliation of being the first (and possibly only) team to be shut out this season by finally scoring a run on three consecutive singles, by Mark Dolan, Donald Drummer, and Paul Rubin. (Loud collective cheer in the visitors dugout when Paul came through.) The game ended when the next batter, Hal Darman, grounded into a 5-4-3 double play, David Pittard to Tom Brownfield to Daniel Baladez. Final score: Blue 10, Red 1
Noon, Maroon (9.5 – 3.5) at Orange (10-4):
1 2 3 4 5 BUFFET FINAL Maroon 0 0 0 5 4 7 16 Orange 2 1 0 0 4 0 7 Pitchers: Maroon – Jeff Stone; Orange – Terry Thompson. Mercenaries: Maroon – Tom Brownfield, Mark Dolan, Jack McDermott, and Mark Dolan; Blue – Jim Foelker, Anthony Galindo, and Steve Guzman. Umpires: home – Tommy Deleon and Daniel Baladez; bases – Steve Sandall. Perfect at the plate: Maroon – Jack McDermott (3 for 3) and Don Solberg (4 for 4 with a double). Dave Berra's weather update: Same as at 11:00 except three or four degrees warmer.
Okay, the first two games were just a warm-up (not that much warming was needed, or wanted, now that it was in the mid-90s) for this one, the battle for first place. Orange had the better of it in the early going, as Terry Thompson blanked Maroon over the first three innings while his teammates scratched out a 3-0 lead.
Maroon went down 1-2-3 in the top of the first, two of the outs bouncers back to the box that Terry fielded cleanly for easy outs. Orange scored twice in the bottom half: Daniel Carvajal walked with one out, David Brown singled, and then they both scored on Terry Thompson’s single to right field, David turning on the burners and racing home on the somewhat lackadaisical relay to second baseman Scott Wright.
Don Solberg led off the second with a single but was erased on Tom Kelm’s grounder to David Brown, who started a 6-4-3 double play, Steve Guzman on the pivot. Dave Corsi singled, but Daniel Carvajal speared Jack Spellman’s liner down the first-base side for the third out. Orange then pushed across a single run in the bottom half: Anthony Galindo singled with one out, Jim Foelker walked, and Anthony scored on Clint Fletcher’s base hit.
Jack McDermott and Tom Brownfield singled to open the third inning, but Terry Thompson worked out of the jam. He got Mark Dolan to ground into a 6-4 force, Jack moving to third. Ken Brown lined a ball to the right of second base, but Steve Guzman was well positioned and made the catch; Mark took off on contact and was so dead to rights that he just kept running to second while Steve threw behind him to first baseman Daniel Carvajal to double him up. Orange did not score in the bottom half. Boo Resnick and Larry Shupe knocked back-to-back singles with one out, but Jeff Stone got Steve Guzman to hit into a force and Anthony Galindo to pop out, both to shortstop.
Maroon finally broke through in the fourth inning, scoring five runs on six hits, the last four runs coming after two were out. Scott Wright led off with a single. Jeff Stone took an unhittable called strike three, a ball that just clipped the very front of the mat, great pitch by Terry Thompson. Don Solberg doubled Scott to third. Tom Kelm came up and grounded a ball to the 5-6 hole; David Brown made a good play on the ball, but Ken Brown, running from home for Tom, outran David’s long throw. (What a battle – the fastest player in the league against the strongest shortstop arm in the league.) Scott Wright took off for home when David committed to throwing to first, and he scored, while Don held at second. Don was forced a third on David Corsi’s grounder to David Brown. Jack Spellman grounded a hit through the 3-4 hole; it took a bad hop as it reached right fielder Larry Shupe, hit off his shoulder, and bounded away from him, allowing both runners to score and Spellman to wind up at third with yet another cheap-ass triple, my fourth in three weeks. Jack McDermott singled me in, I think took second on a botched throw in, and scored the fifth run on Tom Brownfield’s hit.
Now working with a two-run lead, Jeff Stone worked a scoreless bottom half. Before and after Clint Fletcher singled, Jeff got both Jim Foelker and Daniel Carvajal to fly out to Jack McDermott in left-center. David Brown lined a single to right-center field; off on contact, Clint raced for third base, and when Ken Brown’s relay came in to second, he tried to score. Shortstop Spellman took the relay, turned and heaved a throw home, and David Corsi made a great catch of it, reaching high while keeping his foot on the mat, and home umpire Daniel Baladez called Clint out. It was a very close play.
Both teams scored four times in the fifth inning. Maroon’s first five batters hit safely, four singles and a double by Ken Brown, three runs scoring. A fourth came across on Tom Kelm’s grounder to shortstop, which resulted in a 6-4 force at second. David Corsi also grounded to David Brown at shortstop, David B. turning a 6u., 6-3 double play to end the inning. (David Corsi is battling hamstring tightness; Maroon probably should have run for him.)
Orange got those runs back in the home half. Terry Thompson led off with a single and then scored from first on Marvin Krabbenhoft’s drive to left-center that gapped the outfielders but resulted in a single as he’d taken a runner from home. (So maybe Maroon shouldn’t have run for David Corsi.) Boo Resnick also singled and, after Larry Shupe popped out to third baseman Tom Brownfield, so did the next four batters – Steve Guzman, Anthony Galindo, Jim Foelker, and Clint Fletcher. But only three runs resulted (scored by Marvin’s runner, Boo, and Anthony), as Don Solberg fielded Jim Foelker’s single to left field and made a strong throw home to cut down David Brown, running for Steve, Don’s one-hop throw arriving chest high to David Corsi, clearly beating the runner to the line – best defensive play of the day, in my opinion. The inning ended with Tom Brownfield making a good play on Daniel Carvajal’s hard grounder down the third-base side – Tom knocked it down with his body, keeping the ball in front of him, recovered it, and beat Jim Foelker to the bag.
Leading by two runs entering the buffet, Maroon kept hitting. Jack Spellman led off with a sinking line drive to left-center that handcuffed Anthony Galindo and fell in safe for a double. Jack McDermott singled, Spellman holding at third (neither I nor third-base coach Dave Berra wanted to test David Brown’s arm with none out). Terry Thompson got Tom Brownfield to hit a two-strike foul for the first out. Mark Dolan doubled to right field, Spellman scoring. Jack McDermott tagged up and scored on Ken Brown’s sacrifice fly to Larry Shupe in left field, Mark advancing to third on the play. The next five batters singled, four more runs scoring, Maroon now leading 15-7. Almost everyone on the field wanted to invoke the flip-flop except for the whiny little bitch who was up next, who kept saying, trying but probably failing to keep his voice in a lower register, “Spellman wants to hit! Spellman wants to hit!” (As was pointed out afterward, Spellman played two games last Thursday, seven games at the Krieg tourney Saturday, and three games today. If anyone didn’t need to hit…) Just to shut him the F up, home plate umpire Daniel Baladez let him hit (My man!), and he popped the first pitch he saw into short right field for a cheap-ass RBI single that made it 16-7. Then the flip-flop was invoked. (By the way: thank you all; I appreciate it.)
Orange had David Brown up first in the bottom of the buffet, but Jeff Stone made a great play on David’s liner back to the box, knocking it down, grabbing it on one hop, and throwing to first for the key first out. Terry Thompson and Marvin Krabbenhoft followed with singles, but Jeff retired Boo Resnick on a fly to Anthony Galindo in left-center for the second out, and then got Larry Shupe to ground a ball to the 5-6 hole, playable and resulting in a game-ending 6-5 force. Final score: Maroon 16, Orange 7, Maroon leapfrogging Orange to take over first place for the session by half a game.
Session 3 standings:
| Session 3 | Games | Runs | Runs | Runs dif- | W/L | |||
| Wins | Losses | Win %: | behind: | for: | allowed: | ferential: | streak: | |
| Maroon | 10.5 | 4.5 | .700 | 0 | 169 | 150 | 19 | W1 |
| Orange | 10 | 5 | .667 | 0.5 | 163 | 141 | 22 | L2 |
| Gray | 8 | 6 | .571 | 2 | 169 | 135 | 34 | W1 |
| Purple | 8 | 6 | .571 | 2 | 158 | 155 | 3 | W2 |
| Green | 5.5 | 8.5 | .393 | 4.5 | 127 | 151 | -24 | L2 |
| Blue | 5 | 9 | .357 | 5 | 138 | 135 | 3 | W2 |
| Red | 4 | 12 | .250 | 7 | 162 | 219 | -57 | L2 |
| Home | Visitor | Walk-off | Extra-inning | Flip-flop | 1-run games | |||
| W-L: | W-L: | wins | W-L: | W-L: | W-L: | |||
| Maroon | 5.5-2.5 | 5-2 | 1 | 0.5-0.5 | 4-1 | 2-0 | ||
| Orange | 5-2 | 5-3 | 1 | 2-0 | 2-1 | 2-2 | ||
| Gray | 3-3 | 5-3 | 0 | 0-1 | 4-1 | 1-3 | ||
| Purple | 6-2 | 2-4 | 3 | 0-0 | 1-1 | 3-0 | ||
| Green | 2-6 | 3.5-2.5 | 1 | 0.5-0.5 | 1-4 | 1-1 | ||
| Red | 0-8 | 4-4 | 0 | 0-0 | 1-7 | 1-2 | ||
| Blue | 3-3 | 2-6 | 1 | 0-1 | 3-1 | 2-4 |
Green and Maroon tied their game of August 7; it is counted as half a win and half a loss for each team.
2025 total victories (read across) and losses (read down):
| Blue | Gray | Green | Maroon | Orange | Purple | Red | TOTAL | |
| Blue | X | 2 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 20 |
| Gray | 4 | X | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 17 |
| Green | 2 | 3 | X | 4.5 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 17.5 |
| Maroon | 3 | 4 | 4.5 | X | 4 | 4 | 3 | 22.5 |
| Orange | 3 | 5 | 2 | 2 | X | 3 | 4 | 19 |
| Purple | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | X | 4 | 19 |
| Red | 1 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | X | 14 |
| TOTAL: | 17 | 19 | 18.5 | 16.5 | 17 | 17 | 24 | 129 |
2025 season home run leaders:
David Brown – 5
Tim Coles – 5
George Brindley – 4
Tommy Gillis – 4
Bobby Miller – 4
Larry Fiorentino – 3
Anthony Galindo – 3
Mike Garrison – 3
Jack Spellman – 3
Ralph Villela – 3
Tim Bruton – 2
Doc Hobar – 2
Rex Horvath – 2
Matt Levitt – 2
Terry O’Brien – 2
George Romo – 2
Paul Rubin – 2
Pat Scott – 2
Jimmy Sneed – 2
Scott Wright – 2
Jim Aaron – 1
Peter Atkins – 1
Tom Bellavia – 1
Ken Brown – 1
Gary Coyle – 1
Donald Drummer – 1
Tony Garcia – 1
Buddy Gaswint – 1
Mike Malay – 1
Jack McDermott – 1
Ken Mockler – 1
Ray Pilgrim – 1
Jeff Stone – 1
Mike Velaney – 1
Chris Waddell – 1
Chunky Wright – 1
Hit for the cycle:
Scott Wright – June 5
Walk-off grand slam:
David Brown (inside the park) – August 4
Schedule for Thursday August 21:
10:00 a.m.: Red (4-12) at Maroon (10.5 – 4.5), Blue umpiring
11:00 a.m.: Blue (5-9) at Green (5.5 – 8.5), Maroon umpiring
Noon: Gray (8-6) at Purple (8-6), Green umpiring
Orange has the bye, with priority for its players out of the bucket.
Preview: Only three dates left in the session. Maroon can solidify its hold on first with a win at 10:00 over last-place Red, which looked bad today. An upset by Red would leave Maroon tied with Orange, which has the bye. Even if Red wins its remaining two Session 3 games, it’s a long shot for them to avoid finishing in last – one of Blue and Green will win at 11:00 Thursday, and the other will still be at least one game ahead of Red. Gray (+34 run differential for the session) and Purple (+3) are somehow both 8-6, and both need to sweep their remaining three games to have a shot at overtaking Maroon and Orange; one of them will be eliminated by dropping the noon game Thursday.
Thursday is the 114th anniversary of the theft of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa from the Louvre. Will my AI Mona Lisa McDermott ever actually resemble Lisa, much less be worthy of being boosted from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum? Only one thing is certain: Time will tell.
Keggy’s Korner:
Upcoming music to add to your schedules:
Johnny Lee and the Arctic Blues Band will be at Bar Louie at the Embassy Suites, 270 Bass Pro Drive, in Round Rock, Friday August 29 from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m.
And Boo Resnick and Hotcakes will be at Donn’s Depot, 1600 West Fifth Street in Austin, Saturday August 30 from 9:00-ish p.m. to 1:00-ish a.m.