B League Picayune
Often in error, never in doubt.
Volume 5, Issue 19 – May 15, 2023
Weather: Weekend rains having left the Krieg fields soaked and the infields mucky, we were moved from 3 to 2 … to 6 … and finally to 11, which was the least bad of them all, though the infield was still very soft, especially during the first game. We made do. Temperature was 80 degrees when I checked at the start of the second game, with 70% humidity (seemed worse than that, but I’m a wuss in these matters), partly cloudy. During the third game it got fully cloudy, and we heard some thunder to the east, but we managed to get all three games in. A few raindrops fell as we left the field at 2:00.
Krieg field 11 being prepared for the first game. Start time was pushed back a bit as the PARD folks prepped the field for us.
Games of Monday May 15:
10:30-ish a.m., Red (5-4) at Blue (5-4):
1 2 3 4 5 BUFFET FINAL Red 0 0 0 0 3 1 4 Blue 2 5 5 0 X X 12 Pitchers: Rred – Jack Kelly; Blue – Jeff Stone. Mercenaries: Blue – Jack Spellman, Jeff Stone, Peter Sundquist, and Scott Wright. Umpires: home plate – Jeff Broussard and Mike Velaney; bases – Tim Balke and Mike Hill. Perfect at the plate: Red – Paul Rubin (3 for 3); Blue – Anthony Galindo and Bobby Miller (each 3 for 3), Jack Spellman and Jeff Stone (each 2 for 2 with a double), and Peter Sundquist and Scott Wright (each 2 for 2).
With pitchers Spike Davidson and Gary Bowles both absent, Blue picked up Jeff Stone, who continued his recent run of excellent hurling, shutting out Red over the first four innings. Terry Thompson and Paul Rubin led off the game with singles, but Jeff got out of the jam, getting George Brindley to ground back to the box for a force at third, and Ken Mockler and David Ferley to line out to second baseman Larry Fiorentino and first baseman Scott Wright. Red was unable to get a runner past first base in the second and third innings, managing one single in each frame. In the fourth, one-out singles by David Ferley, Daniel Baladez, and Donald Drummer loaded the bases, but shortstop Jack Spellman ran down Sam Baker’s pop behind third base, fielded it on the bounce (more like a plop), and threw home to force David, who’d had to hold up to see if the ball would be caught. Peter Sundquist then caught Hal Darman’s line drive to left field for the third out.
Meanwhile, Blue scored in each of its first three at bats, building a 12-0 lead: Two runs on three singles in the bottom of the first, then five runs in both the second (six consecutive hits, no outs) and third (seven hits, only only out recorded).
After keeping Blue from scoring in the fourth, Red finally got on the board in the top of the fifth, scoring two runs as the first four batters singled, a third coming across on a 4-6-3 double play off the bat of Ken Mockler, a hard-hit ball to second baseman Larry Fiorentino. With Blue leading 12-3, the teams agreed to a double flip-flop. Daniel Baladez and Donald Drummer singled and Sam Baker walked to open the buffet, but Hal Darman’s hard one-hopper to shortstop resulted in a 6-4-3 double play, Daniel scoring what proved to be the final run of the game. Jack Kelly then hit sharply to shortstop for a game-ending 6-3. Final score: Blue 12, Red 4, Blue winning as the home team for the first time this session.
11:30 a.m., Green (4-6) at Purple (3.5-5.5):
1 2 3 4 BUFFET FINAL Green 5 5 0 4 X 14 Purple 3 2 1 0 1 7 Pitchers: Green – Chunky Wright; Purple – Tommy Deleon. Floater: Carl Gallagher played for Green. Mercenaries: Green – Larry Fiorentino, Jim Maloy, and Scott Wright; Purple – Peter Sundquist. Umpires: home plate – Anthony Galindo; bases – Eddy Murillo. Perfect at the plate: Green – Jeff Broussard, Jim Maloy, and Chunky Wright (each 3 for 3), Larry Fiorentino and Boo Resnick (each 2 for 2 with a walk), and Carl Gallagher (3 for 3 with a double); Purple – Larry Bunton and Mike Mordecai (each 3 for 3).
Green broke on top with five runs in each of the first two innings, on a barrage of hits: eight singles in the first, five singles, Mike Hill’s double, and a walk to Larry Fiorentino in the second. Purple kept it fairly close, scoring three times in the bottom of the first (the first three batters, Doc Hobar, Jack Crosley, and Don Solberg, each singled and scored, Doc on Don’s hit, Jack and Don on Mike Mordecai’s two-out single to right field), and twice in the second (on four singles, the inning ending with Carl Gallagher in left-center robbing Jim Aaron of a two-run extra-base hit with a terrific over-the-shoulder catch, one of the two best defensive plays of the day).
Tommy Deleon kept Green from scoring in the top of the third thanks to strong infield defense. Jim Maloy led off with a single, but was forced at second when first baseman Adam Reddell made a terrific play on Scott Wright’s hard shot to Adam’s right. Singles by Larry Fiorentino and Mike Hill loaded the bases, but third baseman Larry Bunton turned an excellent double play to snuff the rally, fielding Donnie Janac’s hard grounder cleanly, stepping on third for the force there, and throwing to catcher Billy Hill for the force at home, Billy making an excellent snag of the low throw.
Purple then scored a run on three singles in the bottom of the third, cutting Green’s lead to 10-7, seemingly making a game of it. But it was not to be. Green scored four times in the top of the fourth, all after Jim Aaron turned a 6u., 6-3 double play on Reed Durant’s grounder up the middle following singles by Chunky Wright and Jeff Broussard to start the frame. Boo Resnick drew a walk, Carl Gallagher doubled in Chunky (Boo to third), and Jim Maloy, Scott Wright, and Larry Fiorentino each singled, Boo, Carl, and Jim scoring. When Purple went out 1-2-3 in the bottom half on balls in the air (fly to left-center, pop to first, fly to right), the teams agreed to flip-flop for the buffet.
Jim Aaron led off with a double to deep center field, took third on Adam Reddell’s single to left-center, and scored on Mike Mordecai’s single to right. But that was the only run Purple managed. Tommy Deleon grounded to second, Mike forced out while Adam held. Adam couldn’t advance on Larry Bunton’s pop fly single to short left field, which loaded the bases. Billy Hill took a tough called strike three for the second out. Peter Sundquist grounded to third baseman Scott Wright, who tagged the base for the force there, ending the game. Final score: Green 14, Purple 7
Stan Fisher is on the disabled list, waylaid by Dupuytren’s contracture, an abnormal thickening of fascia, a layer of tissue under the skin in the palm of his right hand at the base of the fingers, which is preventing Stan from throwing. It sucks.
12:30 p.m., Maroon (6-3) at Gold (6-3):
1 2 3 4 BUFFET FINAL Maroon 3 0 1 1 1 6 Gold 4 0 1 0 0 5 Pitchers: Maroon – Chunky Wright; Gold – Jeff Stone. Umpires: home plate – Jack Crosley; bases – Larry Bunton. Mercenaries: Maroon – George Brindley and Chunky Wright. Perfect at the plate: Maroon – Tom Kelm (3 for 3); Gold – Joe Roche (3 for 3 with a double).
The battle for first place turned out to be a tremendous pitchers duel. The teams combined to score seven on the game’s 11 runs in the first inning, Maroon scoring three times on six singles in the top half, Gold putting across four on three singles (by Tim Bruton, Jack Spellman (dinky pop in front of home plate), and Jack McDermott), a double by Joe Roche, a sacrifice fly by Jeff Stone, and a double by Mike Garrison. After that, runs and hits were hard to come by.
Maroon managed ten more hits over the final four innings, and scratched out single runs in the third (on four singles, leaving the bases loaded) and fourth (Peter Atkins doubled in Peter Sundquist, who’d drawn a lead-off walk and advanced on Scott Wright’s ground out to first baseman Larry Young; the inning ended with second baseman Rip Wright snagging David Ferley’s liner to Rip’s backhand, a terrific play). Gold got only eight hits over the final four innings, and scored just one run, on four singles in the bottom of the third (leaving the bases loaded).
The game was tied 5-5 entering the buffet. Tom Kelm and Larry Shupe singled to start the inning. Jeff Stone made a good play on Marvin Krabbenhoft’s hard grounder back to the mound and threw to third baseman Joe Roche for the force there. George Brindley singled to right field, but with outfielders playing close in due to the in-blowing wind, Larry Shupe had to hold up at third base. Chunky Wright came up with the bases loaded and knocked a hard grounder back to the box – Jeff Stone knocked it down, but his only play was to third for the force there, Larry scoring the go-ahead run. A single by Peter Sundquist re-loaded the bases, but Jeff got Scott Wright on a pop to Rip Wright at second for the third out.
Gold came up needing one to tie, two to win, confident we could do this, the more so when Joe Roche led off with a single to right field. Jeff Stone followed with a grounder to shortstop George Brindley, who threw to second for the force. James Chavana was next, and he hit a hard grounder up the middle, but he was robbed of a hit by second baseman Mike Velaney, who dove to his backhand side to catch the ball, then scrambled on all fours to tag second base with his glove before Jeff could get there – the other great defensive play of the day. That was out number two, and was a back-breaker. Mike Garrison came up and hit a pop between third and shortstop that Scott Wright gathered in for the final out. Final score: Maroon 6, Gold 5, Maroon taking sole control of first place for the session.
Standings – Session Two:
Games Runs Runs Run W/L
W L Win %: behind: for: allowed: differential: streak:
Maroon 7 3 .700 — 114 95 +19 W3
Gold 6 4 .600 1 116 99 +17 L1
Blue 5.5 5.5 .500 2 140 139 + 1 W1
Red 5 5 .500 2 110 120 -10 L1
Green 5 6 .455 2.5 118 132 -14 W1
Gray 4 6 .400 3 123 114 + 9 L3
Purple 3.5 6.5 .350 3.5 102 124 -22 L1
Home Visitor Walk-off Extra-inning Flip-flop 1-run games
W-L: W-L: Wins: W-L: W-L: W-L:
Maroon 3-1 4-2 1 0-0 2-1 2-1
Gold 3-2 3-2 2 2-0 2-0 3-2
Blue 1.5-4.5 4-1 0 1.5-0.5 2-2 0-1
Red 3-2 2-3 1 0-0 2-2 1-1
Green 2-4 3-2 1 0-1 2-3 1-0
Gray 1-3 3-3 1 0-2 2-2 1-2
Purple 2-4 1.5-2.5 0 0.5-0.5 0-2 0-1
[Purple and Blue tied their game of May 11; it is counted as half a win and half a loss in the standings.]
2023 total victories (read across) and losses (read down):
Blue Gold Gray Green Maroon Purple Red TOTAL
Blue X 2 2 1 0 2.5 1 8.5
Gold 1 X 1 3 1 0 1 7
Gray 1 1 X 1 1 0 2 6
Green 1 0 1 X 0 3 3 8
Maroon 1 2 1 3 X 2 0 9
Purple 0.5 1 2 0 1 X 1 5.5
Red 2 1 1 0 2 1 X 7
____________________________________________________________________
TOTAL: 6.5 7 8 8 5 8.5 8 51
Schedule for Monday May 15:
10:30 a.m.: Green (5-6) at Red (5-5), Blue umpiring
11:30 a.m.: Blue (5.5 – 5.5) at Gray (4-6), Red umpiring
12:30 p.m.: Purple (3.5 – 6.5) at Maroon (7-3), Gray umpiring
Gold has the bye – players from that team will have priority out of the bucket.
Preview: The “middle four” teams – all at .500 or a game or two under – dog fight at 10:30 and 11:30, trying to stay close to Maroon, which leads the league and faces last-place Purple at 12:30.
Keggy’s Korner:
Keggy and Mrs. K will be out of town this coming Thursday and Monday – taking a mini-vacation to Kansas City to eat barbecue and visit the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. I’ll try to post brief recaps of those days’ action.