B League Picayune
Often in error, never in doubt.
Volume 7, Issue 18 – May 5, 2025
Weather report: 73 with 64% humidity at the start of the 10:30 game, overcast, wind from the east-southeast at 11 MPH. It started raining in the bottom of the fourth inning of the first game, really started coming down during the top of the fifth, and play was (wisely) cancelled.
Game of Monday May 5:
10:30 a.m., Purple (6-2) at Gray (2-6):
1 2 3 4 5 FINAL Purple 5 5 1 0 (1) -- Gray 3 5 0 5 (-) 11 Pitchers: Purple – Spike Davidson; Gray – Jack Kelly. Mercenaries: Purple – George Brindley, Jim Foelker, Anthony Galindo, Jim Maloy, and Scott Wright; Gray – Donnie Janac, Ray Pilgrim, and Jack Spellman. Umpires: home – Tommy Deleon; bases – Dave Berra. Perfect at the plate: Purple – Anthony Galindo (3 for 3) and Rex Horvath (3 for 3 with two doubles); Gray – Tommy Gillis (3 for 3 with a triple), Donnie Janac (2 for 2), Ray Pilgrim (2 for 2 with a home run), Adam Reddell and Morgan Witthoft (both 3 for 3 with a double), and George Romo (3 for 3 with two doubles). Home runs: Matt Levitt (inside the park) (1) and Ray Pilgrim (over the fence) (1).
This was a terrific game. Purple seemed unstoppable early on, scoring five runs on six hits in both the first and second innings, in the first not making an out. Matt Levitt led off the game by lining a base hit to left field that skipped past Donnie Janac and rolled to the fence, Matt racing around the bases for an inside-the-park home run, his first of the season. The next two batters singled, Rex Horvath doubled them both in, Rick Jensen walked, and Anthony Galindo and George Brindley followed with run-scoring singles.
Daniel Baladez does the honors, presenting Matt Levitt with a Pluckers coupon for Matt’s game-opening inside-the-parker.
Quote of the Day: Hal Darman to Donnie Janac: “I think you deserve half of Matt’s Plucker’s coupon.”
Gray got three back in the bottom of the first on Tommy Gillis’s one-out single and three consecutive RBI doubles, by George Romo, Adam Reddell, and Morgan Witthoft. The inning ended with a double play: Hal Darman grounded to third baseman Rex Horvath, who made a strong cross-diamond throw to put out Hal; Morgan broke for third and was thrown out there by first baseman Jim Foelker, a strong return throw, for a 5-3-5 twin killing.
Purple’s first five batters singled to open the second inning, three runs scoring. Larry Fiorentino was the first Purple hitter to make an out, flying out to Morgan Witthoft in right field. Rex Horvath then drove a double to left-center to bring in the fourth and fifth runs.
Gray matched that in the bottom half. With one out Jack Spellman tripled to center, Donnie Janac singled him in, and Ray Pilgrim crushed a two-run home run to left-center. That turned over the lineup: Paul Rubin singled, Tommy Gillis tripled Paul in, and George Romo lined a single to bring in Tommy with the fifth run.
Gray’s Morgan Witthoft presents Ray Pilgrim with a Pluckers coupon following Ray’s over-the-fence two-run homer in the bottom of the second.
Purple got three hits to start the third inning, a double by Rick Jensen and singles by Anthony Galindo and George Brindley. One of those must have been an infield hit of some kind, because Rick didn’t score – the bases were loaded with one out. To that point, Purple batters were a combined 15 for 16 with a walk, 21 total bases, for a .938 batting average, a .941 on-base percentage, and a 1.313 slugging percentage, and seemed unstoppable. But somehow Jack Kelly turned off the spigot. He got Scott Wright on a pop into short left field that George Romo made a good play to run down. Jim Maloy grounded to second base, George Brindley forced out at second. And Jim Foelker flied out to left field.
Gray could have taken the lead, but did not. Adam Reddell and Morgan Withhoft led off with singles, but Spike Davidson retired the next three batters – Hal Darman on a foul pop caught by catcher Jim Maloy; Jack Kelly on an infield fly to shortstop; and Jack Spellman, swinging late and fouling off a hittable two-strike pitch.
Jack Kelly then retired Purple’s 1-3 hitters, Matt Levitt, Spike Davidson, and Larry Fiorentino, on three pitches, getting Matt to ground out to shortstop George Romo, Ray Pilgrim making an outstanding play on the necessarily hurried throw in the dirt, and Spike and Larry on flies to Tommy Gillis in left-center.
Gray then grabbed the lead with five runs on seven consecutive hits in the bottom half, six singles and George Romo’s double, six of those batters – George, Donnie Janac, Ray Pilgrim, Paul Rubin, Tommy Gillis, Adam Reddell, and Morgan Withhoft – completing perfect days at the plate. After Donnie led off with a single, Ray hit what looked like a double-play grounder to shortstop, but Rick Jensen threw past second baseman Scott Wright into right field, Donnie scoring from first on the play.
As the top half of the fourth ended, with Gray leading 13-11, rain started falling – lightly at first, then increasingly heavily as Purple batted in the home half. Rex Horvath led off with a single, completing a 3-for-3 game. Rick Jensen flied out to Donnie Janac, now in right field. Anthony Galindo singled, also completing a 3-for-3 outing. George Brindley hit an infield pop, just behind the mound, that was called an infield fly – the runners held even though it fell to the ground uncaught, for out number two. Scott Wright skied a pop to short right field, catchable by the second baseman, but Jack Spellman muffed it; I could have thrown Scott out at first, but I didn’t see that he was running poorly, and instead I threw to second, too late to get Anthony. Jim Maloy came up and with his first swing hit a short pop straight up, about a foot in back of the home mat; catcher Hal Darman got his glove on it, but the ball spun out and fell to the ground, giving Jim a second chance. He made the most of it, knocking a single that scored Rex, cutting Gray’s lead to 13-12.
And then the heavens absolutely opened up, a torrential downfall precluding any thought of continuing. Home plate umpire Tommy Deleon waved the players in. League president Anthony Galindo subsequently consulted the SSUSA rulebook:
[Per] SSUSA rules: The game must be at least 4 and a half innings with the home team leading. But Purple was still batting in the top of the fifth, so regulation was not completed.
Thanks to the pops dropped by Spellman and Darman, Gray was unable to complete the final inning and the game does not count in the standings. There’s a moral in here about vernal ponds, Henry David Thoreau, and New England Transcendentalism, but I’m not sure what it is.
Session 2 standings:
| Session 2 | Games | Runs | Runs | Run dif- | W/L | |||
| Wins | Losses | Win %: | behind: | for: | allowed: | ferential: | streak: | |
| Blue | 6 | 1 | .857 | 0 | 91 | 61 | 30 | W2 |
| Purple | 6 | 2 | .750 | 0.5 | 94 | 88 | 6 | L1 |
| Maroon | 5 | 3 | .625 | 2 | 103 | 88 | 15 | W2 |
| Orange | 4 | 4 | .500 | 2.5 | 88 | 88 | 0 | L2 |
| Green | 2 | 5 | .286 | 4 | 92 | 99 | -7 | W1 |
| Red | 2 | 6 | .250 | 4.5 | 92 | 108 | -16 | W1 |
| Gray | 2 | 6 | .250 | 4.5 | 85 | 113 | -28 | L2 |
| Home | Visitor | Walk-off | Extra-inning | Flip-flop | 1-run games | |||
| W-L: | W-L: | wins: | wins: | W-L: | W-L: | |||
| Blue | 3-0 | 3-1 | 0 | 0-0 | 3-0 | 0-0 | ||
| Purple | 2-2 | 4-0 | 0 | 0-0 | 1-2 | 0-0 | ||
| Maroon | 2-1 | 3-2 | 2 | 0-0 | 2-0 | 2-1 | ||
| Orange | 2-2 | 2-2 | 0 | 0-0 | 2-2 | 1-0 | ||
| Green | 1-3 | 1-2 | 1 | 0-0 | 1-1 | 1-1 | ||
| Red | 1-4 | 1-2 | 0 | 0-0 | 1-3 | 0-1 | ||
| Gray | 1-3 | 1-3 | 1 | 0-0 | 1-3 | 1-2 |
2025 total victories (read across) and losses (read down):
| Blue | Gray | Green | Maroon | Orange | Purple | Red | TOTAL | |
| Blue | X | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 10 |
| Gray | 1 | X | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| Green | 0 | 2 | X | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 5 |
| Maroon | 1 | 3 | 2 | X | 1 | 2 | 1 | 10 |
| Orange | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | X | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| Purple | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | X | 2 | 10 |
| Red | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 | X | 6 |
| TOTAL: | 4 | 9 | 9 | 5 | 10 | 5 | 9 | 51 |
2025 season home run leaders:
Bobby Miller – 4
George Brindley – 3
Tim Coles – 3
Anthony Galindo – 3
Tommy Gillis – 3
Tim Bruton – 2
Larry Fiorentino – 2
Rex Horvath – 2
Pat Scott – 2
Peter Atkins – 1
Tom Bellavia – 1
David Brown – 1
Donald Drummer – 1
Tony Garcia – 1
Mike Garrison – 1
Doc Hobar – 1
Matt Levitt – 1
Mike Malay – 1
Terry O’Brien – 1
Ray Pilgrim – 1
Jimmy Sneed – 1
Jack Spellman – 1
Jeff Stone – 1
Mike Velaney – 1
Chris Waddell – 1
Chunky Wright – 1
Schedule for Thursday May 8:
10:30 a.m.: Maroon (5-3) at Red (2-6), Gray umpiring
11:30 a.m.: Gray (2-6) at Orange (4-4), Red umpiring
12:30 p.m.: Blue (6-1) at Green (2-5), Orange umpiring
Purple has the bye, with priority for its players out of the bucket.
Preview: All Purple has the bye, which means Blue can solidify its hold on first place with a win at 12:30 over Green. Gray came oh so close to posting a win today; they’ll try again at 11:30 against Orange, another team that is looking to end a two-game losing streak. One of Maroon and Red will extend its modest winning streak at 10:30. All this is assuming the fields will be dry enough for us to play Thursday morning. Will my optimism prove warranted? Only time will tell.
Keggy’s Korner:
Dave Berra still has the bottle of prescription nitroglycerin pills left behind this past Thursday – let him know if they’re yours.
To fill out this truncated edition, here are pictures from Saturday of Johnny Lee and the Arctic Blues Band playing at the Lighthouse on the Lake this past Saturday night:
Johnny Lee (far right) and the Arctic Blues Band.
Johnny Lee shredding.
Johnny Lee with the B League contingent: from left to right, Mrs. Keggy, (partially obscured) Lisa McDermott, Johnny Lee, Anita Kelly in the foreground, Kim and Scott Wright, George and Dawn
Brindley.
When this gentleman got up and started dancing, we all thought Larry Shupe had snuck in.
Three Jacks – Kelly, McDermott, and Spellman.