B League Picayune
Often in error, never in doubt.
Volume 7, Issue 51 – for September 15, 2025
Department of Corrections: I wrote that Johnny Lee grounded into a 6-4 force to end Gray’s game versus Green this past Thursday, but Dave Jaffe wrote to correct me that it was he, Dave, who hit that grounder – I misread my scoresheet, and I apologize for the mistake.
Games of Monday September 15:
10:00 a.m., Maroon (2-1) at Orange (2-0):
1 2 3 4 BUFFET FINAL Maroon 5 1 2 0 4 12 Orange 5 5 2 2 X 14 Pitchers: Maroon – Tom Kelm; Orange – Ray Pilgrim. Mercenaries: Maroon – Tim Coles, Raul Deleon, Jim Foelker, Donnie Janac, Jack Spellman, and Chris Waddell; Orange – Umpires: home – Spike Davidson; bases – Larry Fiorentino and Mike Velaney. Perfect at the plate: Maroon – Ken Brown (4 for 4 with a double), Jim Foelker (3 for 3), and Jack Spellman (1 for 1 with two walks); Orange - George Brindley, Daniel Carvajal, and Marvin Krabbenhoft (all 3 for 3) and Boo Resnick (2 for 2 with a walk).
Dave Berra’s weather report: 83 degrees, felt like 88. Humidity 61%, wind from the ESE at 1 MPH. Sunny – where’s the breeze?
Both teams came out hitting in the battle for first place, scoring five runs each in the first inning. Maroon did so on six singles and Tom Kelm’s walk, while making two outs, Jim Foelker driving in the fifth run with a two-out single. Clint Fletcher and David Brown led off the home half with back-to-back doubles and the next five Orange batters singled. Four runs were in and the bases were loaded before Tom Kelm finally recorded an out, getting Larry Shupe to foul off a two-strike pitch. But George Brindley followed with a line single to center to tie the game at 5-5.
Maroon scored a single run in the top of the second on consecutive one-out singles by its 1-3 hitters. With Scott Wright on second and two out, Raul Deleon singled up the middle; Maroon manager/third-base coach Dave Berra waved Scott around third, but he was gunned down on a perfect 8-6-2 relay, Anthony Galindo to David Brown to Marvin Krabbenhoft. I thought it was a good send with two out; hat tip to Anthony and David for their strong throws, which beat Scott by not more than a half-step.
Orange then took firm control of the game by scoring five times on eight hits while making just one out for the second inning in a row, this time on seven singles and Clint Fletcher’s second double. As in the first inning, there were some playable balls, both in the air to the outfield and on the ground to the infield, that Maroon just wasn’t able to record outs on. With two outs and three runs in, Marvin Krabbenhoft, Boo Resnick, and Larry Shupe each knocked clean base hits to push the fourth and fifth runs across.
Both teams scored twice in the third, Maroon on Ken Brown’s two-out, two-run double, Orange on David Brown’s one-out, two-run single. Tom Kelm finally got some help from his defense, as third baseman Tim Coles made a good pick and throw on Clint Fletcher’s grounder to his left for the first out, Jim Foelker ran down Ray Pilgrim’s drive to left-center for the second, and second baseman Scott Wright made a good play on Peter Atkins’s hard-hit, bad-hop grounder to his backhand, throwing to second for the inning-ending force. Right fielder Larry Shupe made two good catches for Orange in the top of the inning, on a towering fly by Tim Coles to start the inning and a drive by Scott Wright to end it.
Ray Pilgrim retired Maroon in order in the top of the fourth, on three grounders: Tom Kelm grounded to shortstop David Brown, David Corsi grounded to third baseman Clint Fletcher, and Raul Deleon grounded to second baseman Boo Resnick. Orange then scored twice on four singles in the bottom of the frame, with Marvin Krabbenhoft, Boo Resnick, and George Brindley all completing perfect days at the plate.
Maroon trailed by six entering the buffet, and maybe put a little bit of a scare into Orange when its first six batters reached base, four scoring, on five singles and Jack Spellman’s second walk of the game. Jim Foelker and Ken Brown completed perfect days at the plate with their hits, Jim’s driving in two runs, Ken’s driving in Jim with the fourth. Maroon had the potential tying run on base, none out, and its 2-3-4 hitters Scott Wright, Tom Kelm, and David Corsi, due up, a pretty good situation. But Ray Pilgrim got each of those hitters to ground balls to shortstop David Brown, who converted each into force outs at second – he beat Ken to the bag for the first out, then threw to Boo Resnick on balls hit by Tom and David Corsi to end the game.
Final score: Orange 14, Maroon 12, Orange maintaining its hold on first place for the session.
Boo Resnick and Rick Kahn shag fly balls between games.
11:00 a.m., Purple (2-1) at Green (1-2):
1 2 3 4 BUFFET FINAL Purple 5 3 0 5 0 13 Green 5 2 1 4 2 14 Pitchers: Purple – Spike Davidson; Green – Chunky Wright. Mercenaries: Purple – Jack McDermott; Green – Clint Fletcher. Umpires: home – Scott Wright and Dave Berra; bases – Dave Berra and Jim Maloy. Perfect at the plate: Purple – Richard Battle (3 for 3 with a double) and Spike Davidson (3 for 3); Green – Doc Hobar, Donnie Janac, and Chris Waddell (all 3 for 3). Home run: Mike Garrison (inside the park) (5).
Weather update: 87 degrees, felt like 89. Humidity 46%, wind from the SE at 3 MPH. Sunny, very nice.
Terrific contest, best of the day. As at 10:00, both teams came out hitting, scoring five runs in the first inning. Purple did all of its scoring after two were out: Spike Davidson led off with a single, his pinch-runner advanced to second and then third on back-to-back flies to Clint Fletcher in right-center, and then the next six batters hit safely, four singles and doubles by Richard Battle and Rick Jensen. Green responded by scoring five without making an out in the home half, on six singles and Steve Browne’s double through the 5-6 hole.
Purple went ahead with three runs on five singles in the top of the second. Larry Fiorentino drove in the first run with a deep fly to right-center that Clint Fletcher got his glove on, but couldn’t hold.
Clint got a measure of payback in the home half. With runners on the corners after Billy Hill and Chunky Wright led off with singles, Clint hit a sharp grounder to shortstop that Rick Jensen couldn’t get a handle on, everyone safe and Billy’s pinch-runner scoring. Chunky tagged and took third on Ralph Villela’s drive to deep left field, caught by Richard Battle, and then scored on Greg Lloyd’s force-out grounder to Rick at shortstop – Rick beat Clint to the bag for the out at second, but Greg beat the relay to first, Chunky scoring. That cut Purples lead to 8-7.
Purple didn’t score in the third, Chunky Wright working around Henry Flores’s two-out single, and Green tied the game with a single run on three singles in the bottom of the frame.
Purple went back ahead with five runs in the top of the fourth, on three singles and three doubles, the two-baggers by Jack McDermott leading off, Larry Fiorentino to drive in Jack with the first run, and Tim Coles to drive in Spike Davidson’s runner and Larry with the second and third. Tim’s hit, a drive to right field, came after he refused a walk, and he then scored on Richard Battle’s base hit up the middle; Richard tried for a double on the play, but was thrown out 8-6-4, an excellent relay from Steve Browne to Ralph Villela to Doc Hobar for the second out of the inning. Purple still got the fifth run across, however, as Matt Levitt singled through the 5-6 hole and then scored from first on Mark Hernandez’s base hit to center field.
Orange got four runs back in the bottom of the fourth. Clint Fletcher led off with a single. Spike Davidson got Ralph Villela to hit a two-strike foul for the first out – I don’t recall ever seeing Ralph strike out before. Greg Lloyd singled Clint to second. Mike Garrison then stepped up and absolutely crushed a ball on a line to left-center, the ball gapping the outfielders and rolling to the fence. Running hard from the get-go, Mike circled the bases, nearly catching up to Greg, for a three-run inside-the-park home run, his fifth of the season, tying him for the league lead. Here’s a picture of Mike’s swing, with the Spanish conquistador García López de Cárdenas, leader of the first European expedition to the Grand Canyon, where they inexplicably encountered a Pluckers coupon billboard, looking on.
An even more ridiculous video rendering is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Doc Hobar and Chris Waddell followed Mike with singles, each completing 3-for-3 games. Larry Fiorentino caught Steve Browne’s liner to right-center for the second out. Donnie Janac singled, completing his own 3-for-3 game, and that loaded the bases, except Doc caught Purple napping when the ball came into the infield, and took off for home and scored. That proved an important run: Billy Hill’s ground-ball force out ended the inning, and Green trailed by just one run entering the buffet.
Purple did not score in the top half of the buffet. Chunky Wright got Rick Jensen to fly out to Donnie Janac to start the inning, then made a good play on Henry Flores’s comeback grounder to the box, throwing Henry out for the second out. Larry Young knocked a ball to the right side that Doc Hobar got a glove on, but couldn’t corral, the ball going into right field for a single. But Chunky got Jack McDermott to ground into an inning-ending 6-4 force.
So Green came up needing one to tie and two to win. Chunky Wright led off with a single. Clint Fletcher flied to Larry Fiorentino in right-center field, deep enough for Chunky to be able to tag up and advance to second. Ralph Villela stepped up and lined a pitch over the head of shortstop Rick Jensen and into left-center for a single, Chunky scoring the tying run. Here’s the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Greg Lloyd was next. He grounded a ball to Rick, who tossed to Larry Young covering second, but Larry was a little late to the bag, and Ralph beat him to the line, as seen in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
I’ve watched this a bunch of times, and I’m certain umpire Jim Maloy got the call right. I don’t know that if Rick had tried to make the play himself, he would have beaten Ralph to the bag – would have been close, but Ralph’s very fast and was pretty much off on contact.
Mike Garrison was next up. He popped a ball to short right-center, between right fielder Jack McDermott and right-center fielder Larry Fiorentino. Jack got a good jump on the ball and came from a ways away, but it didn’t hang up long enough for him to reach it, dropping in for a hit. When he saw it fall in, Ralph took off for home. Greg Lloyd was slow heading for second, and only just managed to avoid making contact with Larry Young as Larry took Larry Fiorentino’s thow in. Larry Young turned and threw the ball home, but had no chance of catching Ralph, who crossed the line with the winning run. Here’s the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Final score: Green 14, Purple 13
Exchange of the Day, prior to the noon game:
Scott Wright, a bucket selection, to Red manager Donald Drummer: “Am I pitching?”
Donald Drummer: “You want to push Tommy [Deleon] off the mound?”
Scott: “Tommy who?”
Noon, Gray (0-2) at Red (1-1):
1 2 3 4 BUFFET FINAL Gray 1 5 3 3 X 12 Red 1 1 1 0 7 10 Pitchers: Gray – Jack Kelly; Red – Tommy Deleon. Mercenaries: Gray – Ralph Villela; Red – Tommy Deleon, Alvin Gauna, and Scott Wright. Umpires: home – Chunky Wright; bases – Mike Garrison. Perfect at the plate: Gray – Jack Crosley (3 for 3 with a double), Tommy Gillis (3 for 3 with a triple), and Ralph Villela (2 for 2 with two doubles); Red – Anthony Galindo (3 for 3 with a home run), Jim McAnelly (2 for 2 with a walk), and Scott Wright (3 for 3 with a double). Home run: Anthony Galindo (inside the park) (4).
Dave Berra’s weather update: 91 degrees, felt like 94. Humidity 40%, wind from the SE at 5 MPH. Fair – Indian Summer!
Not going to sugarcoat it, Red did not play well, and the 12-10 final score is less indicative of how the game felt than is the fact that we trailed by nine entering the buffet and flip-flopped for that inning. It didn’t help that Red was missing some tournament-bound and injured players. And, bigger issue, Gray just outplayed us.
Both teams scored a single run in the first inning. Gray’s first three hitters singled, Jack Crosley coming around to score on hits by Tommy Gillis and Adam Reddell. But Tommy Deleon worked out of the jam, getting Johnny Lee to ground into a 6u., 6-3 double play and Morgan Witthoft to ground out 6-3, first baseman Don Williams making a good play to catch Jack Spellman’s somewhat errant throw and make a sweep tag of Morgan as he passed by.
Jack Kelly retired Red’s first two hitters, then Anthony Galindo came up and ripped a drive to center field, maybe a bit right of center, and circled the bases with his fourth home run of the season. Here’s a highly accurate rendering of it:
(Did I write “highly accurate”? It took a dozen iterations to get to this point, with Anthony batting left-handed and his feet a mess and the AI continuing to ignore my direction to make his face look like his face. Crikey. I’m happy with the mimes, though.)
Gray grabbed control of the game over the next three innings, putting up crooked numbers in the top of each frame while holding Red to single runs in the bottom of the second and third, and nothing at all in the fourth. In the second Gray scored five times on Hal Darman’s lead-off walk, four singles, Ralph Villela’s double, and Dave Jaffe’s sacrifice fly to left fielder Jack McDermott, the only out Red recorded. Red’s run came on three singles in the bottom half.
In each of the third and fourth innings, Gray scored three times on four hits – all singles in the third, lead-off back-to-back doubles by Ralph Villela and Jack Crosley followed by Tommy Gillis’s triple and Morgan Witthoft’s two-out RBI single in the fourth. Red scored a single run in the bottom of the third when Jack Spellman doubled leading off and scored on Anthony Galindo’s single up the middle. Mike Malay then made a good play on Don Williams’s grounder to second, starting a 4-6-3 double play, Ralph Villela on the pivot, and the inning ended with Dale Fugate lining out to Ralph.
Jack Kelly hurled a scoreless bottom of the fourth. After Jim McAnelly drew a lead-off walk, Jack got the next three batters to hit ground balls, resulting in force outs at second on balls hit by Donald Drummer and Tommy Deleon. Scott Wright’s grounder to second looked like another out in the making, but Mike Malay’s throw wasn’t catchable, and everyone was safe. Didn’t matter, though, as Jack got Alvin Gauna to hit a two-strike foul to end the inning.
With Gray leading by nine, the teams flip-flopped for the buffet. Red finally started hitting, ten of its first 11 batters reaching base, on eight singles, Jack Spellman’s walk, and Scott Wright’s double. Unfortunately, we had a base-running gaffe cost us an out: running from home for Don Williams, who singled, Jack McDermott was called out when he advanced to second on an overthrow. (As Scott Wright explained to everyone on the bench, it was an understandable mistake because Jack is so new to the league and its arcane running rules.) The second out came on Tommy Deleon’s grounder to second baseman Mike Malay, resulting in a 4-6 force. Scott followed with his double, which drove in two runs, asnd then scored on Alvin Gauna’s single. Jack McDermott ripped his second hit of the inning, putting the tying run on base. But the game ended when Jack Kelly got Jack Spellman to hit a fly to short right field, caught by Jack Crosley for the final out.
Final score: Gray 12, Red 10
Session 4 standings:
| Session 4 | Games | Runs | Runs | Runs dif- | W/L | |||
| Wins | Losses | Win %: | behind: | for: | allowed: | ferential: | streak: | |
| Orange | 3 | 0 | 1.000 | 0 | 47 | 32 | 15 | W3 |
| Purple | 2 | 2 | .500 | 1.5 | 45 | 44 | 1 | L2 |
| Maroon | 2 | 2 | .500 | 1.5 | 40 | 40 | 0 | L1 |
| Green | 2 | 2 | .500 | 1.5 | 43 | 46 | -3 | W2 |
| Red | 1 | 2 | .333 | 2 | 32 | 32 | 0 | L1 |
| Blue | 1 | 2 | .333 | 2 | 33 | 39 | -6 | L1 |
| Gray | 1 | 2 | .333 | 2 | 30 | 37 | -7 | W1 |
| Home | Visitor | Walk-off | Extra-inning | Flip-flop | 1-run games | |||
| W-L: | W-L: | wins | W-L: | W-L: | W-L: | |||
| Orange | 1-0 | 2-0 | 0 | 0-0 | 1-0 | 0-0 | ||
| Purple | 1-1 | 1-1 | 0 | 0-0 | 1-1 | 0-1 | ||
| Maroon | 2-0 | 0-2 | 0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | ||
| Green | 1-1 | 1-1 | 1 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 2-0 | ||
| Red | 1-1 | 0-1 | 0 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 0-0 | ||
| Blue | 0-1 | 1-1 | 0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | ||
| Gray | 0-2 | 1-0 | 0 | 0-0 | 1-1 | 0-1 |
2025 total victories (read across) and losses (read down):
| Blue | Gray | Green | Maroon | Orange | Purple | Red | TOTAL | |
| Blue | X | 2 | 6 | 2 | 3.5 | 3 | 5 | 21.5 |
| Gray | 4 | X | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 19 |
| Green | 3 | 5 | X | 3.5 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 20.5 |
| Maroon | 4 | 4 | 5.5 | X | 4 | 4 | 3 | 24.5 |
| Orange | 4.5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | X | 4 | 4 | 23.5 |
| Purple | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | X | 6 | 22 |
| Red | 1 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 2 | X | 16 |
| TOTAL: | 20.5 | 22 | 21.5 | 18.5 | 17.5 | 20 | 27 | 147 |
Green and Maroon tied their game of August 7; Orange and Blue tied their game of August 28; these are counted as half a win and half a loss for each team.
2025 season home run leaders:
David Brown – 5
Tim Coles – 5
Mike Garrison – 5
Bobby Miller – 5
Ralph Villela – 5
George Brindley – 4
Anthony Galindo – 4
Tommy Gillis – 4
Larry Fiorentino – 3
Jack Spellman – 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 September 18:
10:30 a.m.: Orange (3-0) at Red (1-2), Blue umpiring
11:30 a.m.: Blue (1-2) at Gray (1-2), Orange umpiring
12:30 p.m.: Maroon (2-2) at Purple (2-2), Gray umpiring
Green has the bye, with priority for its players out of the bucket.
Preview: We return on Thursday to 10:30/11:30/12:30 start times. Reminder that Anthony Galindo has passed on a request from PARD that we not park in spaces near K2 that are designated for city employees. The Orange juggernaut takes on the Red not-a-juggernaut at 10:30. The rest of the league needs Red to step up and end Orange’s three-game winning streak. The games at 11:30 (Civil War participants Blue and Gray, both 1-2) and 12:30 (spectrum-mates Maroon and Purple, both 2-2) should be very competitive. Already players are leaving for the Las Vegas tourneys, so mercenaries probably will have an outsized effect on the day’s games. Peter Sundquist returns to B League action on Thursday, joining Red team. Will he be delighted at being mentioned in the “Time will tell” note? Only one thing is certain: Time will tell.
Keggy’s Korner:
Vacation highlight: Waiting at Austin-Bergstrom to board the flight to Logan, hearing a guy tell a woman who we knew from her accent was from Worcester (“Wuss-tah”) before she said so that he was from the North Shore. “What town?” asked Wuss-tah. “Saugus.” No, my dude. No.
Sorry this is a bit late being delivered. It took me an ungodly number of tries to get the AI to show Anthony batting right-handed instead of left-handed. I just gave up.