B League Picayune
Often in error, never in doubt.
Volume 7, Issue 10 – April 3, 2025
Roster notes: Joe Dayoc has been transferred to Blue team (got a good NIL deal, I hope), and new player Steve Hamlett assigned to Maroon team.
Weather report: Not to get too whiny about it, but, gah, wicked humid today. It was 81 degrees and cloudy with 74% humidity at the start of the 11:30 game, no wind to speak of. Temperature rose through the 80s, making for a sticky time of it. The heat wasn’t unreasonable, though, so overall pretty good playing conditions.
Games of Thursday April 3:
10:30 a.m., Red (0-1) at Purple (1-0):
1 2 3 4 5 BUFFET FINAL Red 3 3 4 0 3 5 18 Purple 0 3 0 1 5 1 10 Pitchers: Red – Joe Bernal; Purple – Spike Davidson. Mercenaries: Red – Donnie Janac, Bobby Miller, and Scott Wright. Umpires: home – David Brown; bases – Marvin Krabbenhoft and Larry Shupe. Perfect at the plate: Red – Joe Bernal (5 for 5) and Anthony Galindo (5 for 5 with two doubles and a triple); Purple – Richard Battle (3 for 3). Home runs: Rex Horvath (over the fence) (2), Mike Velaney (inside the park) (1), and (Pat Scott (inside the park) (1).
Red won the old-fashioned way, just as Peter of Castille and John of Gaunt, both flying red banners, defeated Henry of Castile at the Battle of Navarrette in 1367 (has it only been 658 years?), with good pitching and timely hitting (not a small number of their hits Texas League bloops), and for a change not giving away too many outs on defense. After Red scored three times on six singles and Donald Drummer’s sacrifice fly in the top of the first, Joe Bernal retired the side in order in the bottom half, third baseman Gary Coyle making a terrific grab of Matt Levitt’s liner to his backhand, denying Matt an extra-base hit.
In the second Red put up another three runs, on five consecutive one-out singles. Purple got on the board with two home runs in the bottom half: Rex Horvath led off with a drive over the fence in left-center, his second home run of the season; then, following Richard Battle’s one-out single, Mike Velaney legged out a two-run inside-the-parker to right field, his first round-tripper of 2025.
Red kept scoring in the third, four runs on four singles and Anthony Galindo’s double, and kept Purple from scoring in the home half. Joe Bernal got two outs to start the inning, walked Matt Levitt and Pat Scott, but got Larry Fiorentino to line out to right fielder Donny Janac.
Spike Davidson retired Red in order in the top of the third, and Joe Bernal again retired the first two batters in the bottom half, getting both Rex Horvath and Mark Herenandez to fly out to Anthony Galindo in left-center. Richard Battle singled and then scored from first on Mike Velaney’s double. Rick Jensen’s base hit put runners on the corners, but Joe Bernal got Fritz Hensel to ground to second baseman Scott Wright, who flipped to Joe covering second for the force there.
In the fifth, Red scored three runs in the top half thanks to Anthony Galindo’s triple, which drove in two and was followed by Gary Coyle’s run-scoring hit. That made it 13-4 in Red’s favor, but Purple scored five times in the home half. With one out Larry Young singled and Matt Levitt walked, and Pat Scott followed with a three-run inside-the-park home run, Pat’s first homer of the season. (At that point, six of Purple’s seven runs had come on their three home runs.) Five of the next six batters singled, the fourth and fifth runs coming around.
Purple shortstop Rick Jensen presents Pluckers coupons to his team’s trio of home run hitters, Rex Horvath, Mike Velaney, and to Rick’s right, Pat Scott.
Its lead cut to four runs, Red needed to put some runs across in the top of the buffet, and did so, with mercenaries Donnie Janac and Scott Wright opening the inning with a single and a triple. Bobby Miller grounded out to third baseman Rex Horvath, Scott holding at third, but the next four batters hit safely: Jack Spellman’s rinky-dink single scored Scott; Anthony Galindo hit his second double of the game to complete a 5-for-5 performance; Gary Coyle reached when Rex Horvath couldn’t get a handle on his hard grounder to third base, the other runners holding; and Joe Bernal singled in Spellman and Galindo. Pat Scott made a good play on Dale Fugate’s fly to left-center for the second out, but when Jim McAnelly drove in Gary with a sharp single to left-center, Red was up by nine and the teams flip-flopped.
Fritz Hensel and Spike Davidson singled to start the bottom of the buffet. Scott Wright made a good play on Larry Young’s hard grounder to Scott’s right, beating Spike’s pinch-runner to second for the force there; Scott threw to third, trying for Fritz’s pinch-runner (Larry Fiorentino, I think), but had to throw high to avoid hitting the runner, and Gary Coyle couldn’t corral it, else it would have been a very nifty double play. Matt Levitt flied out to Bobby Miller in left field for the second out, Fritz’s runner tagging and scoring. Pat Scott grounded to shortstop, and Spellman tossed to Joe Bernal covering second for the final out – the ninth ground ball out Joe got from a Purple hitter. Final score: Red 18, Purple 10
11:30 a.m., Orange (0-1) at Blue (1-0):
1 2 3 4 BUFFET FINAL Orange 4 5 4 0 0 13 Blue 5 5 0 5 X 15 Pitchers: Orange – Jeff Stone; Blue – Tommy Deleon. Mercenaries: Orange – Adam Reddell and Jeff Stone. Umpires: home – Gary Coyle; bases – Jim McAnelly and Jack McDermott. Perfect at the plate: Orange – David Brown and Clint Fletcher (both 4 for 4) and Terry O'Brien (4 for 4 with a double and a triple); Blue – Daniel Baladez and Tom Brownfield (both 3 for 3 – two of Tom's hits would have been for extra bases but for his taking a runner from home), Steve Sandall (3 for 3 with a triple), and Don Solberg (3 for 3 with a double and a triple). Home run: Jimmy Sneed (over the fence) (1).
Orange played tough, leading this one through three and just one run behind through four, but fell short against an excellent Blue lineup that scored five runs three times.
Orange opened the game by scoring four runs on five singles and Terry O’Brien’s triple to right field. Tommy Deleon avoided giving up a fifth run by starting a 1-6-3 double play for the first two outs and then retiring Jeff Stone on a fly to Don Solberg in right-center. Blue came right back with five runs in the home half. Steve Sandall led off with a single and Jimmy Sneed followed with a towering home run down the left field side, easily clearing the fence, about ten feet fair. Five of the next six batters hit safely, Tom Bellavia and Don Solberg knocking doubles, for three more runs.
Jimmy Sneed receives a Pluckers coupon from Blue skipper George Brindley following Jimmy’s moon-shot two-run homer in the bottom of the first, his first of the season.
Both teams scored five times in the second inning, Orange on seven consecutive one-out hits (six singles and Terry O’Brien’s double off the fence in left), Blue on four singles, Steve Sandall’s two-run triple, and Tom Brownfield’s hit to right field that scored George Brindley from first with the fifth run, technically a single since Tom took a runner from home.
Orange went back ahead with four runs on seven more singles in the top of the third, though they left the bases loaded. Jeff Stone blanked Blue in the bottom of the inning, working around back-to-back one-out singles by Don Solberg and Danniel Baladez.
Orange led 13-10 at this point, but wound up not scoring again. Phil Stanch singled leading off the third and took third base on Clint Fletcher’s two-out single to right, but both were stranded when Ken Mockler popped out to second baseman George Brindley.
Blue then took the lead for good with five runs in the bottom half, all the scoring coming with two out. Steve Sandall led off with a single, completing a perfect day at the plate, but was forced at second on Jimmy Sneed’s grounder to shortstop David Brown. Tom Bellavia popped out to David, but the next five batters hit safely: George Brindley doubled Jimmy to third, and both George and Jimmy scored on Tom Brownfield’s looped single to center field (Tom also was 3 for 3); Jim Foelker singled; Don Solberg ripped a triple to the fence in right field, both Tom’s pinch-runner and Jim scoring; and Daniel Baladez delivered Don with the fifth run with a clean single to center. (Don and Daniel also were both 3 for 3 in the game.)
Orange needed two to tie entering the buffet. Terry O’Brien led off with a single, his fourth hit in as many at bats, but was erased on an around-the-horn double play, Tom Brownfield to George Brindley to Daniel Baladez, on Ray Pilgrim’s hard grounder to Tom’s left. Down to their last out, Orange remained alive as both David Brown (4 for 4 in the game) and Marvin Krabbenhoft singled, putting the tying run on base. But Larry Shupe’s short pop hung up long enough for George Brindley to race in and catch it for the final out. Final score: Blue 15, Orange 13
12:30 p.m., Gray (0-1) at Maroon (0-0):
1 2 3 4 5 BUFFET FINAL Gray 0 3 2 5 0 2 12 Maroon 0 5 1 0 5 2 13 Pitchers: Gray – Jack Kelly; Maroon – Jeff Stone. Mercenary: Maroon – Anthony Galindo. Umpires: home – Tommy Deleon and Daniel Baladez; bases – Jack Spellman. Perfect at the plate: Gray – Dave Jaffe (3 for 3 with a walk and a double), George Romo (4 for 4 with a double), and Morgan Witthoft (4 for 4); Maroon – Tom Kelm (3 for 3) and Scott Wright (4 for 4 with a double).
Best game of the day, a terrific battle that came down to the last at bat. Neither team scored in the first, Maroon making two excellent plays to put out Gray’s first two hitters: Tommy Gillis opened the game with a hard grounder to third base, Scott Wright picking it and making a strong throw to first for the out. Paul Rubin then hit a hard grounder back to the box, Jeff Stone making a clean glove grab and tossing to first for the out. Jack Kelly allowed singles in the bottom of the inning to Ken Brown leading off and Scott Wright with two out, but got Jeff Stone to fly out to Morgan Witthoft in right-center to strand them.
Gray drew first blood in the top of the second. Morgan Witthoft, Johnny Lee, and Dave Jaffe opened the inning with singles, loading the bases. Jack Crosley grounded to the 5-6 hole, Maroon shortstop Tony Garcia ranging over to make the play, throwing to third for the force there, Morgan scoring the game’s first run. Hal Darman then stepped up and hammered a ball over the head of Anthony Galindo in left field, Dave and Jack both scoring on the double. (It was the first of four balls driven to left by Gray hitters that had me feeling grateful that Dave Berra picked Anthony’s chip instead of mine.)
Maroon responded by taking the lead with five runs in the home half. Jack Kelly almost escaped with just two runs allowed, those scoring as four of the first five batters singled. The second run was driven in by Steve Hamlett with his first B League hit, and hard grounder down the third-base side that Scott Wright knocked down but couldn’t make a play on.
Steve Hamlett on first base following his RBI single in the bottom of the second, his first hit in the B League. (How is it, you may be asking, that the base umpire had time to take a picture? Well, if I wasn’t distracted by photographic endeavours, I might not call non-existent infield flies. Thank you for hypothetically asking.)
With one out and runners on first and second, Ken Brown hit a sharp grounder just to the left of second base; George Romo made a good play to his left, stepped on second, and fired to first; I was umpiring, and I was ready to ring Ken up, as the low throw just beat him, but Johnny Lee was not able to maintain control, and Ken was safe on the bobble. Bobby Miller made Gray pay, ripping a double to right field that drove in both Anthony Galindo and Ken. Bobby then scored the fifth run on Tony Garcia’s single to center.
Gray briefly tied the game with two runs in the top of the third on four consecutive one-out hits, three singles and a double by George Romo that scored Paul Rubin from first base. Maroon reclaimed the lead with a single run in the bottom of the frame: Scott Wright led off with a double to right field and scored on Jeff Stone’s single past second baseman Boo Resnick and into right field. Tom Kelm followed with a single to left field, but Jack Kelly escaped the jam, catching Jim Maloy looking at a called third strike, then getting Ivan Budiselic to ground into a 6u., 6-3 double play, nicely turned by George Romo.
Gray surged into the lead with five runs on seven singles and Boo Resnick’s double down the left-field line (see my comment above re: not getting picked to play left field). With one out, the first seven batters in Gray’s order all squared up on pitches, resulting in six sharp singles and Johnny Lee’s liner to shortstop Tony Garcia. Dave Jaffe drove inn the fifth run with a line single to left field.
Jack Kelly then retired Maroon in order on three pitches in the bottom half: grounder to third, fly to left, liner to left.
Gray had a chance to take command of the game, but came up empty in the top of the fifth. Jack Crosley led off with a single, but was forced out on Hal Darman’s grounder to shortstop. Boo Resnick hit what should have been a single into short right-center, but Ken Brown charged the ball and came up throwing, his peg beating Hal to second for the force. Jack Kelly knocked a single to right field and Tommy Gillis a single to left, loading the bases, but Jeff Stone got Paul Rubin to ground back to the box for the third out.
Trailing 10-6 entering the bottom of the fifth, Maroon had the heart of its order up and scored five times on six singles and Tony Garcia’s double, making just one out in the process. Steve Hamlett capped the rally with his second RBI single of the game, past third base and into left field.
Down by one entering the buffet, Gray got two. George Romo completed a 4-for-4 day at the plate by lining a lead-off double to left field, Anthony Galindo again seen running with his back to home plate to retrieve the ball. George tagged and took third on Adam Reddell’s fly to Ken Brown in right-center. Morgan Witthoft, looking for his fourth hit in as many at bats, got it in the cheapest way imaginable: he popped a ball up to the left side, and Scott Wright called for it, only for the ball to pop out of his mitt and fall safe. I think George scored on the play, tying the score.
Johnny Lee then hit a ball hard but right at Ken Brown in right-center for the second out; the throw back to the infield was boxed around, but Morgan did not advance from first, which for about ten seconds seemed like it might matter. But Dave Jaffe came up and drove a ball over Anthony’s head in left field (at least Anthony got his steps in today), Morgan scoring from first to put Gray ahead 12-11. Jack Crosley came up and drove a ball to right-center that off the bat I was certain would be over Ken Brown’s head, but Ken got a terrific jump and, running back and to his left, ran the ball down for the third out. It wasn’t quite the equal of Steve Sandall’s catch of March 20, but it’s a candidate for my end-of-season list of Best Defensive Plays of 2025.
So Maroon needed one to tie and two to win in the bottom of the buffet. Anthony Galindo led off and skied a ball to deep left-center; Paul Rubin made a very good catch moving back. Ken Brown popped a ball down the right-field line that dropped in, Ken blazing around the bases and winding up at third with a triple. Ken then scored the tying run on Bobby Miller’s sacrifice fly to right, another fine catch, this one by Dave Jaffe.
Gray needed one more out to push the game into extra innings. Easier said than done. Tony Garcia ripped a double to right field. (Here’s the video I took: https://studio.youtube.com/
Session 2 standings:
| Session 2 | Games | Runs | Runs | Run dif- | W/L | |||
| Wins | Losses | Win %: | behind: | for: | allowed: | ferential: | streak: | |
| Blue | 2 | 0 | 1.000 | — | 30 | 18 | 12 | W4 |
| Green | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | 0.5 | 22 | 13 | 9 | W1 |
| Maroon | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | 0.5 | 13 | 12 | 1 | W1 |
| Purple | 1 | 1 | .500 | 1 | 23 | 23 | 0 | L1 |
| Red | 1 | 1 | .500 | 1 | 31 | 32 | -1 | W1 |
| Gray | 0 | 2 | .000 | 2 | 17 | 28 | -11 | L3 |
| Orange | 0 | 2 | .000 | 2 | 18 | 28 | -10 | L4 |
| Home | Visitor | Walk-off | Extra-inning | Flip-flop | 1-run games | |||
| W-L: | W-L: | wins | Wins: | W-L: | W-L: | |||
| Blue | 1-0 | 1-0 | 0 | 0-0 | 1-0 | 0-0 | ||
| Green | 0-0 | 1-0 | 0 | 0-0 | 1-0 | 0-0 | ||
| Maroon | 1-0 | 0-0 | 1 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 1-0 | ||
| Purple | 0-1 | 1-0 | 0 | 0-0 | 1-1 | 0-0 | ||
| Red | 0-1 | 1-0 | 0 | 0-0 | 1-1 | 0-0 | ||
| Gray | 0-1 | 0-1 | 0 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 0-1 | ||
| Orange | 0-1 | 0-1 | 0 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 0-0 |
2025 total victories (read across) and losses (read down):
| Blue | Gray | Green | Maroon | Orange | Purple | Red | TOTAL | |
| Blue | X | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 6 |
| Gray | 1 | X | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| Green | 0 | 1 | X | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| Maroon | 1 | 2 | 1 | X | 1 | 1 | 0 | 6 |
| Orange | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | X | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Purple | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | X | 1 | 5 |
| Red | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | X | 5 |
| TOTAL: | 3 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 30 |
2025 season home run leaders:
Bobby Miller – 4
Tim Coles – 3
George Brindley – 2
Tim Bruton – 2
Larry Fiorentino – 2
Tom Belavia – 1
Donald Drummer – 1
Anthony Galindo – 1
Mike Garrison – 1
Tommy Gillis – 1
Rex Horvath – 2
Mike Malay – 1
Pat Scott – 1
Jimmy Sneed – 1
Mike Velaney – 1
Chris Waddell – 1
Chunky Wright – 1
Schedule for Monday April 7:
10:30 a.m.: Purple (1-0) at Maroon (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 Orange (0-2), Gray umpiring
Blue has the bye, with priority for its players out of the bucket.
Preview: First-place Blue has the bye, and at least one team – the winner of the Purple-Maroon game at 10:30 – will end the day tied for first, with Green able to make it a three-way tie if they can beat a Gray team that played well today. Orange also played well while falling short today, and will try to post its first win of the session against Red at 12:30.
A note about Monday: Greg Lloyd will be out of town, so Tom Kelm will be retrieving our gear from the equipment shed. With Greg not providing water, players will be responsible for fulfilling their own hydration needs, though, as Dave Berra points out, the forecast is for temperatures in the 40s Monday morning, so maybe warmth rather than thirst will be top of mind. Will that cold snap benefit the league’s northern-born players? One thing is certain: Only time will tell.
Keggy’s Korner:
Someone left this nice batting glove behind today. I’ve got it and will bring it to Monday’s game – let me know if it’s yours.
An early heads up that the Bobby Fund Burger Potluck and Reunion is scheduled for Monday April 28. Please reach out to past Austin Senior Softball players and invite them to participate.