B League Picayune
Often in error, never in doubt.
Volume 7, Issue 25 – June 5, 2025
Games of Thursday June 5:
10:30 a.m., Orange (7-6) at Gray (5-8):
1 2 3 4 5 BUFFET FINAL Orange 3 5 3 1 5 X 17 Gray 0 0 0 3 0 9 12 Pitchers: Orange – Ray Pilgrim; Gray – Jack Kelly (innings 1-2) and Mike Malay (innings 3-5). Mercenaries: Orange – Ralph Villela and Scott Wright. Umpires: home – Chunky Wright; bases – Mike Garrison. Perfect at the plate: Orange – Ken Mockler and Ralph Villela (both 3 for 3), Boo Resnick (2 for 2 with a walk), and Scott Wright (3 for 3 with a double and a triple).
Weather, per the KXAN app: 85 degrees, felt like 94. Humidity 73%. Wind SSE 9 MPH. Partly cloudy. Very similar to Monday.
It was all Orange until the buffet, David Brown’s crew building a 12-0 lead before anyone on Gray got a second at bat. Jack Kelly retired the first two hitters of the game on ground balls, Clint Fletcher to third baseman Adam Reddell (strong cross-diamond throw) and Ray Pilgrm to shortstop George Romo, but Orange still scored three times in the top of the first, on four consecutive two-out hits, three singles and a double by David Brown. They added five runs on seven straight hits – six singles and Scott Wright’s triple to center, a drive over Paul Rubin’s head – without making an out in the second inning; and, with Mike Malay taking over on the mound for Gray, three runs on a walk, two singles, and Scott Wright’s double (line drive to right field) in the third.
Ray Pilgrim kept Gray off the board in the first three innings. Paul Rubin singled and Tommy Gillis walked with one out in the bottom of the first, but second baseman Terry O’Brien made a terrific catch, about an inch or so off the ground, of Adam Reddell’s liner, and doubled up Tommy. In the second Ray got three outs on fly balls: George Romo, continuing his hot hitting from Monday, lined a ball to deep left-center leading off, but Ralph Villela was well positioned to make the catch, hardly had to move. Johnny Lee singled up the middle, but Jack Crosley flied out to right-center, Scott Wright moving to his left to run it down, and Morgan Witthoft flied out to Ken Mockler in left.
Ray retired the side in order in the third, getting Hal Darman on a grounder to third baseman Clint Fletcher, Mike Malay on a grounder to shortstop David Brown (first baseman Larry Shupe made an excellent play to cleanly catch David’s short-hopped throw), and Jack Kelly on a two-strike foul.
Quote of the Day (I): Adam Reddell, on Larry Shupe’s fine play: “That is one scoopin’ Shupe.”
Hal Darman swings his Short Porch Cheeseburger bat in the bottom of the third. Keep an eye out for the Picayune’s multi-part investigative report, “Hal Darman, Bobby Miller, and Ray Pilgrim – The Cheeseburger Brothers.”
Orange added a single run in the top of the fourth: Ray Pilgrim led off with a single, his pinch-runner Ralph Villela tagged and took second on Terry O’Brien’s fly to Paul Rubin in left-center, and Ken Mockler singled Ralph home. Dave Brown followed with another fly to Paul, who moved way to his left to run it down.
Gray got on the board in the home half. Jim Aaron lined a single to center, Paul Rubin popped a double down the left-field side, just fair, and Tommy Gillis drove them both in with a fly-ball triple to left – I think Ken Mockler either didn’t get a good read of the ball off the bat or had trouble with the sun, unusual to see him not make that play. Tommy held at third on Adam Reddell’s ground out to second baseman Terry O’Brien, then trotted home on George Romo’s line single to left field. Johnny Lee hit a hard one-hopper to Terry O’Brien’s right that Terry made a very nice backhanded play on, turning a 4u., 4-3 double play to end the inning.
Orange then put the game firmly out of reach with another five-run inning. The bottom four hitters in the lineup all singled, Larry Shupe leading off and scoring, Boo Resnick, Ralph Villela, and Scott Wright all completing perfect games at the plate. Clint Fletcher’s line double to left field scored Boo and Ralph. Ray Pilgrim’s sacrifice fly to Tommy Gillis in left brought in Scott. And Terry O’Brien’s double drove in Clint.
Gray looked poised to rally in the bottom of the fifth, but Ray Pilgrim escaped a bases-loaded jam. Morgan Witthoft singled with one out, but was forced out at second on Hal Darman’s grounder to the shortstop hole, David Brown making a good play, ranging well to his right. Singles by Mike Malay and Jack Kelly loaded the bases for the top of the order, but Ray got Jim Aaron to fly out to Scott Wright in deep right-center.,
With Orange leading 17-3, the teams flip-flopped for the buffet. Gray commenced to pound the ball, its first nine batters – its 2 through 10 hitters – knocking singles, seven runs scoring, and the tenth batter of the inning, Jack Kelly, drawing a walk that re-loaded the bases for the top of the lineup. Jim Aaron drove in the eighth run of the inning with a sacrifice fly to Scott Wright in right-center, and the ninth scored on Paul Rubin’s ground out to first baseman Larry Shupe. The game ended with Ralph Villela hauling in Tommy Gillis’s fly to left-center. Final score: Orange 17, Gray 12
Awesome picture of Team Malay, prior to the 11:30 game. That’s Mike on the right, T-Bone is the middle of the three grandkids. Photo credit: Jim Foelker.
11:30 a.m., Green (7-5) at Blue (9-4):
1 2 3 4 BUFFET FINAL Green 0 0 0 2 1 3 Blue 5 4 0 2 X 11 Pitchers: Green – Chunky Wright; Blue – Tommy Deleon. Mercenaries: Green – Bobby Miller and Jack Spellman; Blue – Tommy Gillis and Matt Levitt. Umpires: home – Jack Crosley; bases – Adam Reddell. Perfect at the plate: Green – Bobby Miller and Chris Waddell (both 2 for 2); Blue – Matt Levitt (2 for 2), Steve Sandall (3 for 3 with two doubles), and Jimmy Sneed (2 for 2 with a walk).
Dave Berra’s weather report: 87 degrees, feels like 96. Humidity 64%. Wind SSE 7 MPH. Partly cloudy. Need more breeze!
Similar to the first game, one team scored a bunch of runs early while blanking the opposition over the first three, and wound up cruising to a relatively easy win. Blue came out on fire, first holding Green scoreless in the top of the first – Ralph Villela singled leading off, but was erased on a 1-6-3 double play, Tommy Deleon to Jimmy Sneed to Daniel Baladez – and scoring five times without making an out in the bottom half, on three singles, walks to Jimmy Sneed and David Pittard, and doubles by Steve Sandall and Daniel Baladez.
More of the same in the second: Chris Waddell led off the top half with a single, but Tommy Deleon retired the next three batters, not allowing a ball (far) out of the infield, as Buddy Gaswint popped out to shortstop Jimmy Sneed, about ten feet into the grass in short left field; Donnie Janac grounded to second baseman Jim Foelker, shading almost behind second base and getting the force there unassisted; and Chunky Wright grounded into a 6-4 force, Jimmy to Jim.
Neither team scored in the third, Tommy Deleon working around Bobby Miller’s one-out double in the top half, Chunky Wright then retiring the side in order in the bottom half on balls in the air – pop to shortstop (good play by Ralph Villela going back into short left field), pop to third base (ball-hogging play by Jack Spellman, cutting in front of Ralph), fly to left field (routine play by Mike Garrison, though I feel like nothing in B League is truly routine).
Green finally got on the board in the fourth, scoring two runs on three singles, Doc Hobar and Chris Waddell tagging and advancing to second on fly balls and then scoring, Doc on Chris’s single and Chris on Donnie Janac’s. Blue got those back in the home half: Matt Levitt singled, Steve Sandall doubled him to third, and both scored on Jimmy Sneed’s single.
Green was chasing nine entering the buffet. They loaded the bases with one out on singles by Bobby Miller, Jack Spellman, and Ralph Villela. Bobby scored on Doc Hobar’s sacrifice fly to left field, good play by Steve Sandall. And the game ended on Mike Garrison’s ground out to shortstop Jimmy Sneed. Final score: Blue 11, Green 3, Blue clinching the Session Two title with the victory – they are two games ahead of Orange, which has a bye Monday, and so only one game remaining to play in the session. Green sees its six-game winning streak ended, with Orange moving ahead of them for second place in the session.
The great Peter Sundquist, rehabbing from left knee replacement, stopped by Krieg. Will he return to play before the end of this season? Only one thing is certain: Time will tell.
Here is Peter’s scar.
Here is Dave Berra nomming on the cookies Peter brought.
12:30 p.m., Red (4-9) at Maroon (7-6):
1 2 3 4 5 BUFFET FINAL Red 0 5 3 4 5 3 20 Maroon 1 0 5 3 2 3 14 Pitchers: Red – Joe Bernal; Maroon – Tom Kelm. Mercenaries: Red – Jack Crosley, Jim Foelker, Adam Reddell, and Ralph Villela; Maroon – Hal Darman, Tommy Gillis, and Steve Sandall. Umpires: home – Tommy Deleon and Daniel Baladez; bases – David Pittard and Daniel Baladez. Perfect at the plate: Red – Joe Bernal (4 for 4), Jim Foelker (3 for 3 with two doubles), and Ralph Villela (4 for 4 with three doubles); Maroon – Don Solberg (4 for 4) and Scott Wright (4 for 4 with a double, triple, and home run). Home run: Scott Wright (inside the park) (1). Hit for the cycle: Scott Wright (1).
Weather: 90 degrees, felt like 98. Humidity 60%. Wind SSE 7 MPH. Mostly sunny. Pretty brutal for the fielders by the end of the game.
It started out as a low-scoring affair, but as it got hotter and the fielders more tired and sloppy, this one turned into a slugfest. Solid infield work by Maroon kept Red from scoring in the top of the first. Jack McDermott led off the game with a single up the middle. Jack Spellman followed with a very hard ground ball to the left side that second baseman Tommy Langa made a terrific play on, tossing to shortstop Bobby Miller for the force at second. Anthony Galindo, in his first game back since breaking his left pinky, and serving as DH, doubled down the third-base side, Spellman stopping at third. Dale Fugate grounded to Bobby; I knew Bobby had a pretty easy play on Dale, so I broke for home, hoping to draw a hurried throw, but Bobby’s too smart for that – he held the ball and started toward me, forcing me to pass the commitment line before he threw to catcher Hal Darman for the 6-2 out. Bobby then fielded Rolando Rodriguez’s grounder to his left and stepped on second for the inning-ending force.
Maroon briefly held the lead when they scored a single run in the bottom of the first: Scott Wright tripled to right with two out and scored on Don Solberg’s single.
Red took the lead with five runs in the top of the second, on Jim McAnelly’s lead-off walk, three singles, doubles by Ralph Villela and Jim Foelker, Adam Reddell’s sacrifice fly, and Jack Crosley’s triple to right-center. Jack McDermott’s single brought in Jack Crosley with the fifth run. Joe Bernal then shut out Maroon in the bottom half, working around Jimmie Maloy’s lead-off single.
Red scored three times in the top of the third to extend its lead to 8-1. Jack Spellman led off with a double. Anthony Galindo grounded out to third baseman Ken Brown; when Ken made his throw to first, I broke for third; Scott Wright’s throw back across the diamond skipped past Ken and into the foul territory behind third, and I was able to return to tag the bag and make it home before the ball was retrieved. Dale Fugate walked and Rolando Rodriguez singled. Jim McAnelly grounded into a 5-4 force, leaving runners on the corners. Joe Bernal’s single scored Jack McDermott, running for Dale. Ralph Villela also singled; Anthony Galindo, running for Jim, scored; Joe, seeing that Ken was well off the bag at third, thought he could sneak in, but was cut down 7-6-5, a well executed relay from Don Solberg to Bobby Miller to Ken, who was in fact able to get back to the bag quickly. (Shouldn’t there be a scouting report that warns his opponents that Ken is fast?)
Maroon then got back in the game, scoring five times in the home half, on five singles, Bobby Miller’s triple, and Scott Wright’s inside-the-park home run over Jack Crosley to the fence in right field, Scott’s first home run of the season.
Quote of the Day (II): Bobby Miller, as Scott Wright completed his inside-the-park homerun: “And THAT is why you use a Short Porch bat!”
Tommy Deleon presented Scott Wright with a Pluckers coupon after the game. I should have had Scott pose with his bat.
Red scored four runs in the top of the fourth on six straight one-out hits – five singles and Jack Crosley’s double – before the inning ended on a 5u., 5-3 double play: with runners on first and second, Rolando Rodriguez grounded to Ken Brown; thinking there were two out, Rolando didn’t run when Ken moved to step on third for the force there, and Ken threw him out easily. To his credit, Rolando accepted with good grace the grief Joe Bernal (who made the second) and I (who made the first) gave him for making the team’s third out on the bases in four innings.
Maroon got three back in the home half, Scott Wright doubling in two and scoring the third on Don Solberg’s single, the runs all scoring after two were out.
There was 3:20 left on the clock when the inning ended, which meant the fifth was a five-run inning. Red took full advantage, it’s first five batters hitting safely (three singles and doubles by Ralph Villela and Jim Foelker, Jim for the second time driving the ball over the head of left fielder Don Solberg) and scoring. With none out and Jim on second representing the tying run, Tom Kelm almost managed to get out of the inning, retiring Jack Crosley on a sinking line drive to right-center (good catch by Steve Sandall) and Jack McDermott on a pop to second baseman Tommy Langa, but Jack Spellman’s single up the middle brought Jim in.
Joe Bernal pitched well enough to hold Maroon to one or no runs in the bottom of the fourth, but was hurt by poor defensive execution. Leading off, Jimmie Maloy and Tommy Langa both singled, though one of those – I think Tommy’s, not sure, though, was a catchable fly that wasn’t caught. That put runners on first and second for Steve Sandall, who grounded to second base – I threw to first, which seemed the safest play, and it was a good throw that beat Steve to the bag, but Dale Fugate wasn’t able to hold on, and everyone was safe. Joe shook it off and retired the next three batters: he got Hal Darman to hit a two-strike foul; caught Ken Brown looking at a called strike three, an unhittable pitch that clipped the outside edge of the mat; and got Bobby Miller to hit a one-hopper to the right of second baseman Jack Spellman, who threw to Joe covering second for the inning-ending force.
Red led 17-11 entering the buffet, with the understanding that if we scored two, we would flip-flop. Anthony Galindo led off with his second double of the game and took third on Dale Fugate’s single. Jack McDermott, running for Dale, was forced at second on Rolando Rodriguez’s grounder to second baseman Tommy Langa. Jim McAnelly singled, scoring Anthony. A single by Joe Bernal, his fourth in as many at bats, loaded the bases for Ralph Villela, who smacked his fourth hit, and third double, of the game, Rolando and Jim’s pinch-runner both scoring to put Red up 20-11. The teams flip-flopped.
Scott Wright led off the bottom of the buffet with a single, his fourth hit in as many at bats – but more to the point, this completed the cycle, the first in the B League this season. (Even more remarkable, Scott nearly hit for the cycle in the 10:30 game as well, falling a home run short because he only batted three times at the bottom of the Orange lineup.) Don Solberg also singled, also completing a 4-for-4 game. Joe Bernal got both Tom Kelm and Jimmie Maloy to ground into 6-4 forces, which makes it sound like Ralph Villela made routine plays, but they were not: on both Ralph ranged way to his left to get to the balls and made difficult, accurate flips to second for the force. On Jimmie’s, Ralph fielded the ball directly behind the bag, his momentum carrying him away as he flipped backwards to me – I was actually facing right-center field as I caught the throw, which, absurdly, was right to my chest. (Also, just to say, Ralph was playing in his third game, and it was hot as blazes and wicked humid.) Scott Wright scored on Jimmie’s grounder, but Maroon was down to its last out with just a runner on first. Singles by Tommy Langa, Steve Sandall, and Tommy Gillis – the third hit of the game for each of them – brought Jimmie and Tommy around to score, but the game ended with Hal Darman grounding back to the box, Joe throwing out pinch-runner Don Solberg (I think) for the final out.
Rick Jensen sent me this depiction of the post-game handshake.
Final score: Red 20, Maroon 14
Session 2 standings:
| Session 2 | Games | Runs | Runs | Run dif- | W/L | |||
| Wins | Losses | Win %: | behind: | for: | allowed: | ferential: | streak: | |
| Blue* | 10 | 4 | .714 | 0 | 167 | 118 | 49 | W2 |
| Orange | 8 | 6 | .571 | 2 | 164 | 154 | 10 | W1 |
| Green | 7 | 6 | .538 | 2.5 | 168 | 151 | 17 | L1 |
| Maroon | 7 | 7 | .500 | 3 | 163 | 170 | -7 | L2 |
| Purple | 6 | 7 | .462 | 3.5 | 139 | 157 | -18 | L6 |
| Red | 5 | 9 | .357 | 5 | 154 | 177 | -23 | W2 |
| Gray | 5 | 9 | .357 | 5 | 163 | 191 | -28 | L1 |
| * Clinched Session title. | ||||||||
| Home | Visitor | Walk-off | Extra-inning | Flip-flop | 1-run games | |||
| W-L: | W-L: | wins: | wins: | W-L: | W-L: | |||
| Blue | 7-1 | 3-3 | 1 | 0-0 | 4-0 | 1-2 | ||
| Orange | 4-2 | 4-4 | 0 | 0-0 | 3-2 | 2-1 | ||
| Green | 3-3 | 4-3 | 2 | 0-0 | 4-1 | 3-1 | ||
| Maroon | 4-3 | 3-4 | 3 | 0-0 | 2-2 | 3-1 | ||
| Purple | 2-5 | 4-2 | 0 | 0-0 | 1-3 | 0-1 | ||
| Red | 2-5 | 3-4 | 0 | 0-0 | 2-5 | 0-2 | ||
| Gray | 3-4 | 2-5 | 2 | 0-0 | 1-4 | 3-4 |
2025 total victories (read across) and losses (read down):
| Blue | Gray | Green | Maroon | Orange | Purple | Red | TOTAL | |
| Blue | X | 1 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 15 |
| Gray | 2 | X | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 9 |
| Green | 1 | 2 | X | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 11 |
| Maroon | 1 | 4 | 2 | X | 2 | 2 | 1 | 12 |
| Orange | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | X | 2 | 1 | 9 |
| Purple | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | X | 2 | 10 |
| Red | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 2 | X | 9 |
| TOTAL: | 7 | 12 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 11 | 12 | 75 |
2025 season home run leaders:
Tim Coles – 4
Bobby Miller – 4
George Brindley – 3
Anthony Galindo – 3
Tommy Gillis – 3
Tim Bruton – 2
Larry Fiorentino – 2
Mike Garrison – 2
Rex Horvath – 2
Pat Scott – 2
Peter Atkins – 1
Tom Bellavia – 1
David Brown – 1
Donald Drummer – 1
Tony Garcia – 1
Buddy Gaswint – 1
Doc Hobar – 1
Matt Levitt – 1
Mike Malay – 1
Terry O’Brien – 1
Ray Pilgrim – 1
George Romo – 1
Jimmy Sneed – 1
Jack Spellman – 1
Jeff Stone – 1
Mike Velaney – 1
Ralph Villela – 1
Chris Waddell – 1
Chunky Wright – 1
Scott Wright – 1
Hit for the cycle:
Scott Wright – June 5
Schedule for Monday June 9:
10:30 a.m.: Blue (10-4) at Purple (6-7), Gray umpiring
11:30 a.m.: Gray (5-9) at Red (5-9), Purple umpiring
12:30 p.m.: Maroon (7-7) at Green (7-6), Red umpiring
Orange has the bye, with priority for its players out of the bucket.
Preview: Penultimate games of Session Two, possibly somewhat anticlimactic now that Blue has clinched the session title. They’ll play Purple, looking to snap its six-game losing streak, at 10:30. At 11:30, Gray and Red, both 5-9, will look to escape the cellar with a victory. Maroon and Green, at 12:30, are both battling for a shot at second place – if Maroon can win Monday, then beat Orange next Thursday, they’ll pass Orange. I asked my rhetorical “Only time will tell” question above, I’ve got nothing more to give you.
Keggy’s Korner:
Reminder for this Saturday night:
Johnny Lee and Arctic Blues Band will be at Lighthouse on the Lake, 513 Sleat Drive in Briarcliff, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.
And Boo Resnick and Hotcakes will be at Donn’s Depot, 1600 West Fifth Street in Austin, at 9:00.
Google Maps says you can get from the Lighthouse to Donn’s in 38 minutes. I advise leaving Lighthouse at 8:35 to maximize your musical consumption.