Oakland Ballers pitcher Aidan Risse (1-1) delivers a pitch against the Red Rocket Mobiles at Raimondi Field in West Oakland Sun May 31, 2026 (Oakland Ballers photo)
Monday, June 1
Oakland, CA
By Lewis Rubman
In last week’s column, I discussed some of the challenges the Oakland Ballers and the Pioneer Baseball League as a whole were facing. The last week has thrown those challenges into sharper relief.
The league’s decision to save on travel expenses resulted in scheduling anomalies. Instead of playing a set of six game against each visitor, with night games Tuesday through Friday, a mid-afternoon game on Saturday, and an early afternoon contest on Sunday, the Ballers opened the season with a three game series against the Missoula PaddleHeads, the team they had defeated for last year’s championship, three games to two, by sweeping the final three games, all at home, of the five game series.. This year, Missoula took the series, 2-1.
Then some of the new kids on the block, the Long Beach Coast, came to West Oakland. The B’s came from behind with a 12-11 victory after having trialed 10-9 going into the eighth. Jeter Ybarra’s leadoff blast over the left field fence in the bottom of the ninth tied it up, and T.J. McKenzie’s sacrifice fly to center gave Oakland the win, evening their record at 2-2.
The teams split the last two games of the week. The Coast beat them, 15-12 on a four run top of the ninth in a seesaw battle on Saturday the 23rd, and the Ballers finished the week at 3-3 with a solid 11-5 triumph the next afternoon.
This raised an interesting question. The Coast (who also go by the moniker “Regulators”) and the Ballers had another three games between them scheduled for the following week. Would this be part of the original series or a new one. This is not an idle question, and one reason it was a new series shows how significant the question was.
The Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday contests had a different umpire crew from the three preceding game. Another reason to consider the trio of set-to’s a group of its own is the headling the Coast published in its May 28 recap. Read it and weep.
Grand Beginning Leads Coast to Series Sweep
The Long Beach Coast (6-3) blasted the OaklandBallers (3-6) 9-5
on Thursday night in the Bay Area to secure their first ever series
sweep
Thursday, the 29th, brought in another innovation: the RedPocket Mobiles, owned by the PBL’s cel phone provider. They’re a barnstorming team with no home stadium and, I assume a miniscule fan base. They also have a miniscule won-lost record. They were 1-8 when they hit town and 1-11 when the Ballers, now 6-6, got through with them.
This happy outcome for Ballers’ fans wasn’t just the result of the Mobiles’ weakness. Please bear with me while I try to relate the Ballers’ current situation to the challenges and shortcomings of the Pioneer League.
The circuit’s labyrinthine eligibility rules not only penalize successful teams by limiting the amount of time they can keep any given player (which is consistent with the PBL’s purpose, which is to develop players), but also fail to provide compensation to those teams that lose players who are—for want of a better expression—termed out. Each year is, as it were, a whole new ball game.
This may mean that the Ballers’ marketing plan. which includes merited bragging rights about the team’s championship status, may be misplaced. There’s much to be enjoyed about Ballersball, but winning isn’t everything. It’s not even not caring if you won or lost but how you played the game; it’s about community, fun, and watching the players mature and improve. And don’t forget the innate beauty of the game, no matter on what level it’s played. And a whole lot more.The Ballers and their followers may have to learn to live with defeat. Remember, I said “may.”
The team’s management has made some moves to improve its personnel. They obtained Cam Bufford, a mainstay of the ’25 Ballers, is heading back to his championship roots. Just six days into the Pioneer League season, the Sioux City Explorers, a higher class partner league of Minor League Baseball, traded corner infielder and DH Cam Bufford to Oakland in exchange for three players to be named later. Pitchers Matt Lozovoy and UC Berkeley’s Michael Riley, as well as center fielder and third baseman Davis Drewek made their professional debuts on Sunday afternoon. Drewek took a called third strike as a pinch hitter in the ninth. Lozovoy surrendered two hits but no runs in the eighth, and Riley gave up one hit, a home run, in the ninth.
The Ballers have improved the ballyard’s physical plant. The scoreboard has been improved; it’s now bigger and brighter, but often is too far behind action, and some of its fonts are too small to be read, especially through the protective screens in front of all but the cheapest seats. The B’s currently are building a higher fence in left center and the outfield lighting could be improved. Permit issues have delayed an important improvement, the installation of real toilets to replace the port-a-potties, a move that will come as a much needed relief.
Here’s a brief rundown of the scores of the Ballers first sweep of the season:
5/29
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
R
H
E
RedPocket Mobiles
0
1
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
2
6
2
Oakland Ballers
0
1
1
0
0
0
1
0
X
3
5
Winning pitcher: Langston Burkett (1-0) Save: Braydon Nelson (1)
Losing pitcher: Billy Rozakis (0-1)
5/30
RedPocket Mobiles
0
2
0
1
0
0
1
2
0
6
9
0
Oakland Ballers
1
1
2
0
2
1
1
0
X
8
13
0
Winning pitcher: Gabe Tanner (2-1) Save: Langston Burkett (1)
Losing pitcher: Matt Lauria (0-2)
Tanner lasted 7-2/3 innings and threw 111 pitches. It was, alas!, the best outing of a Ballers hurler so far this season.
5/31
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
R
H
E
RedPocket Mobiles
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
9
0
Oakland Ballers
1
0
0
1
1
4
0
0
X
7
8
0
Winning pitcher: Aidan Risse (1-1)
Losing pitcher: Charlie Adamson (0-3)
The team will be on the road for the next two weeks, visiting the Glacier Range Riders,
Great Falls Voyagers, and Missoula PaddleHeads, before returning on Tuesday, June 16th, to the friendly confines of Raimondi Park, to try to wreck some vengeance on the Long Beach Coast.
You can find the Ballers latest individual offensive statistics at https://www.oaklandballers.com/sports/bsb/2026/teams/oaklandballers?view=lineup
I haven’t been able to find all their pitching stats in one place.
The Ballers are averaging a respectable 2,295 attendance in their 12 games.
And that’s how the ball’s been bouncing so far.
Sports Radio Service 