Category: Oakland Ballers

Oakland Ballers weekly report: Follow the Bouncing Ballers, September 1-6: Through a Crystal Ball Darkly

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Oakland Ballers rallied for ten runs against the Yuba-Sutter Freebirds in the top of the second inning for a 16-10 win on Sun Sep 6, 2026 (Oakland Ballers photo)

Wed Sep 9, 2026

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–Walter Huston sang “Oh, it’s a long, long while from May to December, but the days grow short when you reach September.” Or as Lawrence Berra told us more prosaicly, “It gets late early this time of the  year.”

But sometimes, as happened the bottom of the eighth on the first of the month, when the Freebirds of Yuba-Sutter turned a 7-3 Baller lead into a 10-7 Freeboard triumph, it seemed as though a half inning would last forever. Even the following day, when the 10-7 game went Oakland’s way, their hosts  managed to make the home half of the sixth last what felt like an eternity as they they fit all their runs into that slowly stretched out frame.

When the season ended with Sunday’s kaleidoscopic win over the Firebirds, time seemed to have expanded and contracted  like an accordion that sometimes plays beautiful music and at others emits flatulent noises.

Let’s take a brief glance at each of the week’s games and then begin to see if we can make heads or tails out of them. Then we can begin to endulge in the post mortems, predictions, and other entertainments of the hot stove league.

9/1:

Winning pitcher: Rane Pffeifer (4-1)    Losing pitcher: Tyler Bates (2-1)
Time: 3:13   Attendance: 702

This game contained the eighth inning from hell, when the Ballers blew a 7-4 lead. Tyler Bates took over mound duties for Jame Pazdera, who had allowed two runs in his three innings in relief of Christian Díaz before yielding a lead off single to Issac Núñez. Bates walked Cam Yuran. Then Núñez pilferred third and scored on Zab Roos’s single that moved Yuran into scoring position. What followed seemed almost inevitable: a passed ball, a two RBI double by Cooper Hext, a walk, another stolen base, a sac fly, and a shower for Bates. Nathan Darden came in to pitch, and the onslaught continued with a stolen base, an error by Brandon O’Sullivan at short, and a single by Josh Duarte that brought in two more Freebird runs. Darden had time to unleash a wild pitch before he fanned Núñez to retire the side.

9/2:

Winning pitcher: Brock Mayer (3-0)    Losing pitcher: Tristan Wolf (4-5)
Time: 2:55   Attendance: 444

The tables were turned in this game, with Oakland coming out on top in another 10-7 slugfest .  David Thomas allowed a mere two hits in five innings of shutout ball. Brady Chåvez also surrendered two hits, but he did it in just a third of an inning, during which he managed to cough up half a dozen runs, all of them earned. Brock Mayer, who allowed an unearned run in his 3-2/3 innings on the mound, earned the win.

9/3:

There was no winning or losing pitcher. Yuba-Sutter won in second round of
KO inning.  (Round 1: Oak: Tristan Moore [0]. Y-S: Cooper Hext [0]. Round 2: Oak: Jeter Ybarra [0]. Y-S: Andrew Kirchner [1])

Time: 2:47   Attendance: 356. (10-15 minute rain delay in top of 1st)

In another topsy-turvy set-to, Ren Abe Arias pitched a complete game, which in the PBL means nine innings rather than pitching from the beginning to the end of the contest. The Japanese-Mexican right handed ace got a no decision, and the B’s suffered a loss when neither Tristan Moore nor Jeter Ybarra for Oakland nor Cooper Hext for Yuba-Sutter could hit a fair ball out of Bryant Field in two minutes or five swings, Andrew Kirchner got the one “home run” he needed to give the Freebirds credit for a win.

Abe Arias was superb, not allowing a baserunner in the four opening frames. Kirchner made a frame of his own; before he closed the scoring with his fatal blow in the Shootout in the KO Corral, he had broken the tie and the perfecto with with a homer to right  in the fifth, closing Oakland’s lead from 2-0 to  2-1. The Freebirds went up, 3-2 in the sixth on three singles, a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly. Walks to Santos, Sanford, and Johnstone and sac fly from Ybarra enabled the B’s retied the  game, setting up the carnival side show.

9/4:

Pitching coach Jim Dedrick was manager for a day, replacing Aaron Miles this Friday evening. Miles served as first base coach. It’s unclear if this move has any long term significance.

Winning pitcher: James Pazdera (1-0)   Losing pitcher: Eric Vasser (1-1)
Save: Nathan Darden (1)

Time: 3:39   Attendance: 1,076

This was the game in which Ybarra drove in his 107th run of the season, making him the team’s all time (i.e., three year) leader in that category. It also was Pandora’s first win  as a proand Darden’s first save as a Baller.

9/5:

Winning pitcher: Riley Egloff (6-6)   Losing pitcher: Hunter Day (0-6)  Save: Rane Pfeifer (3)
Time: 2:15   Attendance: 809

Hunter Day pitched seven excellent innings and left trailing, 2-1, He threw 101 pitches, and both runs were earned. He gave up five hits and three walks. Julio Rosario wasn’t as ineffective as he often is, but the home run he surrendered to Zach Chamizo after retiring the first two batters he faced, put this uncharacteristic low scoring  game effectively out of reach,

9/6:

Winning pitcher: Brock Mayer (4-0)   Losing pitcher :Isaiah Williams (2-3)
Time: 3:09   Attendance: 892

Last day of the season games are notorious for their eccentricities. I’m thinking of Bert Campaneris playing a new position each inning in 1965 and Babe Ruth pitching in 1930 and 1933. Managers of teams headed for the post season used to give their usual batters an extra day of rest by letting pitchers play on the bases or in the outfield. In this season’s Baller finale, Noah Blythe, the position player who frequently gave the bullpen a rest by tossing the last inning or so of blowout losses, started for the Ballers. He moved to right in the second frame but returned to the mound with two down in the bottom of the ninth to the bookend his day. James Pazdera, who was pitching when Blythe took over, caught the last out, Kyle Carlson’s fly to right, the position Blythe had just vacated.


A  weak bullpen was a frequent problem for Oakland all season long. Today, Brock Mayer was an exception. Although he yielded a half a dozen runs in his six innings on the bump, only one was earned. He still closed out the season with an ERA of 6.41.

What follows is compilation of thoughts I’ve had about where the Ballers stand and what they stand for. It doesn’t pretend to be definitive or complete. I’d welcome comments, disagreements, and corrections, but mainly clarifications. My judgements may seem harsh, but they are tentative. When I categorize statements as ambiguous, it’s because the situation they refer to is complicated; I’m  not implying that the person or organization involved is being duplicitous, although we never can rule out that possibility.

Even before the season began there were signs of trouble. Lou Helmig had left Oakland and taken  his .884 OPS with him.. BTW, the first baseman’s father had managed Team Germany in the 2016 World Baseball Classic Qualifying Round. That team came within a hare’s breath of defeating eventual runner up Nicaragua. One time Oakland Athletic Bruce Maxwell was one of Helmig Sr,’s charges in the 10 inning battle that eliminated the Germans. Gone, too, was Michael O’Hara, whose marvelous catch, crashing into the left field wall in the ninth inning of game four was instrumental in the B’s comeback win in finals. Oakland was overwhelmed, 13-1 in marked contrast to their  respectable 5-2 defeat in ‘25.

The season started off in sub mediocre fashion, but the defending league champions started to get their act together  in the last week of the first half. The loss of Tremayne Cobb to a leg injury contributed to the Bs’  nose dive at the start of the second half, in which they lost all of the first seven games. That the team finished the half with a winning percentage of .500 was a hopeful sign for 2027, but no more to be counted on than a one run lead in the first inning of any PBL game.   The Ballers announced that the seemingly inexplicable trade of Player of the Week Jake Allgeyer to Mahoning Valley Scrappers on August 10 was made to enable him to be near his family. This raises the possibility that Allgeyer’s need was temporary and that he would be his own player to be named later. Joey Winters, who replaced Allgeyer on the roster, bolstered the team in its end of the season run. So perhaps what that complex story may end up with a happy ending. Jeter Ybarra had first impressed Ballers management with his swing; they didn’t think of him as a power hitter. He surprised a lot of people by able to both hit and hit for power, although  his home run total stagnated after he hit his 33rd of the season. Still, the erstwhile first baseman, who moved to third when Winters took over at first, kept right on hitting.  Ybarra finished the 2026 season with a new Oakland Ballers single-season record of 110 RBIs. During the home stretch, he surpassed the previous franchise mark previously held by Christian Almanza (105 )  and capped it off with a 3-for-5 performance and his 34th home run in the season finale. He ended up setting new records for a single season in batting average (.356), hits (144), and doubles (32). Of course, you have to remember that the team is only three seasons old.

Ren Abe Aris and Hunter Day are among the best of the pitchers in the league. If Oakland can retain their services for 2027, the team could be a serious contender to regain the crown it lost this year.  

Much of the Ballers’ revenue is derived from the merchandise it sells. Indeed, in many ways it’s the Oaklandish company team. That doesn’t invalidate their claim to be a community team. Oaklandish doesn’t sell only a variety of merch, as it’s called these days; it also sells Oakland and provides jobs for people who live there. In many ways it resembles Sid Bercovich’s family furniture company, the sponsor of several youth teams that played most of their home games at 20th and Wood for decades. It was good publicity for the store,  provided training and guidance for the youngsters, and was a source of pride to the community.   Some of baseball’s greatest players of the middle to late twentieth century major leagues were nurtured by that experience. They include National Baseball Hall of Fame Inductees Frank Robinson, Rickey Henderson, Joe Morgan, Willie Stargell, and Randy Johnson.

Other big leaguers who played for Bercovich sponsored teams are Curt Flood, who in spite of Barbara Lee’s proclamation on Curt Flood Day in 2026 that called him an Oakland native. was born in Houston, Vada Pinson, Dave Stewart, Bill Rigney, Jackie Jensen, Don Wakamatsu, Kevin Maas, Tommy Harper, and Charlie Beamon.

You can do well by doing good.

Another source of confusion is the tendency of articles on the PBL and Ballers web sites to conflate the Pioneer Baseball League, founded in 2022 and the Pioneer League, founded in 1939.   No one would conflate the American Association—which, like the PBLA, is an MLB partner league; Lou Helmig played for its Fargo-Moorehead franchise this year)—with the highest ranking (aside from the special status briefly accorded the PCL) in the minor leagues from 1902 to 1962 and 1969 to 1997, or with the major league American Association, sometimes fondly and sometimes reprovingly nicknamed The Beer  and Whisky League.  Moses Fleetwood Walker, the first openly Black major league player, earned that distinction  in 1884 with the Toledo Blue Stockings of that American Association.

Moses Fleetwood Walker (Photo: Wikipedia)

During the season, I frequently complained about the scoreboard and PA system’s failure to provide information in a timely fashion, as when pitching and position changes went unannounced for innings at a time. It’s hard to receive and give that sort of data when you’re attending to other tasks, and the Ballers’ staff is extremely multi-tasked; there’s bound to be slippage. Helping users of the team’s complex web site takes a lot of time away from workers charged with other duties. Ballers broadcasts on their youtube channel spend an inordinate amount of time soliciting and responding to comments on their chatbox; so much time attention that the on field action seems like a brief distraction to the chattering. I understand that the chatbox helps build a community and a sense of belonging, but I believe that the balance between reporting a ball game and discussing the strangest pet you’ve ever heard of needs some readjustment.

The Ballers have renamed their overworked, excessively multi tasked  staffers “associates.” They are workers, and to call them “associates” creates the sort of confusion that blurs the difference between owners, investors, and stockholders. The Certificate of Fan Ownership says it “is given to fan investors….,” but  only stockholders really own the team. It reminds me of when I worked for the welfare department and the state  decided to call the people we served “customers” instead of  “clients,” because the latter was demeaning. I’d like to see how the people who hire lawyers would react to being called “customers.”

The absence of real toilets at Raimondi remains a problem. Investors were told just before the season began that there were inspection problems that would delay the replacement of the malodorous otherwise unsavory portapotties. On September 29, team president Yeshaya Goldfarb frankly described the problem as financial. The two reasons for the delay aren’t mutually exclusive, but they are an indication of how unsettled puzzling the state of the Ballers can be.

I pause In these confused initial post season broodings to gaze into my crystal ball. From what I see there, I’d say the outlook for the Ballers in the next twelve months is cloudy. Let’s hope that one of those clouds is Cloud Nine.

Oakland Ballers Weekly report, Follow the bouncing Ballers August 24-30: Farwell To All That

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Oakland Ballers Brenden O’Sullivan (8) makes contact against Long Beach Coast pitching in Pioneer League action at Raimondi Field in Oakland on Sun Aug 30, 2026 (Oakland Ballers photo)

Monday, August 31

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–In the past seven days, your Oakland Ballers closed up their home season by doing exactly what you’d expect of them: the unexpected.   

On Tuesday, August 25, with the B’s trailing the rising Missoula PaddleHeads 7-4, in the bottom of the eighth, it looked like the visitors’ Brock Lambert, who had entered the game in relief of Jaren Jackson, the PaddleHeads’ starter and eventual winner, plunked Noah Blythe. Home plate umpire Ricardo Rodríguez didn’t see it that way, and Blythe ended up flying out to the warning track in right. The next B at the plate, Mitchell Sanford, homered to left before the Ballers’ small ball combined with some sloppy Missoula fielding combined to bring Brendan O’Sullivan home with another, unearned, run.

Ah, well, the Ballers had beaten the Modesto Roadsters three days earlier on  questionable calls; they could well have lost this contest on one. 

Winning pitcher: Jaren Jackson (8-4)   Losing pitcher: Christian Díaz (3-2)  Save: Matthew Taubensee (9

Time: 2:55   Attendance: 2,256

Good bullpen work by Brady Chávez, Tyler Bates, and Nathan Darden, not something we’ve come to expect from the B’s, held the visitors in check long enough for Jeter Ybarra to reach second on a single and a wild pitch to place the potential tying run in scoring position with no one out in the bottom of the ninth. Brock Mayer, pinch running for him,  still was there when the game ended,

They say that turnabout is fair play; on Wednesday the twenty-sixth , Oaktown zapped Zootown by the overwhelming score of 17-5. The Ballers massacred Mason Martínez, a righty whom Missoula had  acquired from the Tri-City Valleycats of the Frontier League in exchange for the always in demand Player to be Named Later. He made his PBL appearance on August 20 and shut out the feared Long Beach Coast over seven innings in what turned out to be a 4-0 victory and the Paddleheads’ only white wash win of the season.

Mason’s modus operandi on that occasion was to pitch to contact. He used the same technique on the twenty-sixth, but the result was considerably less successful. Martínez lasted three frames and surrendered seven runs, all earned, on five hits and as many walks while registering but one strike out. The B’s scored a quick two runs to take the lead in the bottom of the first. Missoula wiped that out in their next turn at bat, but their hosts plated three in the third on a double by Jeter Ybarra and a two RBI single by Tristan Moore.Their guests never came closing to catching up after that. Even by Pioneer Baseball League standards, the game was decided after four innings,

Winning pitcher: David Thomas (3-1)   Losing pitcher: Mason Martínez (1-1)

Time: 2:57   Attendance: 2,078

The Ballers’ mound work was adequate; but, it goes without saying, the story was their offense. Brendan O’Sullivan was the only batter in the starting line up to go hitless, and he got a walk. Tristan Moore got four hits and drove in five runs in five at bats. Ybarra went three for five, with two doubles and three 

RBI. Esai Santos, well out of his slump, had a multi-hit night that included a two bagger and a pair of ribbies.

You’d think after a defeat like that, the mountain boys would have slunk away in shame.  Instead, they carried a 2-0 lead over the first and a half innings on the twenty-seventh. They got those two runs off hard luck Ren Abe Arias, who, nonetheless, managed to get credit for a complete game. He had been stymied an out short of one on August 2  after throwing  130 pitches against the B’s  for the RedPocket Mobiles and  again on the fifteenth, this time pitching for them against Long Beach.

Oakland managed to overcome Missoula’s lead in the seventh but wasted an opportunity to go ahead when Leehey got picked off at first with a runner on second and two down.. The 

Ballers  did take the lead in the eighth with Tristan Moore’s solo shot round tripper to left center.   They blew that advantage in the top of the ninth. Abe Arias had kept the PaddleHeads off the board for seven consecutive innings when Sergio Gutiérrez blasted a 3-1 offering into the what looked like to my weakened eyes the Missoula bullpen in right, a shot unanswered by the Ballers in their final chance to win in regulation.

The Shoot Out at the KO corral wasn’t as close as the tie game that preceded it; Nich Klemp’s 4 “home runs” easily bested Leehey’s one fence clearer.

There was no winning or losing pitcher.

Missoula won in first round of KO Inning: Nich Klemp (3), Nick Leehey (1)

Time: 2:40   Attendance: 2,852

Long Beach, almost assured of a playoff spot, coasted into The Town on Friday, August 28.

Reed Butz was ineffective as Oakland’s starter. The team went south almost as soon as the southpaw toed the rubber. Jacob Jablonski, LBC’s third batter, put them ahead, 3-0. Butz lasted until Emilio Corona hit a two RBI safety that brought James Pazdera to the mound. He allowed one inherited run to score. More probably would have come in if the Coasters were better baserunners. Julio Rosario  and Valek Cisneros also relieved for the Ballers. Rosario yielded a three run four bagger to Emilio Corona, the fourth batter he faced.

The Ballers stayed in their funk in Saturday’s 4:35 game.

Only one of the Coast’s five tallies was earned. Four Coast runners scored on home runs as the B’s sang The Long Coast Long Ball Blues. 

Just when you thought the Ballers would bid farewell for the season with another loss on Sunday afternoon’s Fan Appreciation Day, they blew the Coast out of the water with a game in which the total of runs scored by both teams was 40, the number of their hits also was 40, and they combined to commit four errors.

The Ballers sent their fans home happy.

 At 20th and Wood, it’s wait ’til next year. In the meantime, the B’s are off to Marysville for a six game series against Yuba-Sutter. Next Monday, I’ll  report on what happens there. It’s been fun watch the Ballers and a privilege to pass my observations on to you.

Oakland Ballers weekly report: Follow the Bouncing Ballers, August 17-23, The End of a Cycle

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The Oakland Ballers have been taking their swings against the Modesto Roadsters at Raimondi Park in Oakland on Wed Aug 19, 2026 (photo by the Oakland Baller’s)


  (IT’S ROUND AND COMES IN A SQUARE BOX)




Monday, August 24, 2026

By Lewis Rubman


OAKLAND–The Ballers bused north from Long Beach, where they finally had won a second half game and series, against the first half champion Coast, no less. But this successful leap from the frying pan took them to the fire that is—or was—Modesto, both for its torrid temperatures and the Roadsters 27-3 second half record, which had earned them the top spot in the new half season.


Who’d a thunk it? On Tuesday the 18th, the Ballers held the nearly invincible Roadsters scoreless for 7-2/3 innings. Starting pitcher Hunter Day allowed five hits and a walk to the 25 batters he faced and punched out a half a dozen of them.  His successor, Nathan Darden, took over with one man down and two on base and preserved the shut out. But a lead off full count walk to Lucas Terilli, followed by Max Handron’s ground out to second and Osiris Johnson’s fly out to deep center put Terilli 90 feet from home with two outs. Darden got ahead of Tyler Williams with two straight strikes, but his third offering went into the dirt and got by Jared Collura, a wild pitch that brought Terilli home with the game’s only tally. The B’s outhit their hosts, six to five, but only one Oaklander advanced beyond second base, leaving the team winless against Modesto in the second half of the season.




Oakland Ballers (18-15,37-42)   000 000 000    0 6 0
Modesto Roadsters (28-3,55-24) 000 000 010    1 5 0


Winning pitcher: Johan Castillo (1-0)   Losing pitcher: Nathan Darden (0-1)
Save: Bridger Holmes (1)
Time: 2:22   Attendance: 823


The next day, in a game of reversal, the Ballers damn near pulled defeat out of the jaws of victory. What could go wrong? After all, Esai Santos broke his 0-20 with a 416 foot homer in the fifth, T.J. Rogers went yard with a 422 foot four bagger in the fourth, and Tristan Moore out slugged both of them with a 440 foot fence clearer in the seventh. New Woodmen Field might be pitcher friendly, but the Bs’ batters weren’t, even though the league’s home run leader, Jeter Ibarra, still hadn’t hit one since August 6. It was thanks to Modesto’s resurgence from a 9-1 deficit in the bottom of the eighth (and 10-4 in the bottom of the ninth) that Oakland’s 10-7 win felt more like a loss. Let’s take a look at the line score before speculating a bit more on that feeling of disappointment.


Oakland Ballers (19-16,38-42) 400 120 111   10   14   0
Modesto Roadsters (28-4,55-25) 010 000 033 7    8    0


Winning pitcher: Christian Díaz (1-0)   Losing pitcher: Ethan Rake (0-1) Save: Julio Rosario (1)
Time: 3:10  Attendance:  1,236


Another reason for the bad taste this win left in Ballerdom’s collective mouth was Reed Butz’s performance. It was the southpaw’s scheduled bull pen day, and it seemed an elegant way to combine his routine  with a win preserving cameo appearance. It was an ugly cameo, lasting 2/3 of an inning in which he allowed  three runs, all earned, on a pair of hits and another pair of walks. His pitch count reached 42, 25 of which counted as strikes, which doesn’t mean real life strikes but called and swinging strikes plus the number of times the batter makes contact. Entering the game with a six run lead, he bequeathed his replacement, the off again, on again, off again Julio Rosario, a save situation, which he successfully converted for the first time this season. Butz would get tagged for eight earned runs in three innings by Modesto when, four days later, he next started for Oakland.


The Ballers’ ambiguous win ended with some angry words from one-time Baller fan favorite and current Roadster manager J.T. Snow. Seemingly as a result of those remarks, he did not manage the game on Thursday the twentieth. There was no official announcement of disciplinary action.


 Oakland’s Thursday triumph was unambiguous.


Oakland Ballers (17-16,39-42) 100 060 150     14  15  1
Modesto Roadsters (28-5,55-26) 000 100 010   2   6   2


Winning pitcher: David Thomas (1-0)   Losing pitcher: Jonah Jenkins (0-1)
Time: 2:58   Attendance: 1,161


It was a tight 1-1 contest for four innings until the top of the fifth, when the Ballers jumped all  over Jonah Jenkins, who had held the Yuba-Sutter Freebirds scoreless over six innings in his last start six days earlier. It also had been a while—five days, to be specific— since Jeter Ybarra had hit his team record tying thirty-first dinger. This evening, his fence clearing bullet to right was the blow in the top of the fifth that broke a 1-1 tie and sparked the Bs’ six run outburst, sending Modesto on the road to ruin. 


The slugging first sacker wasn’t the only Baller to put dents in the Roadsters’s bodywork. Mitchell Sanford went three for five with a double and two RBI; Logan Johnstone, two for six with a double and a homer, each of which drove in a run; Jaden Collura went two for three, including a solo home run. One of Jake Allgeyer’s two hits  went for two bases. This night’s performance was to be Allgeyer’s last as a Baller; the next day he was traded to the Lake County DockHounds of the American Association to enable him to be closer to his family. 


David Thomas threw 90 pitches over seven innings of five hit, one run baseball. The run was earned. He struck out nine and issued one free pass. The Roadsters’ other tally came off of Valek Cisneros in his one inning, the eighth, stint on the mound. James Pazdera, making his Ballers debut, closed the game with a three up, three down, ninth.


The mystery of Snow’s status was somewhat resolved when the teams resumed play in Oakland on Friday the twenty-first. The PA speaker boomed that the Modesto lineup  was “as announced by manager J.T. Snow.”


Modesto Roadsters (28-6,55-27) 000 204 000    6   7  1
Oakland Ballers (18-16,40-42) 001 152 00x   10 14  3


Winning pitcher: Ren Abe Arias (2-3)   Losing pitcher: Devyn Hernández (6-2)


For once,  Oakland’s starting pitcher, Ren Abe Arias, didn’t come close to hurling a complete game. He lasted only 5-2/3 innings, and in them he allowed six runs. Five of them were unearned. That and the 3 in the line score’s E column will give you an idea of the shoddiness of the Ballers’ defense. 


The most costly of these fielding flaws came in the the top of the fourth. With one out and runners on first and second, Modesto catcher Hayden Dunhurst hit a sharp grounder to second. 
Esai Santos’s errant toss to shortstop T.J. Rogers turned a tailor made inning ending twin killing into an unearned run as the runner on third crossed the plate. Kingston Liniak’s sacrifice fly brought in another misbegotten tally..


The afternoon encounter on Saturday August 22 was topsy turvy, oxymoronic, overload loaded with peripeteia—you name it, high brow, low brow, intermediate—everything was its own mirror image. Even the Ballers’ slugging first baseman, Jeter Ibarra, in a move designed to find a defensive replacement for Allgeyer,  played third base; rookie Joey Winters took over Ibarra’s usual spot at first. Both hit home runs. For Ibarra, it was his thirty-third; for Winters, his first. He was, after all, making his professional baseball debut.


The raw numbers of the line score illustrate the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that some of the sellout crowd enjoyed, while others would have seen if they hadn’t given up in despair and left some time around the singing of  “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.:


Modesto Roadsters (28-7,55-28) 017 301 000   12  15  2
Oakland Ballers (19-16,41-42) 021 100 063   13  11  1


Winning pitcher: Tyler Bates (2-0)   Losing pitcher: Bridger Holmes (0-1)
Time: 3:24   Attendance: 4,135 


In a final reversal, J.T. Snow, who had been suspended for arguing at the end of Wednesday’s game, served his suspension on Thursday, and returned to work on Friday, was ejected in the bottom of the ninth on this Saturday, for arguing. I think he had good reason to be incensed. Home plate umpire Memo Rodríguez’s call of catcher’s interference on Dunhurst with Johnstone at bat and first base ump Robert Headley’s safe call on  O’Sullivan looked at least dubious to me. Let’s review the events of he Ballers’ bizarre and exhilarating finale in an attempt to understand the context and significance of those decisions.


With the Roadsters leading  12-10,  Bridger Holmes came in to relieve Aaron Moreno. Holmes was Modesto’s fifth pitcher of the evening. Collura led off with a walk. Winters pushed him up 90 feet with a single to right and then gave way to T.J. Rogers, who pinch ran for the debutant. Brendan O’Sullivan attempted to drop a sacrifice bunt.  Dunhurst fielded the ball and threw to firs.O’Sullivan was ruled safe, incendiary event # 1.  Rogers, meanwhile hustled over to third; Bryce Cannon threw across the diamond to Max Hadron at the hot corner. His throw seemed to beat Rogers to the bag, but Hadron dropped the ball. Rogers ran home, and the Ballers now trailed by one. Immediately following this, Rodríguez awarded Johnstone first by virtue of catcher’s interference, incendiary event #2. Santos walked on an eight pitch full count, enabling Rogers to trot home and keeping the bases loaded. Then the mighty Ybarra struck out looking. The count on Blythe went to 0-2 before he took four consecutive balls to force in O’Sullivan with the winning run. Holmes was charged with the loss.


That made it five straight wins over the Roadsters.


The surrealists had a slogan that went “A throw of the dice won’t abolish chance.” I don’t know what that means, but I’m fairly sure that it applies to the series’ grand finale at Raimondi Field on Sunday the twenty fourth.

This time it was the visitors who won with late action heroics, specifically three-run round trippers by Tyler Williams and Bryce Canon, both off the problematic Julio Rosario.


If you don’t suffer from vertigo, cast an eye on this line score:


Modesto Roadsters (29-7,56-28) 450 030 006     18  16  2
Oakland Ballmers (19-17,41-43) 203 023 211 14  13  0


Winning pitcher: Johan Castillo (6-1)    Losing pitcher: Julio Rosario (0-1)
Time: 3:45   Attendance: 2,667


Miles’ Militia has six challenging games scheduled for the coming week. The first three, August 25-27 are against the Missoula PaddleHeads (currently 25-11, four games behind Modesto in the second half standings, and 49-34 overall, good for fourth place but trailing the Billings Mustangs by a full ten games). All of those games are scheduled to start at 6:35.  Long Beach will coast into the East Bay on Friday,  August 28. The games against them will start at 6:35, 4:35, and 1:05, the usual for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 20th and Wood.


There will be some enticing giveaways and pregame attractions.


—August 25 (vs. Missoula PaddleHeads): Possum Power Play theme, celebrating the Bay Area’s new hockey team, the Possums, with squeezeable pucks for the first 750 attendees.


—August 26 (vs. Missoula PaddleHeads): Oakland School for the Arts Night featuring an Aaron Miles Bobblehead giveaway for the first 750 fans;


—August 27 (vs. Missoula PaddleHeads): Too $hort Takeover theme with a Too $hort pin. giveaway for the customary 750 people through the gate.


—August 28 (vs. Long Beach Coast): Island Night, honoring island culture from Hawaii to Alameda. 


—August 29 (vs. Long Beach Coast): Car Show pregame event and album release concert;


—August 30 (vs. Long Beach Coast): Fan Appreciation Day. 


After that, Ballers fans will have to find some distraction in Major League Baseball. Just as long as it doesn’t take place in West Sacramento …



Follow the Bouncing Ballers, August 11-17, Lows and Highs

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Oakland Ballers defeated the Long Beach Coast in Pioneer League action at Raimondi Park in Oakland on Sun Aug 16, 2026 (Oakland Ballers photo)

8/17/26 FBB eff 8/17/26

Monday, August 17, 2026

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–This was a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde week for the Ballers. It began with the Modesto Roadsters rolling over them in a humiliating three game sweep at Raimondi and ended with an exhilarating 2-1 series win against the first half champion Long Beach Coast that was marred by lost opportunities and the anticlimactic endings of two of the contests. One was a loss; the other, a win. Both were decided by that carney sideshow, the Knock Out Inning.

Christian Díaz, the losing pitcher in the the first game of Oakland’s hellish home stand against the Rollers on Tuesday, August 11, would earn the save with his perfect ninth inning of relief against the heart of the Coast’s lineup in the final game of the Bs’ redemptive visit south on Sunday the sixteenth.

Noah Blythe, who allowed Oakland’s battered bullpen some needed respite in all three of the week’s no contests against the Roadsters, stayed in the outfield in the tight triumph on Sunday and made a controversial throw from left to third that I’ll discuss towards the end of this column.

My rule of thumb for the Pioneer Baseball League is that no lead ever is safe, but a lead of more
than six gives the team that enjoys it a chance to breath fairly easily. By this standard, the Roadsters could shift into overdrive at the end of the third. None of the Roadsters went hitless;
Ybarra, with a single and a double, was the only Baller to have a multi-hit game. Blythe, who allowed two runs, one of them unearned, was the most effective of Oakland’s four moundsmen. He allowed two hits, two walks, and plunked two batters.

Modesto Roadsters (24-1, 51-22) 026 044 201 19 19 1
Oakland Ballers (13-12, 35-38) 000 100 200 6 7 3

Winning pitcher: Omar Serrano (7-2) Losing pitcher: Christian Díaz (2-1)
Time: 3:07 Attendance: 2,6047

The J.T. Snowmen had a six run advantage even earlier on the twelfth. They were ahead, 10-0, after three innings of what was for them child’s play. Five of their six home runs cleared the fence in those three frames. Miles’ Militia again managed seven hits, but this time they resulted in a mere four runs. Ybarra once more was the only Baller with a multi-hit game. Blythe and Conner Smith hit four baggers. The Bs’ other Smith, Griffin, surrendered 10 runs, nine of them earned in his 2-2/3 inning cameo start. Blythe tossed—it’s hard to call what he did “pitching”—the ninth and gave up a run on two hits. Brady Chávez and Valek Cisneros also absorbed punishment.

Modesto Roadsters (25-1, 52-22) 424 102 011 15 17 1
Oakland Ballers (13-13,35-39) 000 220 000 4 7 1

Winning pitcher: Corbin Talley (8-1) Losing pitcher: Griffin Smith (2-6)
Time: 3:11 Attendance: 1,446

In retrospect, the most interesting part of the game also was the most boring. In the top of the fifth, with Modesto holding its usual commanding lead and Bryce Cannon at the plate, Tyler Williams stole second on a called strike. Cannon challenged the call, and his challenge was upheld. Home plate umpire Brian Kline seems to have interpreted this to mean that the action occurring immediately before his strike call, including Williams’ steal of second, was null and void. Accordingly, Kline told Williams to return to first. Modesto manager J.T. Snow argued long and hard with Kline and eventually told him that the Roadsters were playing the game under protest. This did not please the crowd. Perhaps the mildest epithet hurled at the one time Baller coach was “Snow Flake.” Of course, Snow withdrew the protest after the game ended in a Roadster win. The word “protest” echoed throughout Raimondi Field until the last out of the series was recorded. My view is that Snow was right to protest and that, in doing so, he actually was showing his respect for the Ballers by allowing for the possibility that it wasn’t over, as the sage Lawrence Berra would say, until it was over.

Thursday, August 13, again saw the Ballers lose by double digits. Ybarra continued his multi hit game streak, this time with three. Jake Allgeyer, Mitchell Sanford, and Tristan Moore were the only other B’s to hit safely. Noah Blythe tossed the ninth.

Modesto Roadsters (26-1,.53-22) 000 402 131 11 12 1
Oakland Ballers (13-14, 35-40) 000 001 000 1 6 1

Winning pitcher: Ethan Roarke (5-0) Losing pitcher: Hunter Day (0-4)
Time: 2:52 Attendance: 1,929

T.S. Eliot, whose parody of “Casey at the Bat” I reprinted in an earlier column, asked a question in his 1920 poem “Gerontion” that a lot of Ballers and their fans might have been asking themselves, “After such knowledge, what forgiveness?” (Or less philosophical words to that effect).

After Thursday’s debacle the B’s boarded their bus for the six and a half hour journey to Long Beach, where on the fourteenth, after 8-2/3 innings of doom and despair, they trailed the hosts and tormentors, 5-2. Then Tristan Moore, who had worked a one out, pinch hit walk, stole second. Conner Smith followed with a walk, and Zach Volker plunked Logan Johnstone to load the bases. This brought up Blythe, who lifted a fly ball to left center field. Center fielder Emilio Corona got to it and …. dropped the ball! Moore, Smith, and Johnstone scampered home with the tying runs. Nathan Darden, who had relieved starter David Thomas to start the home seventh, set down three of the four Coasters he faced in their half of the ninth. The exception was Corona, whose single couldn’t undue his costly error.

All the Ballers gained from these heroics was the chance for Ybarra to duel Cuba Bess in the farce the PBL proudly bills as the Knock Out Inning. The league’s leading home run hitter wasn’t able to deliver the goods, but the Coast’s Cuba Bess was.

The line score fails to convey the emotions this near recall to life aroused.

Oakland Ballers (13-15, 36-41) 000 000 203 5 6 0
Long Beach Coast (19-9, 55-20) 300 010 010 5 8 1

There was no winning or losing pitcher. Long Beach won in first round
of KO inning (Jeter Ibarra, 0; Cuba Bess, 1)

Time: 2:58 Attendance: 2,087

Saturday, the fifteenth, was, in many ways, a reversal of the previous night’s experience. This time it was the Coast who rallied from a three run deficit in the ninth to force a Knock Out Inning. And this time it was the Ballers who won the Shoot Out at the KO Corral.

Oakland Ballers (14-15, 36-41) 000 130 000 4 9 0
Long Beach Coast (19-10, 56-21) 000 001 003 4 8 1

There was no winning or losing pitcher. Oakland won in first round of KO
inning (Conner Smith, 1; Cuba Bess, 0)

Oakland’s starting pitcher, Ron Abe-Arias, could well be the best in the entire league. As a member of the hapless RedPocket Mobiles, he took a 9-5 lead into the ninth against the Ballers on August 2 and left the game after throwing 130 pitches in 8-1/3 innings only to see Jordan Hamberg surrender three runs, including Jeter Ybarra’s third homer of the game, to force a KO round, which Oakland won, Ybarra won for the B’s. On August 9, it was Abe-Arias, a baller by then, who sweltered through the Marysville meltdown that began Oakland’s precipitous losing streak. In this Saturday’s game, he went 8-2/3 frames before being replaced by Julio Romero, whose on and off control issues I’ve discussed a few times in these columns. Romero’s first offering was a wild pitch that allowed a run to be scored. He walked the next two Coast batters, one intentionally, before securing the final out and sending the teams into another knock out round.

The game also was notable for the way in which the B’s took the lead that enabled them to win in spite of having been shut out for the last four innings. All three of their runs came on two out hits.

Dr. Jekyll won his intense battle against the evil Mr. Hyde in the series finale on Sunday the sixteenth. That victory brought the Ballers an exciting win that evened their second half record and saved us from having to endure the anticlimax of a KO round.

Oakland Ballers (15-15. 37-41) 030 001 000 4 8 0
Long Beach Coast (19-11, 56-22) 000 010 020 3 5 2

Winning pitcher: Reed Butz (1-1) Losing pitcher: Brett Wozniak (3-1) Save: Christian Díaz (1)
Time: 2:44 Attendance: 1,083

The Coast threw a scare into the Ballers with a two run rally in the bottom of the eighth off of Tyler Bates, who followed Brock Mayer, who, in turn, had relieved starter Reed Butz, who had held the powerful Coast hitters to a lone run over six full innings.

Noah Blythe, the Ballers’ go to tosser in lost causes, remained in right field during Bates’s stint on the mound and caused some consternation with a throw he made with one run in, which made it a 4-2 ball game, and left the bases loaded. Anthony Mata lifted a fly that Blythe captured for the second out and then threw to third. That allowed Benjamin Rosengard to score, narrowing the gap to 4-3. Jacob Jablonsky, who was on second, hadn’t given any indication that he would try to advance, so it appeared that, by not throwing to the plate, Blythe had given Long Beach a run without gaining anything in return.

I see the situation as more complicated than that. Bates averages about a walk an inning; he already had walked one batter and hit another in this frame. There was no indication that Rosengard would have been out if Blythe had thrown home, and there was a reasonable chance the B’s might commit one of their frequent relay misplays, putting two runners in scoring position.

In any case, Robert Pitts fouled out to Smith, and the Ballers could breath a little easier.
But they still couldn’t put any more space between themselves and the Coast.

The trepidation among the Balleromanes when manager Aaron Miles chose Díaz to close out the game wasn’t unfounded, especially in view of his poor performance in his last start, against Modesto on the eleventh.

The tension increased when the slugger Cooper Vest, leading off, pinch hit for Spence Coffman and fouled off six straight pitches before fanning with a full count on Díaz’s eleventh offering. It increased even further when Cuba Bess went to another full count; in this one, seven pitches were thrown before he grounded out to second to end the game.

Since my last column, the Ballers announced the following transactions:

—Signed James Pazdera on August 15.

—Cam Bufford was placed on the 60 day Injury List and reinstated Charlie Hurley from the Ineligible List on August 12.

—Signed Ethan Crawford, who had been their bullpen catcher, to their roster, placed Ahmad Harajli on irrevocable waivers, and placed Charlie Hurley on the 10 day Injury List on August 14.

From now until the end of the season or their elimination from contention, every Baller game will be crucial. Tomorrow, Tuesday, August 18, the B’s jump out of the frying pan and into the fire, AKA Modesto for the first of a three game set-to. All of the encounters are scheduled to start at 7:11 in the evening1.
Then the two rivals will come to 20th and Wood for games on the usual week end times of 6:35, 4:35, and 1:05. In addition to the usual themes, August 22nd will be El día de los Ballers, with the first 750 fans receiving a free Lucha Libre mask.

Follow the Bouncing Ballers August 4 – August 9: That Was the Streak That Was

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The Oakland Ballers lost to the Yuba Sutter Firebirds 9-5 Sun Aug 9, 2026 (photo by Oakland Ballers)

FOLLOW THE BOUNCING BALLERS, AUGUST 4-9, 2026: THAT WAS THE STREAK THAT WAS

Monday, August 10, 2026

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–There was a lot of good news to report about the Oakland Ballers this past week, but it was overshadowed by one appalling fact. So, as Gracie Allen would have said, let’s take the bitter with the batter. 

Tremayne Cobb, the key to the B’s success in their first two seasons of existence, is out for the season. Manager Aaron Miles broadcast the announcement on Raimondi Field’s center field scoreboard just before the first game covered in this week’s column, Tuesday, August 4. He didn’t emphasize only Cobb’s many on field  accomplishments; he also stressed the star’s manifold contributions to the community (or, better yet, communities)  the Ballers seek to honor and serve. When the Ballers took the field, they promptly fell six runs behind the visiting RedPocket Mobiles, a name that alludes not just to the team’s sponsor and its product but to the squad’s condition as barnstormers. Then, in a manner worthy of the Cobb-inspired 2025 Ballers, his teammates went one to crush the PBL’s roadshow franchise by the score of 18-10. It was Oakland’s third straight win, and Miles’ Militia kept on winning for the rest of the week before its surge expired from heat prostration a week later in Marysville.

The line score for the battle on the fourth reads,

RedPocket Mobiles (1-18,3-54) 600 200 200     10  12  1
Oakland Ballers (9-10,31-36) 203 900 13x      18  10  1

Winning pitcher: Brock Mayer (2-0)   Losing pitcher:  Kade Walker 1-6)
Time: 3:19   Attendance: 2,222

Whenever the Mobiles come to Oak Town, there’s a lot of murmuring in the stands that the visitors derive an unfair advantage because RedPocket provides the ABS for all games played in the Pioneer Baseball League. I dismiss that particular speculation; if there were any truth to it, the PBL’s nomads would not have the won-lost record they take with them, like the mark of Cain, wherever they go. My suspicion is that, because RedPocket relies on the profits it earns from the services it provides the league, the company agreed to sponsor a team as a place holder until the deal that established the PBL franchise that will start playing in Irvine next year goes into effect..

In any case, the Ballers settled the Mobiles’ hash pretty well in their six game confrontation in West Oakland.  The week’s contests repeated the pattern of the three games that preceded them; they were ripe with reversals, and not just because of their almost incessant exchange of leads and blown leads; individual players displayed wide swings of effectiveness. Oakland reliever Julio Rosario provides a good example. He had almost cost the Ballers their chance to reach the KO round that led to their hard earned victory on the second of the month; six days later, on Thursday, August 8, he saved  his team’s bacon with fast balls of MLB calibre for velocity and precision.That performance earned him credit for the win, his second against one loss. By the week’s end, the Ballers had compiled an eight game winning streak, making them serious contenders for a play off berth. But then, in the sweltering heat of a Marysville Sunday afternoon, they blew an early 5-2 lead and then fell irretrievably behind the eminently beatable Yuba-Sutter Freebirds in the bottom of the seventh . On the mound during the meltdown was Julio Rosario.

But that road trip ending meltdown was still four days in the future when, on Wednesday the fifth, the Ballers turned the table once more on their guests in a triumph that brought Oakland up to the .500 mark for the second half. Not bad for a team that had lost its first seven games of the semi season!

The line on Wednesday, August 5, shows how the dominant the Ballers had become, at least against the Mobiles.

RedPocket Mobiles (1-19,3-55) 101 003 000       5   7  2
Oakland Ballers (10-10,32-36) 411 202 26x      18 21  0

Winning pitcher:Christian Díaz (2-0)   Losing pitcher: Adam Christopher (0-6)Time: 2:41   Attendance: 1,547

Seven Ballers had multi hit games; a half dozen connected for doubles, and three of them hit home runs, Allgeyer smacking a pair of them. It goes without saying that Jeter Ybarra was among the fence clearers.

It also goes without saying that the Ballers scored 18 runs once more on the sixth and almost goes without saying that Ybarra knocked the ball out of the park. What requires mention is that Ybarra’s four bagger, his 31st, tied the team’s season record, set last year by Christian Almanza. Ybarra would break that record soon enough. In fact, he accomplished the feat the next day, Thursday the 6th, in the same game in which the B’s at long last surpassed the .500 mark for the second half.

Thursday the sixth, it was more of the same.

RedPocket Mobiles (1-20,13-56) 001 102 002   6  12  1
Oakland Ballers (11-10, 33-66) 440 102 03x   18 17  0

Winning pitcher: Griffin Smith (2-5)   Losing pitcher: Miguel Rosado (0-1)
Time:2:44    Attendance:1,632

That said, if you were at the ball park and lost track of the action any time after the third inning, you wouldn’t have gotten any help from the PA announcers. Pinch hitters, position switches, pitching changes, all these went unannounced. You might be told who was at the plate, but not when he entered the game or which position he was playing. You might have marked him as the second baseman when you filled in your score sheet and discovered that he was the short stop when he came up for his third at bat. You might have entered the starting pitcher as a righty and then noticed a southpaw on the mound; after a hurried search on your iphone you’d discover that he was his team’s third pitcher. None of this, however much it annoyed you, would have come as much of a surprise. After all, the Mobiles’ roster sheet, published on the PBL’s website, lists Jordan Hamberg as alleft handed pitcher and outfielder who bats at throws right handed.

And you wouldn’t have been the only person to have this experience. At least two people sitting near me were left scratching their heads. There’s more to enjoy at a Ballers game than just the game. But there IS a game going on, and that activity, as well as the folks who care about it, don’t deserve cavalier disregard like this. After all. we’re talking about the Pioneer BASEBALL League.

Next on the Ballers’ agenda was the bus ride to Marysville for a three game series at Bryant Field, the all-ABS venue where the home plate umpires read the ball or strike ruling from the scoreboard but don’t make any pitch call decisions on their own.

I’m pleased to report that the online reports from this venue now include who got the win and was charged with the loss for some of the games, an improvement over their content during the B’s previous trip to the Sacramento exurbs. They still, however, doesn’t give that information for all games nor do they show the umpires’ last names.

It was so hot in Marysville that, while the second game of the series was being played in three digit temperatures, the game time of the final match was moved forward from 6:35 Sunday evening to 11:05 in the morning in a vain attempt to beat the predicted 105 degree heat. Mad dogs and Englishmen ….

The announcement of the morning start heralded the meltdown game But first let’s take a quick glance at the prelude to the win streak’s swan song, Saturday night’s inferno was another lopsided triumph for the Ballers’ batters. Ybarra didn’t add to his home run total but still managed to go a stellar five for seven with a couple of doubles and a corresponding number of runs batted in. The only Baller to put in a plate appearance without a hit to show for it was Brendan O’Sullivan, who walked after his sole visit to the batters’ box. Oakland never trailed their hosts.

Oakland Ballers (12-10,34-36) 140 612 210 17 23 0
Yuba-Sutter Freebirds (5-17,20-50) 111 200 100 6 16 1

Winning pitcher: Tyler Bates (1-0). Losing pitcher: Luke Ridley (0-1)
Time: 3:16. Attendance: 1,418

By Saturday the 8th, winning had become old hat for the Ballers, but right handed starting pitcher David Thomas was a revelation. It took him only 65 pitches to hold the Freebirds scoreless on four hits. That’s it; no walks, no wild pitches, no hit bathers. He pitched to only two over the minimum and achieved 10 ground outs against five fly outs. That’s Rippley Believe It or Not worthy in the Pioneer Baseball League. Another newcomer, center fielder Logan Johnstone joined the usual suspects with his second hone run in as many days. He went only one for four, and so his batting average dropped to .400.

By the eighth inning, the heat had become intolerable, but the Ballers still managed to limp to a decisive, albeit Pyhrric, victory. Bask in the glory of this line score;

Oakland Ballers (13-10,35-36) 002 421 202 13 15 0
Yuba-Sutter Freebirds (5-18,20-51) 000 000 012 3 9 1

Winning pitcher;: David Thomas (1-0). Losing pitcher; Jared Schaeffer (0-2)
Time: 2:50 Attendance: 449

Every dog has its day, and in these dog days of summer, trying to beat the heat by moving the starting pitch ahead by seven hours didn’t make the weather even tolerable. Both teams suffered from it, but it was evident that the Ballers faded while the Freebirds managed to come from behind and finally end the Ballers’ unvanquished skein at eight.

Recent additions Logan Johnstone and Mitchell Sanford led the Oakland attack, and another newcomer, Ren Abe-Arias, pitched decently—by Pioneer Baseball League standards—but Valek Cisneros couldn’t hold the lead in the sixth and an error by the usually elegant fielding T.J. Rogers at short with Tyler Bates on the mound, put the Freebirds ahead for good in the eighth. Rogers’ error seemed more mental than physical. The temperature already was in the triple digits, the playing surface was baked, so a half-baked split second mental cum physical error was not unexpected. Sic transit glorious winning streak.

The Ballers’ players certainly had a full week and fruitful week. The front office, too, was pretty busy these past seven days. If it was fruitful remains to be seen. Here’s a list of Oakland’s transactions so far this month it as reported on the PBL’s website:

8/8 Placed Reed Butz on the Injury List (Injury 10 Days)
  
8/7 Acquired RHP Ren Abe-Arias from the Red Pocket Mobiles in exchange for cash considerations
Signed Nathan Darden to their 2026 roster
Acquired RHP Nathan Darden from the Red Pocket Mobiles to complete a previous trade.
8/5 Placed Charlie Hurley on the Injury List (Injury 10 Days)
8/4 Signed Logan Johnstone to their 2026 roster.
8/4 Placed Tremayne Cobb on the Injury List (Injury 10 Days)

It’s also going to be a busy week at 20th and Wood. Here’s a list of perigame activities that might entice you to arrive early at Raimondi:


Tuesday, 8/11: Bay Mitzvah, a celebration of Jewish culture. The first 750 fans to enter will receive a Ballers noisemaker.
Wednesday, 8/12: A celebration of beloved Laney College football coach John Beam’s legacy. A Coach Beam championship cup goes to the first 750 fans through the gates.
Thursday, 8/13 is Oaktoberfest, complete with Oaktoberfest Giveaways in the Scrappytown Biergarten.


All the games are scheduled to start around 6:35. And all are against the Modesto Roadsters who, at 23-1 are the PBL’s second half leaders and, at 50-22, trail Long Beach by three games for the overall crown. The Ballers numbers are 13-11, 35-37.

Lewis Rubman is a Oakland Ballers reporter at http://www.sportsradioservice.com


Oakland Ballers weekly report: Follow the Bouncing Ballers, 7/27/26 – 8/3/26

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Oakland Ballers Jeter Ybarra won the knock out round against the Red Pocket Mobiles sending the Ballers dugout onto the field to celebrate at Raimondi Park in Oakland on Sat Aug 2, 2026 (photo by Oakland Ballers)

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–For all the on field sound and fury of this week in Oakland Ballers baseball, the most significant event may have occurred behind closed doors. On the Pioneer Baseball League’s players’ Monday day off, its owners got together and voted to place a new team in Irvine, CA in 2027. Ballers co-founder and CEO Paul Freedman announced the decision on the team’s You Tube channel during the team’s You Tube broadcast of the Wednesday game. The following is the text of the statement the circuit released on its website the following day:

The Pioneer Baseball League, a Major League Baseball Partner League, is coming to Orange County. The Irvine City Council voted Tuesday to approve a five-year agreement with Innovation Baseball Partners (IBP), clearing the way for a yet-to-be-named Pioneer Baseball League club to begin play at Great Park Baseball Stadium in the summer of 2027.

The agreement gives IBP the rights to operate the ballclub at the Great Park facility, including branding and advertising inside and outside the stadium, and calls for upgrades to the ballpark’s food and entertainment offerings.

“We’re thrilled to bring a new baseball team to Orange County. Innovation Baseball Partners takes pride in tailoring our teams to the communities we represent,” said IBP co-founder Paul Freedman. “Irvine is a hub for innovation with a diverse and growing population, and we know we can build something special out of Great Park.”

Under the terms of the deal, IBP will provide a minimum of $25,000 annually in community benefit programming. City officials project the partnership will generate approximately $368,000 in annual revenue for the Great Park Facility.

Central to the club’s plan is a ballpark experience drawing on the stadium cultures of Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan and the Korea Baseball Organization in South Korea. Fans can expect coordinated crowd participation, energetic in-game entertainment, and a menu blending iconic Asian street foods and local craft beverages with traditional ballpark fare.

“IBP is designing a premium ballpark experience from the ground up, and we couldn’t be more excited to welcome them to the Great Park,” said Irvine Councilmember William Go, Chair of the Great Park Board. “This partnership will bring elite entertainment to our City without the elite price tag, tailored for the people who live here.”

IBP also owns and operates two existing PBL clubs, the Long Beach Coast and Yuba-Sutter Freebirds. The group has built its model around affordable, family-oriented ballpark experiences.

Founded in 1939, the Pioneer Baseball League is an MLB Partner League , with player eligibility limited to those with no more than two years of professional experience. Great Park Baseball Stadium, which has hosted collegiate and amateur events in the past, will now serve as the home of the region’s newest professional club.

Details on the club’s official branding, final venue agreements, and player signings will be released in the coming months. Fans can follow updates and join the priority ticket waitlist at www.ocbaseballclub.com.

Many aspects of this document puzzled me.  As I have pointed out several times in my contributions to Sports Radio Service, the Pioneer League was founded in 1939, but the Pioneer Baseball League’s first season was considerably later. MLB’s website does little to clarify this muddle, stating in its definition of partner leagues, “Since 1939, the Pioneer Baseball League had operated in the Mountain West region as an MLB-affiliated league. Beginning in 2021, the Pioneer League became a Partner League with clubs in Montana, Idaho, Utah Colorado and California

There are two problems with that quoted assertion. The first is that the Ballers and the Yolo Highwheelers were the first California based teams in the circuit, and their initial season was 2024. The second is that the Pioneer Baseball League definitely is not “now in its 87th year.”  During 1993, I attended Pioneer League— not Pioneer Baseball League—games in Billings, Medicine Hat, and Idaho Falls. Take a look at these images from the Billings Mustangs’ program of that season.

What is the precise relationship between Mr. Freedman, the league, the Ballers, the new team in Irvine, and the Yolo Highwheelers, for that matter. I’m not impugning anyone’s integrity, nor do I have any serious legal knowledge of what constitutes criminal conflict of interest. Clearly, I need some clarification, and I think I share that need with my readers.

From what I can gather from a few online searches, it seems as though conflict of interest is endemic among MLB Partner Leagues. I found an article by Casey Dills, “The Rise of MLB Partner Leagues: Creation, Importance, and Impact on Professional Baseball,’” published on LinkedIn, that outlines the problem. The Ballers’ recent stock offering, also gives me pause. If, however, we recognize that the PBL is a training league, a three month try out camp in which players can hone and showcase their skills, the appearance of conflict of interest disappears.

The flip side to that is that wins and loses lose much of their importance and become part of the spectators’ entertainment experience, an emotional stadium giveaway. Teamwork and winning are, after all, marketable skills that the players can use if and when they advance to affiliated teams.


It’s not just for players for which the PCL serves as a try out camp. The league also tests new rules there. The Knock Out Round is one example; the pitch call challenge is another. Although that rule has some advantages, reading Dale Zimmerman, Chenyang Li, and Riley Post’s study, “On the Association of Umpire Performance with 
Age and Experience in MLB,” in the Spring 2026 issue of Baseball Research Journal gave me pause. Although I’m no statistician—indeed, I wasn’t able to finish reading the piece—I believe that these two sentences cast serious doubt on the value of current ABS (Automatic Balls and Strikes):”[A] pitch is determined to be incorrectly called if 1) the probability that the pitch was in fact a strike is over 90% and the umpire called it a ball or 2) the probability that that pitch was is fact a ball is over 90% and the umpire called it a strike.” A margin of error that large strikes me as outweighing the costs of change a real life game into a video game. I’d welcome feedback from any of my statistical savvy readers, the Pioneer Baseball League, or the Ballers. 

When we get to my report on the Ballers-Mobiles game of Sunday, August 2, we’ll get an idea of how casually those who execute the cyberfication of the game take these statistical ground rules.  

One thing is clear; I can’t offer any informed speculations about the I impact of the forthcoming Irvine franchise on the PBL’s financial stability, its effect on the Ballers’ level of play, or the permanence of the Ballers in Oakland.

Writing that last sentence sent a chill down my spine, not just for the legitimate reason that the Baller franchise is premised on the promise never to leave The Town, but also because on Sunday, July 26, the Ballers had celebrated Halloween in July at Raimondi Field (remember that baseball is a sport rife with superstition). But it was on Tuesday the 28th at Marysville’s Bryant Field that the real horror story unfolded. 

Blowing an early two run lead is no nightmare on Elm Street. Indeed, squandering leads early and often is part of the PBL’s DNA. But going on to lose, 20-10, with after the sun has set and the temperature is in the 90s to a team that took the field at 18-42 for the season might very well qualify as a nocturnal panic. And that’s what happened to the Ballers as they started their three night, three game series against the erstwhile Yolo Highwheelers, now known as the Yuba-Sutter Freebirds.

T GREAT SPORTS BUSINESS

After bringing home Oakland’s first pro baseball championship in three-plus decades, the Oakland Ballers are expanding beyond the diamond. With a 10-year license in place at historic Raimondi Park and owners like Billie Joe Armstrong and to turning Oakland’s only pro sports team into a year-round business.

Oakland Ballers (4-9,26-35)      200  100 124   10   13   2

Yolo-Sutter Freebirds (4-9,19-42)     10 15  031 00x  20   22   2

Winning pitcher: Isaiah Williams    Losing pitcher: Reed Butz (0-1,11.57)

The only bright spots in the evening’s debacle were that after falling behind 19-4, the B’s outscored the F-Bids, 6-2 and that Tremayne Cobb was in uniform and off the injured list. He didn’t see any action but did warm up with the team and would return to the lineup the next evening, Wednesday July 29.

Even that bounce back 9-4 victory left some doubt about whether or not the nightmare was over; the Freebirds outscored the B’s, 2-1, from the fifth through the ninth frame.

Oakland Ballers (5-9,27-35)               050 300 100   9   13  0

Yolo-Sutter Freebirds (4-10,19-43)    020 001 100   4     8  1

Winning pitcher: Christian Díaz (1-0, 2.35)   Losing pitcher: Mark López ((0-3)

Cobb went only one for five on his return to action, but that included a run producing double to right center in the second. Oakland’s dynamic shortstop went 0-2 as a substitute DH on the 30th and hasn’t played since then.
His status remains a serious concern. In short, the doubt about the B’s ability to consolidate their winning trend turned out to be justified.

That Thursday defeat at the hands of lowly Freebirds was the type of sobering experience that could drive you to drink.

Oakland Ballers (5-10,27-36)             100 002 101    5   9  1

Yuiba-Sutter Freebirds (5-10,20-43)  204 300 10x   10 10 1

Winning pitcher: Information not available.      Losing pitcher: Griffin Smith (1-5)

Time: 2:39   Attendance: 403

I began this chronicle with some comments on the baleful effects of computer technology on the PBL, so it might be fitting for me to end my coverage of the games in Marysville, the most cyber dependent site in the league.Bryant Field

Is the only venue in the circuit that goes full ABS. The home plate umpire does not call balls and strikes, subject to challenges that are settled by ABS; he reads the ABS report on the scoreboard and calls out the result. Box scores from Marysville show up on the PBL’s website without the umpires’ last names, just their first name and initial, nor do they include who got the won, the lost, or the save. The failure of the reports isn’t necessarily the effect of the complete dependence on the ABS, but, as Thoreau said, “Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”

The Ballers convincing win on returning home on the last day of July raises some troubling questions about both the  nature of the PBL  and the on field performance of the B’s..

RedPocket Mobiles (1-15,13-51)       000 001 100   2   3   0

Oakland Ballers (6-10,28-36)             100 102  03x  7  10  0

Winnng pitcher: Charlie Hurley (2-5)   Losing pitcher: Blayne Huter (3-2)

Time; 2:50   Attendance: 3,012

The RedPocket Mobiles, the Ballers’ victim Friday evening are a barnstorming team. They have no home ballpark, nort even a temporary or rolling one. They have, in short, no community. What does that tell us about the league’s commitment to community development?

The final score was a comfortable 7-2 in favor of the home team, but it wasn’t all that easy a win. RedPocket closed the gap between the two outfits to 2-1 after five and a half frames. It took a three run explosion in the bottom of the eighth before the Ballers’ advantage could be considered moderately secure by PBL standards.

Another point of concern were newcomer Julio Rosario’s three walks to the five batters he faced in seventh, a disappointment mitigated by his having struck out the other two. The Ballers once more demonstrated their penchant for shooting themselves in the foot when Mitchell Sanford ran into a third out that ended the home second in his first game at Raimondi. He, too, mitigated his error by smacking a drive into the the Mobiles’ bullpen that accounted for the three crucial Baller runs in the eight.

On a more lighthearted note, it was Grateful Dead Night, and the Ballers adopted the ad hoc pseudonym and jersey of  Oaksterdam Blazers. They sold the latter at $70 each. The event lifted the crowd’s spirits and gained the team reams of press coverage.

The Ballers began August by celebrating a different sort of trip; it was Public Transit Day at the ballpark.

RedPocket Mobiles (1-16,13-52)       002 042 001   9  12  2

Oakland Ballers (7-10,29-36)             050 024 20X 13 12  2

Winning pitcher: Brock Mayer (1-0)   Losing pitcher: Phillip Sanders (1-1)

Time: 2:55   Attendance: 2,431

The Ballers jumped off to an early lead of 5-0 after two innings and, even against a placeholdere team like the Mobiles, found themselves on the short end of 6-5 contest in the middle of the fifth. Each time committed two errors, all of them charged to infielders, and several runners reached base on hits that could have been scored as errors. I chalked some, but not all, of those plays to the hard infield, baked dry by the current heat wave.

Oakland staged a 2025 comeback win over the Mobiles to close out the series on Sunday, August 2. Down biy the East Coast working person’s score of nine to five, Esai Santos worked a walk, and a glimmer of hope that all was not lost began to arise. But Jaden Collura  smacked a grounder to RedPockets first sacker Jordan Harrison-Dudley, whose fielding deficits would make Moose Skowron look like Vic Power. For all his weaknesses as a fielder, Harrison-Dudley made an accurate throw to shortstop Spence Coffman at second. And Coffman dropped the ball! An Allgeyer singled clogged the basepaths. Jeter Ybarra, who already had a couple of roundtrippers to his credit for the afternoon, smoked the ball into the right center field batting cages. (Nice touch, that). It was his 29th four bagger of the year. It was only fitting that he should hit the deciding “home run”of the KO  Inning. And he did.

RedPocket Mobiles (1-17,13-53)       005 100 111    9  13  1

Oakland Ballers (8-10,30-36)             001 001 013    9  13  1

There was no winning or losing pitcher. Oakland won in the first round of the Knock Out Inning, 1 (Jeter

Ybarra)-0 (Kishon Frett)

The manner in which the Ballers won the Shoot Out at the KO Corral is further evidence of the faults of that way of settling ties. The countdown clock on the score board hadn’t been reset when Kishon Frett began taking swings and the balls tossed his way. It was lucky for the B’s that RedPockets’ standard bearer’s five outs disqualified him. Otherwise, he would have had at least an extra minute left before the two minutes allotted knockout round batters would have expired.   

The coming week will see three more games between the Mobiles and the Ballers, all starting at 6:35.Then it’s off to Marysville for three games robo-umped ball.

Oakland Ballers weekly report Jul 27-28

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Oakland Ballers played this past week against the Boise Hawks on Sun Jul 26, 2026 at Raimondi Park in Oakland (Oakland Ballers photo)

Tuesday, July 28, 2026

Oakland, CA

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–Another challenge is keeping up with the Ballers’ transactions. We usually find out about them when the PA announcer tells us that a player entering the game is making some sort of debut. The PCL’s transfer screen’s entry was out of date when I looked at it at 10:00 o’clock last night. Here’s the new information I found:

· The Ballers signed  right handed pitcher Brock Mayer early in July.

· They acquired Myles Beale from the Schaumburg Boomers on July 3.

· They traded outfielder T.J .McKenzie  to the Red Pocket Mobiles for a player to be named later.

· They received outfielder Mitchell Stanford from the Gateway Grizzlies in exchange for a player to be named later.

With the indispensable Tremayne Cobb still recovering from his injury, the slugging outfielder Tristan Moore and promising short stop T.J. Rogers  got  and will continue to get a lot of playing time.

This past week of Ballers baseball began on a bleak note. There was no expected date for the return of Tremayne Cobb, their key player, both offensively and defensively. Still, Miles’ Marauders fought on so well that it didn’t seem too unrealistic to hope that they could claw their way into the post season. But, before the team could even start to rise, it had to fall for the seventh straight time. That’s what it did in the first game of the second week of the second half of the baseball year, overwhelmed by the first half division champs from Long Beach.

The week also ended with an Oakland loss, but, oh, what a glorious ride separated the two defeats!

The B’s endured the six hour bus ride to Long Beach only to be caught in the undertow and drowned, 7-0, on Tuesday, July 21. The results of that no-contest gave no hint of the team’s return to life that would start on Wednesday.

Oakland Ballers (0-7,22-33)               000 000 000   0  6   0

Long Beach Coast (7-0,44-11)           100 320 10x   7 10  0

Winning pitcher: Jack Martin (6-0)   Losing pitcher: Hunter Day (0-3)

Time: 2:33   Attendance: 1,831

The only Baller to get an extra base hit was Jake Allgeyer, whose leadoff double down the right field line was wasted. Brendan O’Sullivan, trying to fill Cobb’s cleats, was the only Oaklander who had a multi-hit game, and both of his singles also were wasted. Hunter Day, the first of five Baller hurlers, took the loss. He surrendered eight of the Coast’s ten hits and six of their seven runs. The other was charged to Chistian Díaz, and it was unearned, the result of a passed ball that allowed Patrick Roche to advance to second and score on Cooper Vest’s single to center.


The next evening, July 22, saw some extraordinary baseball. I’m not sure if any previous Pioneer Baseball League game had gone seven full innings with only one run having been scored. But this one did, and it was the Coast that scored it. 

Oakland Ballers (1-7,23-33)               000 000 020   2   7   0

Long Beach Coast (7-1,44-12)           010 000 000   1  10  0

Wnning pitcher: Valek Cisneros (5-0)   Losing pitcher: Johnathan Kozasky (1-1)

Save: Langston Burkett (2)

Time: 2:57   Attendance: 1,096

But then, in the top of the eighth, Esai Santos worked a full count walk and swiped second, moving on to third on Jeter Ibarra’s ground out to first, driving Jaxon Byrd, LBC’s third pitcher of the night, from the mound. Tristan Moore drove Jonathan Kozasky’s second offering into right field for a single that brought Santos home with the tying run, Allgeyer then walked on a full count, moving Moore into scoring position. Nick Leehey’s fly to right was deep enough to allow Moore to reach third. He scored from there on an error by second sacker Roche.

Thursday the 23rd  rolled in, and the Ballers just kept rolling along.

The game began with a celebrity start on the mound for Long Beach. He was their pitching coach, Jerome Williams, who had pitched for the San José and San Francisco Giants, not to mention the Long Beach Armada of Los Angeles of California of the United States of North America Including Barrow, Alaska. He faced four batters, walked one, struck out one, and retired his two other adversaries on ground outs.

I still think that Shoot Outs at the KO Corral are an abomination, but they bother me less when the Ballers win them. That’s what they did on Thursday. Neither team was able to send its best candidate to the plate. I say “best candidate” rather than “slugger” because it’s one thing to hit a home run against someone who’s trying to get you out; it’s another thing to hit a batting practice lob out of the park. We don’t know exactly what Cobb’s condition is, but we know he was unavailable on this ocassion. Oakland suffered another fright when Nick Leehey left the game in the top of the third after he fouled a pitch off his left foot. But he was back in action in Oakland the next day, pinch hitting for Tyler Rogers, although he was listed officially—thanks to the vagaries of the PBL’s tie breaker rules—as a catcher. 


The Coast’s slugger Matthew Bardowell also was on the IL. Manager Miles sent Cam Bufford to the plate to take Oakland’s first post game swings. Nada. Troy Percival went with power hitting rookie Easton Jones. Zilch.  Round two featured Jeter Ibarra, still leading the PBL in HR’s. Nothing. Ditto for Cooper Vest. Then came round three. Tristan Moore went to the plate for Oakland. The third time was the charm; it was Moore’s third game as a pro. His one “home run” bested Long Beach’s Jacob Jablonski’s two near misses.

Robert K. Fitts, has published an interesting article in the latest, Spring 2026, issue of the Baseball Research Journal, titled “How William “Big Chief” Watkins Began His Career as ‘a Japanese.’” After relating one of Watkins’ performances in 1905, he comments, “All the newspapers agreed that it was a sensational game ‘replete with lively hitting, speedy base running and good and bad fielding.’”  Kind of like the game I’m commenting on right now.

Oakland Ballers (2-7,24-33)               010 053 010   10   14   0

Long Beach Coast (7-2,44-13)           060 022 000   10   10   4

There was no winning or losing pitcher. Oakland won in the third round of knockout innings.

The bus ride back to the East Bay still was six hours long; but they were more pleasant than they’d been on the previous two journeys.

The flame that was kindled in Wednesday’s 2-1 win over Long Beach, spluttered in Thursday’s nine frame draw, and recovered in the three round KO inning victory that followed it, finally burst into full glow on Friday, July 24, when the Bosie Hawks succumbed to the Ballers’ offense and, more notably, the superb mound work of Griffin Smith. 

Boise Hawks (6-4, 29-29)              010 000 000   1  4  0

Oakland Ballers (3-7,25-33)          030 003 10x   7 11 0

Winning pitcher: Griffin Smith (1-4)   Losing pitcher: Humberto Vela (0-2)

Time: 2:19   Attendance: 1,851

Not only was Smith’s performance only the second complete game thrown in the short , two and a half year history of the Pioneer Baseball League, but it was remarkable in light of the righty’s pregame record of 0-4, 11.32. Smith’s won-lost totals now art 1-4, and he’s lowered his ERA to a far from respectable, even for the PBL, 9.79. Jeremiah Begora’s leadoff four bagger in the second accounted for the only run scored against him.

Michael O’Hara, the  hero of ’25 championship  game, was  welcomed as a prodigal son before the game. The fellow feeling lessened when he was announced as the beer batter. (He went one for four and was spared the infamy of a strike out).

Collura, Allgeyer, and Bufford, first, second, and third in the batting order, had multi-hit nights for the B’s, with two each. Collura and Buffford hit a double apiece, and Noah Blythe, Esai Santos,, T.J. Rogers and Brendan O’Sullivan also contributed a two bagger. The last two can play short, but they’re a long way from being able to fill the void left by Cobb.  Nor were the Ballers free of self inflicted pain;  Allgeyher ran into a final out in the bottom of the second.

On Saturday, July 25, the Ballers were far from the dominant team they’d been the night before. It took a two run homer in the bottom of the ninth to force a KO inning, in which Bufford’s bp fence clearing shot surpassed Wyatt Grant’s fruitless attempts at one and allowed the Oaklanders  to snatch a precarious victory from the jaws of defeat.b

Bosie Hawks (6-5,29-30)               102 000 005   8  10  0

Oakland Ballers (4-7,26-33)          060 000 002   8  10  1

There were no winning or losing pitchers. Oakland won in first round of  the KO inning, 1-0..

It was only a matter of time before the law of gravity would assert itself, and it asserted itself on the beautiful afternoon of Sunday, July 26, when the Ballers let a fourth inning four run lead skip away from them until they were trailing the Hawks 6-4 after seven and a half frames.

They narrowed the gap to 6-5 on Esai Santos’s tenth home run of the season only to see it widen to 7-5 when Julio Rosario, recently signed and missing from the list of transactions I gave at the beginning this column, came in to pitch in the top of the ninth.

He struck out Austin Folds, and retired Darryl Jackson on a ground out to third, but then walked Ethan Underwood, who stole second and scored on a double to left by Ryan Recio. In the bottom of the ninth, Jeter Ibarra increased his league leading home run count to 25 to close the gap to one run. But there already were two outs, and Leehey fanned for the final out of the game and the Ballers’ four game winning streak.


Bosie Hawks  (7-5,38-38)              100 012 021   7   11  0

Oakland Ballers (4-8,26-34)          011 200 011   6   11  0


Winning Pitcher: Cameron Witte (1-0)   Losing Pitcher: David Thomas (0-2)

Time:3:03         Attendance: 1,922

The Ballers’ brief winning streak that ended Sunday, brief as it was,  is a hopeful sign. They will need to resume their winning ways and string together more stretches in which they come out on top over at least as many consecutive contests. No lead is safe in the Pioneer Baseball League, and I wouldn’t bet against a Ballers’ comeback that gets them into the playoffs, especially if Tremayne Cobb recovers soon. 


The Ballers will take on the Yolo-Sutter Freebirds in Maryville at 7:05 tonight, Tuesday, through Thursday, and then return home for a Friday night game on July 31, which will beGrateful Dead Night. They have released this announcement to explain how special that night will be:

What started as an April Fool’s joke became one of the most requested ideas in Oakland Ballers history. On July 31, that joke becomes reality when the Oakland Ballers take the field as the Oaksterdam Blazers at Raimondi Park. The game marks a historic first in professional baseball, as the Ballers become the first professional team to partner with and celebrate the legal cannabis industry during a live game.

The on-field uniforms will feature the Oaksterdam Blazers name and will not include cannabis imagery or paraphernalia.

Game time on Friday will be 6:35. The game times and promotions for the two weekend games will be 4:35 for Public Transit Night (Ride The Rally) on Saturday and  1:05 for Soak The Town Sunday / First Responders Day on Sunday.

Oakland Ballers weekly report: Follow the Bouncing Ballers Mon Jul 20, 2026

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The Oakland Banners suffered their fourth straight loss on Jul 17, 2026 (Oakland Ballers photo)

Oakland Ballers Weekly Report Mon Jul 20, 2026

By Lewis Rubman

Monday, July 20, 2026

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–The Oakland Ballers finished the first half of the 2026 Pioneer Baseball League on a high note, tying the Yolo-Sutter Freebirds in a stirring, come from behind finish to  force a Knock Out Round that the B’s won, 4-3.  The excitement of the game was, however, marred by the tone deaf attempt of the team’s management to shorten the contest by two innings.

Oakland could feel good about its four game winning streak, although that being its longest of the year was a sobering fact. Nonetheless, spirits were high as the B’s headed south to Long Beach.  And go south was what they did.

The first encounter of the three game series in Long Beach took place on Bastille Day, Tuesday, July 14. The Ballers looked sharp for the first three innings and sharper still after five and a half, when they were ahead of the league leading Coast, 4-1.

But then that old Ballers nemesis, failure to execute, returned to the scene. Charlie Hurley, their starting pitcher, surrendered back to back walks, the first to Patrick Roche on a full count and the second to Cooper Vest on four pitches. Matthew Bardowell smacked a grounder to Jake Allgeyer, who whipped a throw to Nick Leehey, whose relay to Jeter Ybarra at first beat Bardowell to the bag for what looked like a rally killing around the horn double play.

But it was not to be; Leehy, it seemed, hadn’t touched second base, and, instead of two outs and empty bases, Hurley had to face Cuba Bess with runners on the corners and only one away. Bess drove Roche home with a ground out to first that also moved Vest over to third. Jacob Jablonsky’s single to right plated Vest before Emilio Corona’s homer to center crowned the Coastal rally to give the hosts a 9-4 lead.

That was it for Hurley; Valek Cisneros relieved him. It was only fitting that the first Long Beach batter he faced, Anthony Mata, reached base on an error by Leehey, who had not been charged with one earlier in the frame. After all, when keeping score you can’t anticipate a double play.

There were a few changes to the Ballers’ roster that day, not that you would have noticed it if you checked their or the league’s website, or even if you googled the Ballers’ transactions. Most notable was that Ahmad Harajjli, the player to be named later in the deal that sent C.J. Blowers to the Florence Y’Alls of the Frontier League, arrived and managed to give up two runs on three hits, two walks, and a wild pitch in the bottom of the eighth. He faced eight batters.

The Ballers now show him in the roster, but when I clicked the link to get details about his record, the numbers were inconsistent with a recent arrival.   I hope this will have been corrected by the time you read this. Harajilili had the excuse that he had taken an early morning, delayed departure flight from Kentucky. Other new acquisitions now on the roster but with inconsistencies in the details provided for them are Demias Jimerson, Reed Butz, and Austin Ballentine.

The line score looked like this:

Oakland Ballers (22-27)         000 022 000    4  10  1

Long Beach Coast (38-11)     001 004 52x   12 12  1

Winning pitcher: Jack Martin (5-0)   Losing pitcher: Charlie Hurlley (1-4)

Time: 2:58   Attendance: 2,184

The Ballers returned to Blair Field the next day, Wednesday July 15, and once more blew a lead, only this time they hadn’t needed come back from a deficit to gain it.. 

The Ballers owed their brief advantage to Jaden Collura’s two run double off the Coast’s starting and eventually winning pitcher, the franchise player and manager’s son Cole Percival, in the top of the third, following walks to Esai Santos and Jake Allgeyer.

The B’s starter, Hunter Day, had been sharp in his first three innings of work. He issued a free pass to the first batter he faced, Eddy Pelc, a human walking machine, but he immediately was erased by a double play, and that was all the offence the Coast could muster until  Cuba Bess’s two run double to right with two down broke the spell. Day’s terrific start became a footnote.  A glance at the line score shows how rapidly Oakland, shut out after their pair of third inning runs, fell out of contention.

Oakland Ballers (22-28)         002 000 000     2    8  0

Long Beach Coast (39-11)      000 212 03x     8  10  0

Winning pitcher: Cole Percival (1-0)   Losing pitcher: Hunter Day (0-2)

Save: Zach Voelker (10)

Time: 2:48   Attendance: 727

Voelker’s save made him the first PBL pitcher to reach double digits in that category this season

It was the Ballers’ seventh consecutive loss to the Coast.

Miles’ Militia needed to win the closing set-to of the series on Thursday the 16th if they were to get their first victory of the second half and avoid being swept away by a Coastal tidal wave. As you can see, they didn’t succeed.

Oakland Ballers (22-29)         010 332 000    9  13  1

Long Beach Coast (40-11)     004 230 03x   12 11  1

Winning pitcher: Gary Grosjean (3-1)   Losing pitcher: Matthew Maloney (1-2)    Save:

Zach Voelker (11)

Time: 3:55   Attendance: 717

The top of the fourth brought bad news to both teams. For the Ballers it was a disaster. For the Coast it was a pebble in their spiked shoes. 

After Conner Smith walked to open the inning, he was erased in the front end of Myles Bearle’s second to first double play. Then Tremayne Cobb got things started again. A player who can beat you in many ways, he got a leg single to short and then went to second when Esai Santos singled to center. With Leehey at the plate, Santos and Cobb pulled off a double steal. Immediately upon sliding into third, Cobb visibly was in extreme pain. He was helped off the field with an injured left knee. This would be a concern for any player. It’s more than that for Cobb—ignoring the human side of the question for a moment and considering only what the incident could mean in terms of wins and loses—Oakland manager Aaron Miles believes that Cobb is the best player in the league. He might be right.

Jaden Collura pinch ran for Cobb, and Nick Leehey then shot a 389 foot home run to left field   to tie the score at four.  That was the pebble in Long Beach’s shoe.

The Coast regained the lead in the bottom of the frame, with two runs, one of them unearned thanks to an error by Ybarra. Those tallies came off Jacob Petersheim, who lasted on a third of an inning. The more I watch Ybarra, the more I suspect that there’s a physical problem that interferes with his mobility. He’s still an asset to the team; it would be difficult for the league’s leading home run hitter not to be.

 I can’t give Petersheim anything but the benefit of the doubt. He might have impressive metrics like spin rate—I don’t know about that; and I don’t know how interpret data like that—but his more traditional numbers make me wonder—and I write this with a mixture of criticism and curiosity—why the Ballers ever offered him a contract. His college record over four years was 10-10-4 , 6.82. with an average of 9.4 runs scored against him every nine innings. His record with the Ballers as I write this is 0-1-0, 8.10, with 10.8 opponents’ runs per nine innings.

The Ballers showed the grit that had characterized them in their glorious season of 2025 .They scored a three runs in the fifth  on RBI singles by Brendan O’Sullivan and Conner Smith and a bases loaded walk to Leehey to give them a short lived 7-6 advantage that was wiped  out in the bottom half of the frame by Patrick Roche, Jr.’s single to center with Walking Eddy Pelc on board. Cuba Bess followed that up with a two run four bagger to right. Oakland fought back with a  run producing single to right by Paul Winfield that plated O’Sullivan and a sac fly by Myles Beale that brought inWinfield, who had advanced to third, with the Ballers’ last hurrah.

Many fans know that Willie Mays never considered The Catch his best defensive play. What he took most pride in was the throw he made from the Polo Grounds’ center field vastness was that, although Larry Doby was able to advance to third on the play, he had to hold up there and couldn’t score what would have been the tying run.  Jaylen Edmonds , pinch running for Matthew Bardowell, was able to score from second Cooper Vest’s sacrifice fly to right. 

In addition to the pitchers I’ve already mentioned, Oakland used Jake Villar, Valek Cisneros, Matthew Maloney, who was charged with the loss, and Langston Burkett. Cisneros was the only one who was effective, allowing just a walk and a hit batter over three full innings. The Ballers tried twice to appeal the play, but the umpires refused to approve the appeal. Since the call was a matter of judgement and not one of interpretation, Oakland couldn’t play the game under protest.

It was all over but the shouting. The Ballers went down one, two, three in the top of the ninth and then boarded the team bus for the six hour drive to Oakland. It was not the best preparation they could have made for the next evening’s scheduled 6:35 start against their nemesis from the north, the Modesto Roadsters.

When the Baller followers arrived at Raimondi Park for that game on the seventeenth, the baseball question that was troubling many of them concerned the state of Tremayne Cobb’s knee. The reports that I got from the players I spoke with were that he was in good spirits but that the club wasn’t counting on their spark plug shortstop to see action before next week.

It took Modesto four batters to put Oakland behind by three runs; clean up hitter Osiris Johnson’s full count homer over the low left field fence with Lucas Terilli and Jacob Lojewski on base took care of that. Modesto had to wait for their number four batter to do the job because their offense had stalled when their number three bat, Max Handron flew out to Beale at the left field wall. 

The Ballers originally had announced righty Griffin Smith as their starting pitcher. However, another portsider, Aidan Risse, took the mound and the loss for the B’s.. Modesto never trailed after that, first inning onslaught although Oakland did retaliate with a pair of two run bombs, one in each of the fourth and fifth frames. The first blast came off the bat of Jeeter Ibarra, who extended his hitting streak to 18 games and his league leading home run total to 22. The second round tripper was courtesy of Jared Collura, who has been finding a new home for himself in left field while Conner Smith takes over more of the team’s catching duties.  Recent acquisition Ahmded Harajlli pitched two scoreless innings before getting hammered for two runs on Max Handron’s double and Johnson’s round tripper, both to left, before he was yanked and replaced by Brock Mayer, who held visitors hitless for two frames before giving way to Brady Chávez, who also shut them down without a hit. Each of the Ballers’ mopper uppers granted the Roadsters one toll free passage to first base.

To sum it up,

Modesto Roadsters  (31-21)   304 002 000    9  9  0

Oaland Ballers (22-30)           010 220 000    5  9  2

Winning pitcher: Devyn Hernández (4-1)   Losing pitcher: Aidan Risse (2-5)

Time: 2:58   Attendance: 1,833

The game had started under balmy skies with the thermometer reading 81o. It, like the number and spirits of the spectators, dropped precipitously over the nearly three hours of wouldabeen, shouldabeens. There was no objective way to  quantify the spirits or the number of people who stayed to the chilly end, but the temperature drop was 16 degrees.

Saturday, July 18 was Tyler Lozano Take Over Day. The B’s mainstay backstop of 2024 and ’25 one-upped  Bert Campanaris and Martín Dihigo. The former had played an inning of at each position over the course of one nine inning game in 1965. The latter had played all of them and also managed over the course of a lifetime. Lozano played a different ballpark role each inning. He caught the top of the first and threw out Terilli when Modesto’s leadoff hitter tried to steal second. At bat, Lozano struck out leading off the home first. Then he went to broadcast booth and threw out rubber balls to the crowd below him. Next, he went into the stands to toss hot dogs. He coached at first base. I lost track of where he was and what he was doing after that but found the time to wonder if the Ballers had managed to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth, would he have been eligible to replace the injured Tremayne Cobb as the team’s Knock Out Round representative.

This time, Griffin Smith really did start for the Ballers. He pitched well, by PBL standards, going six full innings and giving up three runs, all earned,  on six hits and a walk after throwing 85 pitches.But the bullpen let him down, and Smith and the Ballers ended up on the short end of another union work day score of nine to five. This is how that developed:

Modesto Roadsters (32-21)    010 000 431    9   11  1

Oakland Ballers (22-31)         000 001 121    5     6  0

Winning pitcher: Omar Serrano (4-1)  Losing pitcher: Griffin Smith (0-4)

Time:2:59   Attendance: 1,944

The next afternoon, Sunday July 19, we celebrated the achievements of the guy in the center of this photo:


Modesto also would have been a fitting venue for a celebration of The Man of Steal. He hit.345 in 134 games for the 1977 Modesto A’s of the Classs A California League.  His OPS was an incredible .934, not to mention his 95 stolen bases in 117 attempts.

The ball game that followed the celebration was a horror story. Its synopsis fits in these few lines.:

Modesto Roadsters (33-21)    113 140 020      12   13   2

Oakland Ballers (22-32)         010 010 001        3   11   1

Winning pitcher: Corbin Talley (4-1)   Losing pitcher: Charlie Hurley (1-5)

Time: 2:58    Attendance: 1,375

About the only bright spot for the B’s was that Ibarra was able to extend his hitting streak to 20 games. The sunny skies, complimented by a temperature that scarcely varied from the 64o it stood at when the game began, took some of the sting out of watching the Ballers’ tepid performance.

Raimondi Park has a capacity of 4,001, but Sunday’s attendance was only 1,375 in spite of the beautiful weather, the chance kids had to run the bases and get autographs after the game, and, of course, the added attraction of the homage to Rickey Henderson. The most likely explanation for this disappointing turnout was the scheduling conflict between the attractions in West Oakland and the broadcast of the World Cup final.

That is but one way in which scheduling has become a concern around 20th and Wood. Under the financially challenged Pioneer Baseball League’s new travel saving format, the Ballers will be on the road Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays and play at home Friday night, Saturday mid-afternoon, and early Sunday afternoon. Remember that six hour bus ride from Long Beach? I also heard some grousing from ballpark workers about these new arrangements.

This situation raises a really troubling question. What happens if the PBL goes out of business?

Do the Ballers go to semi-pro league like the Pecos? Do they and a few other clubs try to form a new circuit? Or do they dry up, like a raisin in the sun?

For the time being, carpe diem. The B’s will play this coming Tuesday through Thursday nights in Long Beach and then take another six hour bus ride to face the Boise Hawks at the usual three different starting times over the week-end.

Follow the bouncing Oakland Ballers weekly report: Ballers take two games from Modesto Roadsters; plus more news

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Oakland Ballers were happy to erase a six run deficit against the Modesto Roadsters at Raimondi Park in Oakland on Fri Jul 10, 2026 (Oakland Ballers X photo)

Monday, July 13, 2026

Oakland, CA

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–This past week was almost Dickensian for the Ballers; it came close to being the worst of times and the best of times, sometimes at the same time. The team’s You Tube channel frequently reminded us that the Pioneer Baseball League’s standings would be reset on July 14, that is, Tuesday. Meanwhile, the team put together a series of heartening wins that indicated that it just might have regained its ability to bounce back from blown leads. That, too, was ambivalent; although the B’s took two games in row from the respectable Modesto Roadsters, their most resounding victories were over the downtrodden Yolo-Sutter Freebirds.

Things were different in Oakland on July 7th   than they had been in Modesto the previous week. It was cold when the game started, and, although it warmed up in the middle innings, it was cold again at the end. The Ballers not only held their own, but didn’t they fall behind until the top of the seventh, and they drew even in the bottom half of the frame. One inning later, and they pushed the winning runs home to send the crowd home happy.

Modesto Roadsters (26-17)    000 000 300   3   7    0

Oakland Ballers (18-25)         001 010 12x   5  10   1

Winning pitcher: Langston Burkett (2-1)   Losing pitcher: Preston Kelly (0-2)

Time:2:41   Attendance: 2,512

Charlie Hurley started on the mound for the home team and threw an excellent six innings of two hit ball, allowing only a couple of runs, only one of which was earned. He left with two on and no outs, so the unearned run that came as a result of Tremayne Cobb’s rare throwing error while Valek Cisneros was on the bump; was charged to Hurley. In any case, in the hitter friendly Pioneer League and the hitter friendlier Raimondi Park, starts like Hurley’s are a rare occurrence.        Missed opportunities and errors like Cobb’s, which cost the B’s their three run lead two thirds of the way through the contest, show that the Ballers can be, and frequently are, their own worst enemies.

Speaking of errors, a friend and reader of mine pointed out an error I made in last week’s column; I hadn’t pointed out the connection between the PBL’s franchise player rule and Cole Percival’s being the son of Long Beach manager Troy Percival. Cole is the Coast’s franchise player. I forgot that the irony of my mental tone of voice and pausing as I wrote the piece wouldn’t migrate to the written page unless explicitly I put it there.

It was uncomfortably cold at the ballpark on the eighth, with the mercury showing 61o at game time and 56o when Conner Smith took a called third strike for the final out of the night.

Modesto Roadsters (27-17)    200 212 822    11 13  0

Oakland Ballers (18-26)         002 100 130      7 13  1

Winning pitcher: Corbin Talley (2-1)   Losing pitcher: Griffin Smith (0-3)

Time: 3:14   Attendance: 1,448

Oakland had managed to overcome Modesto’s early lead of 2-0 in the third. When Cobb stole second standing up, the Roadster starter Corbin Talley’s inability to hold runners on base became evident, and after Esai Santos walked, he and Cobb pulled off a double steal that netted their team a pair of run runs when Noah Blythe drove them in on a two bagger to left center. But the Ballers’ bullpen couldn’t corral the Roadsters, who scored in every frame after the third on their way to the win.

In other Wednesday developments, the Ballers announced that they had traded southpaw starter C.J.  Blowers and a player to be named later to the Florence Y’alls of the Frontier League in exchange for portside hurler Ahmad Harajli and a PTBNL. Before the game began, the B’s signed right handed pitcher Brock Mayer fresh out of Cal State Fullerton, where he had struck out 27 opponents in 31 innings and posted an ERA of 5.52. He managed to get credit for two saves. The Roadsters knocked him around in the top of the sixth, getting at him for two runs on two hits in a third of an inning.  In an intraleague transaction, the B’s obtained the services of Billings outfielder Demias Jimmerson, who was batting .422 with an OPS of 1,170 in 22 games for the Mustangs at close of day. Oakland will send a player to be named later to Billings.

The cold, clear night of July 9th didn’t take anyone by surprise; the Ballers’ hot bats did, Oakland’s offense more than offset a sub-mediocre start by Hunter Day (four runs, all earned, in 4-1/3 innings)  combined with a excellent relief work by Jake Villar, Valek Cisneros, and Brady Chavez (no runs and only one hit over the 3-2/3 frames the trio was on the bump) made the home run Austin Balentine surrendered to Bryce Cannon in the visitors’ ninth a futile symbolic gesture. The weather did, however, reduce the moderately sized attendance of 1,416 to a few hundred hard core celebrants.

Modesto Roadsters (27-18)    001 300 001     5   10   2

Oakland Ballers (19-26)         307 080 10x    19  15   0

Winning pitcher: Jake Villar (1-0)    Losing pitcher: Anthony Díaz (1-3)

Time: 2:55   Attendance: 1,416   

The no-contest was not without its moment of PBL piquancy. When Captain J.T, Snow sent Ethan Roark to the mound to start the home fourth, the Roadsters’ manager and Aaron Miles, his Ballers counterpart, had a conversation in front of the visitors’ dugout that lasted long enough for the press box to ask the umpires over PA system to confirm the name of the new hurler’s name. My guess is that the confusion was the failure of the league’s website to publish a roster that listed Roark on it. By the way, I don’t sit in the press box. My credentials give me some advantages, like early entry and exemption from inspection of the containers I carry, but the free seating they allow is in the front row of the left field bleachers, from which you’re lucky if you can follow 30% of the action., so I pay my way in.. An inning after the mysterious summit meeting, home plate umpire Harrison Silverman ejected Snow for the language he used to protest the reversal of the fair ball call on what would have been Max Handron’s lead off home run. From where I sat, the ball looked foul.

The Ballers jumped ahead early and never looked back. Cobb started things with a 405 foot blast over the left center field fence on a two and one pitch to lead off the bottom of the first. He drove in another two runs with his second dinger of the night in the third. He ended up with four RBI
 in his five plate appearances. The Ballers’ shortstop is a beautiful fielder, and this was the second time this year he’s hit more than one round tripper in a game. It makes me wonder why no major league organization has plucked him out of the ranks of the PBL.

The B’s eight tallies in the sixth put the game on ice, a rare occurrence in the it’s not over ‘til it’s over Pioneer circuit. The highlight of the episode was Jaden Collura’s grand slam into the Ballers’ bullpen. One inning later, Jeter Ybarra gilded the lily with his league leading 19th four bagger of the season.

On Friday the tenth, the Ballers, having bounced back from their humiliating road trip by beating up on Modesto’s  big bullies, besting them in back to bat battles, went on to beat up on the little bullies of Marysville by besting the Yuba-Sutter Freebirds, née Yolo High Wheelers, in an ugly contest to see which team could shoot itself in the foot most frequently and still score more than the other. The umpiring crew made its contribution to this infuriating yet strangely gripping comedy of errors, which was followed by a Star Wars themed drone show.

Yuba-Sutter Freebirds (15-31)           000 070 101             9  14  5

 Oakland Ballers (20-26)                    000 114 202           10   9   3

Winning pitcher: Langston Burkett (3-1)    Losing pitcher:TristanWolf (2-3)

Time: 3:20   Attendance: 2,947

The game started out as a scoreless pitchers’ duel until Cobb—there he goes again—— broke the tie in the home half of the fourth by jumping on a 3-0 offering from starter Anthony Silvas and sending it over the left field fence. The Ballers let that brief advantage fall from their hands like the proverbial hot potato. Aided by errors by starting pitcher Michael Riley, Esai Santos in center, and by Ybarra, seven Freebirds crossed the plate in the top of the fifth.  Zach Chamizo’s two run homer to left center off Riley was the blow that sent Riley to the showers.

Down 7-1, the Ballers clawed their way back into contention with Nick Leehey’s homer to left in their half of the inning and, after Connor Godwin replaced Mayer on the mound in the seventh, Yuba-Sutter pushed another run with a double by Isaac Núñez, whose name wasn’t published in the Freebird roster at any time during the series. Ybarrra’s two out single allowed the B’s to score two unearned runs in the bottom of that inning. The Ballers, in 2025 fashion, had tied the score at eight.

Number 0 Langston Burkett had only to hold the Freebirds scoreless for one inning to guarantee at least a KO round for Oakland. But he surrendered a down the line double to left by Jordan Donahue and an infield single by Diego Aragón to end that pipe dream.

But this was Star Wars Night, and the fans got a story book ending. Tristan Wolf took over mound duties for  Y-S. Jake Allgeyer singled to center, and Brandon  O’Sullivan pinch ran for him. Collura walked. Ybarra singled to left and took second on Josh Phillips’s error, Collura moved on to third, and, most important, O’Sullivan came home with the tying run. Wolf gave Noah Blythe a free pass to load the bases and set up a force out at home. The tactic worked, or would have, if the Yuba-Sutter defense weren’t as porous as it proved to be. Paul Winland grounded to first baseman Andrew Kirchner, who had trouble handling the ball and then unleashed a wild heave somewhere in the direction of home. Collura crossed the plate, and the Ballers had justified bay area native Vernon “Lefty” Gómez’s dictum, “I’d rather be lucky than good.”

Unbeknownst to the celebrating fans leaving the ballpark on Saturday, the Ballers had committed a public relations error that would override Sunday’s on field action and cause confusion, tension, and ill will during the game.

Fairly early  on Saturday afternoon , rumors began to circulate in the stands about the next day’s game being only seven innings long.  When I got home, I asked AI on google how long the Sunday game would be, and the answer was nine innings. I then searched google for “oakland ballers seven inning game,” and came up with this post from Instagram that had appeared sometime between the fourth and sixth inning or thereabouts:

⚾ We’re trying something new this Sunday: a 7-inning game.

Many families head home after the 7th inning anyway, so we’re testing a format that fits. You’ll still get all your Sunday Family Day favorites—kids run the bases, player autographs, and more.

Tell us what you think! 💚

The fans did tell the Ballers what they thought, and it wasn’t pretty. As a result, the team made a passing reference on the PA to this game being a full nine inning one.

The idea of a seven inning game is neither preposterous or unprecedented. Many minor league teams play double headers of nine and then seven frames. Major League Baseball played seven inning games during the 2020 covid season. But to announce this at a time when ticket holders had no chance to change their plans, and to announce it, not on the Ballers’ website, not on the Pioneer Baseball League’s website, not in direct communication with ticket holders,  season ticket holders, or investors was an outrageous public relations blunder, a possibly unwitting show of disrespect to all the people the Ballers have worked so hard and so successfully to build as a loyal fan base. Investors have an elected fan representative on the team’s board of directors. Some of the fan response to the green heart emoji was that in the past their representative was nowhere to be found.

Several season ticket holders in Section A had bought additional front row seats to celebrate family occasions and transferred their usual seats to friends. Others, who had gone on vacation, also had given friends their usual seats. At least one recipient of a seat in Section A was directed to General Admission when he presented his bar code at the entry. When some of these transferred or retained but unused seats remained empty, fans in other parts of the section rushed in to fill them, often blocking the view of paying season ticket  holders. A family of three blocked my view; every time their five-year-old child did something that required the mother’s attention, the tall father would change his seat, forcing me to move back and forth three and four times each half inning for three whole frames. Try doing that while keeping score, taking notes, following the action, and using a cane. He expressed outrage when I asked him to please not change his seat more than once an inning. I’m reporting this not just to release my anger and frustration but also to give an idea of just one of the ripples that resulted from the Ballers precipitous “experiment.”

But it wasn’t really an experiment, or at least not an ethical one. That would have required informed consent. And there was a harmless way to meet the requirements of the “[m]any families [who] head home after the 7th inning anyway”: they could  just come late. How many PBL games are decided in the first three innings, anyway? And, if these fans don’t care to see nine innings of play, what would they lose by seeing innings seven through nine instead of one through three?

Other questions remain. Was this soi-dissent experiment sanctioned by the Pioneer Baseball League? How would a seven inning game affect the league-wide statistics?

Yuba-Sutter Freebirds (15-33)            030 300 001      7 11 0

Oakland Ballers (22-26)                     300 120 001      7 10 2

There was no winning or losing pitcher. Oakland won in first knock out round. Yuba Sutter HRs: Josh Phillips, 3. Oakland HRs: Tremayne Cobb, 4.

Time: 3:06   Attendance: 2,014

Although the line score shows the game as a tie, it was a win for the home team, a win that followed classic ’25 Ballers’ pattern: blow early lead to tie, then fall behind, catch up,fall behind, tie, and win. Not that the their performance was free of wasted opportunities, among them rally killing double plays, the use of celebrity roster cricketeer Liam Plunkett, who had pitched for Oakland earlier in the season, as a pinch hitter in the fourth,  rookie mistakes, as when Ybarra, who could have kept a slow grounder to first from rolling foul by taking a step or two towards home and securing an out. It was nice that the Ballers won the shoot out at KO Coral, but, to return to the team’s clumsy public relations, would we have had a knock out round in a seven inning game? (A negative response might have been a point in favor of a curtailed contest).

About the only consolation available to fans of the PBL’s 2025 champs was that they didn’t have to wait ‘til next year, but only ‘til tomorrow, July 14th, when the second half of the PBL’s split season begins and hope that Bastille Day marks the start of a revolutionary resurgence of Baller performance that will qualify the team for the league championship play off in September.

We should, however, moderate our enthusiasm; the resetting of the standings on Bastille Day means that the Ballers’week long success was achieved in what was, effectively, exhibition games.

To get an idea of what hoops the Ballers will have to jump through to become repeat league champions, I offer this outline of the play off process:

The first half champion from each division plays the second half champion. 
The second place teams in each division do the same.

·        

·The teams with the best overall records in the first half of the season get homefield advantage in the first round. 

·        

    The first round winners advance to the best of five Championship Series.

The tie breaking criteria are, in order:

Head-to-head record.

      Least runs allowed per game in the half in question half.

Best run differential per game in the half in question

The Ballers schedule for the coming week is

Tuesday, July 14: at Long Beach Coast, 6:35 pm

Wednesday, July 15: at Long Beach Coast, 6:35 pm

Thursday, July 16: at Long Beach Coast, 6:35 pm

Friday, July 17: Modesto Roadsters at Oakland, 6:35 pm (World Cup Night)

Saturday, July 18: Modesto Roadsters at Oakland, 4:15 pm (Ballermnia)

Sunday, July 19: Modesto Roadsters at Oakland, 1:05 pm (A Celebration of Rickie Henderson).

Enjoy the games! And the controversies.  I mean that seriously).

Oakland Ballers weekly report: Follow The Bouncing Ballers 7/5/26 and 7/6/26

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Oakland Ballers outfielder Noah Blythe (27) take a big cut at the plate against the visiting Yuba Sutter Freebirds on Sat Jul 4, 2026 at Raimondi Field in Oakland (Oakland Ballers photo)

Monday, July 6, 2026

By Lewis Rubman

OAKLAND–When, on June 28th, the Ballers closed out their home stand with back to back wins over the team formerly known as the Yolo High Wheelers but now sporting the moniker Yuba-Sutter Freebirds, it wasn’t unreasonable to hope that the Raimondi Rowdies had recovered the knack of flirting with disaster but going to bed with success. But when the Pioneer Baseball League resumed play this past Tuesday, June 30th, the Ballers fell back into their newly acquired bad habit of ceding the last and deciding comeback to their opponent. 

That opponent was the Long Beach Coast, a new entrant in the PBL’s newly named and restructured South Division of the Pioneer Baseball League. As a new creation, the Coast don’t have an old name they could discard, but they manage to have an alias, the Regulators, which they often spring on their opponents. Whatever name the tenants of Blair Field assume, they also have a hell of a lot of talent. When the July 4th week end was over, they led the 12 team circuit with a won-lost record of 32-10, a half a game ahead of the runner up Billings Mustangs.

The Ballers, on the other hand, were like the little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead; when she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid. Milton Berle changed that to “when she was bad, she was popular.” That’s not the case with the Ballers anywhere outside of their home territory. as the three digit attendance figures for several of their road games indicate, but there’s no denying that they’ve been playing some pretty horrid baseball recently. It showed in the line score.for the last day of June

Oakland Ballers (16-22)                     100 400 101      7  11  1

Long Beach Coast (30-8)                   000 313 001      8   9   1

Winning pitcher: Zach Voelker (2-2)   Losing pitcher: Matthew Maloney (1-1) 

Time: 3:12   Attendance: 1,984

Valek Cisneros, who was winner of the B’s previous game, in which they had defeated Yuba-Sutter in Oakland, opened the door for the Long Beach victory on Tuesday. He entered the game in the sixth inning, trying to protect a 5-4 lead and allowed three runs on a hit, two walks, and a wild pitch. To his credit, only one of those runs was earned, but that was enough to tie the score at five. The unearned tallies put Oakland fell behind, 7-5. A Conner Smith homer to left closed the gap to a single run in the top of the seventh. 

The Ballers almost pulled off when of their vaunted comebacks when, with two out and the bases empty, in the top of the ninth, Jeter Ybarra blasted a 2-0 pitch over the left field wall to knot the score at seven.

It was up to Matthew Mahoney, coming in to relieve Connor Goodwin, to hold the Coast in check and take us to a knock out round. He walked Cuba Bess on four pitches. Jaylen Edmonds ran for Bess and promptly stole second. Jacob Jablonski walked on the ninth pitch of a full count walk. Anthony Mata lay down a sacrifice bunt, fielded by Mahoney. This text book move allowed Johnny Pappas’s sacrifice fly to left to score the winning run of this too  little, too late disappointment.

The new month saw a variation on the theme with which the old month had ended. Oakland made a valiant comeback attempt that fell just short and lost to Long Beach, 8-7. A detail of the line score rubs Long Beach salt water in the Ballers’ wounds; they outhit their hosts, 15-1.

Oakland Ballers (17-2)              001 100 122           7  15  1

Long Beach Coast (30-8)           015 020 00x           8   5   1

Winning pitcher: Jake Dixon (2-0)   Losing pitcher: Charlie Hurley (1-3)

Time: 3:14   Attendance: 736.


It was close, but no cigar. Cole Percival relieved Steve Odorica after he had walked Allgeyer to open the visitors’ ninth. A Collura double and Ybarra single, and a passed ball with Brendan O’Sullivan at bat with two down allowed the B’s to draw tantalizingly close, but O’Sullivan fanned, stranding Ybarra on second

There were some interesting personnel notes to this night’s happening. One of the few portions of the PBL’s rule book that are available to the public are those pertaining to eligibility. One of those rules authorizes each team to carry a franchise player. The requirements for such a designation are that the player

·       Must have previously played at least two full years in the PBL.

·       Must have finished the immediately prior season on that specific club’s roster.

·       Can only be tagged as a Franchise Player for a maximum of one year.

·       Can serve in a player-coach capacity. 

Cole Percival, the reliever who almost blew the game in the ninth is the son of the Coast’s skipper, Troy Percival..

The other personnel item is that Oakland’s starting pitcher, Nick Bautista, who pitched decently by Pioneer League standards (two runs, both earned, on seven hits, two walks, and a hit batter in 4-2/3 innings, was traded by Oakland to Long Beach before the season began. For some reason, unknown to me, the trade was voided or never was consummated.

July 2nd  offered us a change from the couldof/wouldof spectacles of the two previous days, a complete baller meltdown. The Coast beat up on four Oakland pitchers to win, 14-1.  It was the reductio ad absurdum of a Ballers blown lead; the B’s led, 1-0, after 2-1/2 innings of play.

They never threatened again, making it easy for southpaw Garrett VanDeventer to throw the first complete game since the league was founded in 2024.           

The B’s hit into two double plays and blew several chances to turn them against Long Beach in the middle innings.

Oakland Ballers (16-23)         010 000 000      1   9  3

Long Beach Coast (31-8)       003 002 45x     14 10 1

Winning pitcher: Garrett VanDeventer (3-0)   Losing pitcher: Griffin Smith             (0-2)

Time: 2:37   Attendance: 1,089

The Oakland entourage returned home at about 10:00 the next morning, Friday, July 3, before moving on to a 7:11 start in Modesto that evening. At least they would have a legitimate excuse for a sloppy performance. And they did make play sloppy baseball, O’Sullivan let a double play ball pop out of his glove and hit third base umpire  Alan Walker cost only one run, but it set the tone for a team that already was in a slump, not having won a single game so far on this road trip.. That was the only error chalked up against the B’s, but  subsequent plays like Leehee’s failure to corral Santos’s perfect throw that turned what would have been the third out in the seventh into a double for 최병용 (that’s Byungyong Choi to you and me) are errors that don’t show up on the score sheet. Bradford’s misadventures in left during the wind tossed eighth were explicable because his recent role had been DH. Explicable or not, they had a lethal effect and sealed the Ballers eventual and seemingly inevitable doom. Neither his bumbling nor the exculpatory history behind it is a matter of statistical record.

Bad base running, like Cobb’s attempt to stretch a single in the fifth are costly self defeating mistakes but  are missing in action when you look at the box or line score.

Speaking of which, the grim line score went like this (note the early two run lead, that marks the kiss of death):

Oakland Ballers (16-24)                  200 010 000    3  9   1

Modesto Roadsters  (25-15)            013 000 03x    7 13  0

Winning pitcher: Anthony Díaz (1-0)   Losing pitcher: Hunter Day (0-1)

Time: 2:45   Attendance: 4,37

The Ballers’ 8-4 come from behind victory on Independence Day offered a glimpse of their ability to lose a lead and then regain it, raising hopes that, although long eliminated from the first half championship race, the team might come back and still qualify for the league crown with a second half surge. But it also demonstrated how damaging the squad’s sloppy play could be. Again, there were reasons for the sloppiness: Friday’s physically and emotionally exhausting game, the holiday’s  2:50 game time, and the 94o heat were challenges withwhich  both teams had to contend. The Ballers did it better.

Oakland Ballers (17-24)                100 210 022     8  15   2

Modesto Roadsters (25-16)           012 100 000     4   8    0  

Winning pitcher: Valek Cisneros (1-0)    Losing pitcher: Preston Kelly (0-1)

Tremayne Cobb once more led the Oakland attack, going three for five, including a home run to left on the second pitch of the game and an RBI double to center in the eighth episode. He hit another two bagger to center in the ninth. that one producing two runs. C.J. Blowers, the number one hurler in the Ballers rotation ,started the game for the B’s. As usual, he pitched decently by PBL standards, giving up four runs, all earned, on eight hits in 5-2/3 innings. He is the son of journeyman third baseman Mike Blowers, who played 129 games and hit .237 for or the Oakland Athletics (remember them?) in 1998.His moment  of glory in that lackluster season came on May 18, when he hit for the cycle against the White Sox. He went on to become the television commentator of the Seattle Mariners. Here’s a link to his contribution to baseball lore. It’s worth watching and listening to:. https://www.facebook.com/Mariners/videos/happy-birthday-to-mariners-broadcaster-mike-blowers-/1823433321474713/

The bottom of the sixth in the July Fourth game illustrates why frequent mistakes, whatever their circumstantial causes may be, have long run consequences. Valek Cisneros relieved Blowers with the Ballers hanging on to a 4-3 lead and a runner on first and one away. Osiris Johnson hit the ball to Brian O’Sullivan at third (remember him from the previous night’s fiasco?), and, instead the side being retired, Modesto now had the potential tying run in scoring position and the potential leading run on first. Cisneros fanned Justin Boyd and then made his own fielding error, putting both runners in scoring position. Cisneros then retired the dangerous Tyler Williams, who finished the day with a .362 batting average, on a seven pitch groundout to second..


When you can’t trust your fielders to do their job, you’ll try to strike out every batter you face, and that’s no way to do your job.  This time, Cisneros did his (if you forget about his own fielding lapse)), and Langston Burkett, who replaced him for the home half of the ninth, did his, and the Ballers survived to play a rubber game on Sunday, July 5.

They should have saved themselves the trouble. A game time of 11:00 in the morning of Sunday, July 5 and a temperature that reached into the 90s didn’t help, even though the Oaklanders had spent the night at Modesto’s Double Tree Hilton.

The game was such so long and lopsided that the official scorer didn’t bother to record the time of the final out or calculate the duration of the non contest.. (I found it by clicking on to the Ballers’ Youtube channel and checking the length of the broadcast).

Oakland Ballers (17-25)        000 003 001     4 14  0

Modesto Roadsters (26-16)   520 571 00x    20 22  0

Winning pitcher: Devyn Hernández (3-1,4.57)   Losing pitcher: Aiden Risse (1-5,4.51)

     Time: 3:40   Attendance: 455

Although Oakland’s offense managed only four runs, it did put together 14 hits. Modesto jumped ahead and never was headed off. All of Oakland’s runs were scored in two innings, three in the sixth and one in the ninth.

(Y)our battered Ballers hope to bounce back tomorrow, Tuesday the seventh, in the first of three more games against the Roadsters, this time in Raimondi Park.  As they always are on Tuesdays in Ballerland, the cheap seats go for two dollars.  The theme for this game is

“Immigrants: We Get the Job Done,” and the pin that the first 750 fans will receive looks like a grand addition to your collection (if you have one).

Game time is 6:35, the same as on the remaining weekday contests. That consistency might introduce a welcome element of stability for the Ballers as they try to regroup for the season’s second half, which will start in a week, on Tuesday, July 14.