Oakland Ballers the 2025 Pioneer Champions celebrate their Championship victory over the Idaho Falls Chukars 8-1 on Sun Sep 21, 2025 (Oakland Ballers photo)
updated Tuesday, September 23, 2025
By Lewis Rubman
OAKLAND–If the Oakland Ballers; two years in the Pioneer Baseball League, the reincarnation of the short season, affiliated Pioneer League, has taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected. A corollary of this insight is that no lead is safe and, as they say in the investment pitches, past performance is no guarantee of future profits.
Last year’s Ballers finished the season on top of the resurrected league only to be eliminated in the division series, the playoff round that precedes the championship round. This year’s Ballers set a PBL record for wins, going 73-23. The publicity departments of both the league and the team usually refer to this as “the modern era.” I prefer to call the two entities, which play (or played) by very different rules, by their distinct names. On their way to finishing first in both the halves of the regular season, the B’s won 13 consecutive series.
They faced tough opposition in the Idaho Falls Chukars, who had clinched the North Division championship by defeating the Missoula Paddlewheers, 22-3, after splitting the first two games of the division round.
The Chukars defeated the Ballers soundly in both of the games played in Idaho Falls, taking the opener, 5-3, on September 16.The B’s scored all of their runs in the first two frames. Tremayne Cobb was the only Baller to manage an extra base hit off the five hurlers the Chukars sent to the mound.
The next evening, Noah Millikan, the ace of Oakland’s starting rotation ,lasted a mere lasted a mere two-thirds of an inning, in which he managed to yield six runs, all earned, in a 15-10 drubbing that sent the teams back to Oakland, with the B’s needing to sweep the three games scheduled to be played in West Oakland.
A game in the friendly confines of Raimondi Park, where everybody knows your name, is a family affair. On the day the Ballers claimed the division crown, I had been in line behind the mother of umpire Ricardo Ramírez. l sat behind the mother of Ballers manager Aaron Miles, at the game on Saturday the 20th, when the B’s tied the Championship Round at two all. We jabbered away all game long.
Friendships form quickly at Raimondi, and I’ve met some wonderful people there whom I’m now proud to call, not just my baseball buddies, but friends.
Friday, September 19th, in the first of three elimination games over the weekend, Oakland stayed alive by trouncing Idaho Falls, 10-2, with a 13 hit onslaught led by Tyler Lozano, who went 3-4, with two RBI, and two hits each by Tremayne Cobb, Christian Almanza, and Danny Harris. Almanza and Lozano went yard. The win went to Lluke short, who allowed one earned run in five innings of work. He also allowed the visitors’ other, unearned, run. James Colyer, Zach St. Pierre, Conner Richardson, and Caleb Franzen combined to hold the Chukars scoreless over the remaining four innings. All but St. Pierre, who gave up two hits and a walk to the three batters he faced, were effective.
The home team pulled even on Saturday evening in a contest that, to judge by the final score of 8-3, looked like an easy romp but really was a tightly fought duel, in which the B’s trailed, 2-0, after 4-1/2 innings before taking a 3-2 lead that stood until their four run breakout in the seventh. Gabe Tanner got the win for his 5-1/3 frames of two run, ten hit pitching .Connor Sullivan put the visitors down in order to earn the save. The player who really saved the game was Michael O’Hara with his incredible grab of Eddy Pelic’s with a runner on third and no outs that sent him crashing into the outfield fence to end the eighth and preserve the one run lead the B’s were enjoying at the time.
Earlier that evening, in the top of the fifth Esai Santos had made the best throw from the outfield to home that I ever have seen, and I’ve been watching baseball seriously since 1950. Tom McCaffre was on second with two down. Spencer Rich smacked a single to right.
McCaffrey advanced to third and headed for home. Santos’s throw arrived in Lozano’s mitt at the exact moment that McCaffrey reached the plate. but he couldn’t get past Lozano; the B’s receiver didn’t even need to twitch as he applied the tag. I was sitting in the third row, right behind the plate and had a clear view of the play, and I was flabbergasted.
It all came down to game five. Shane Spencer started for Idaho Falls. While sitting in the Adirondack chairs in front of the entrance to the grandstand, waiting for the gates to open, his grandparents and I had a stilted but not unfriendly chat. (I told you that baseball at Raimondi is a family affair). Whenthe gates opened, we said our somewhat strained farewells, and I added, “I hope he pitches a good game and his relievers let him down.” After a rough start he did, and, after 6-1/3 innings, they did. I was glad of the Ballers’ win, and I bear no ill will towards Spencer’s grandparents, but I did derive a sneaky satisfaction from the irony of their post game flight bringing them home to . . . Las Vegas.
Spencer’s difficulties began in the first episode, when he had trouble with his command and also couldn’t keep the Ballers’ baserunners from stealing at will.Although the Chugars’ righty logged back to back Ks against the hard hitting Christian Almanza and Cam Bufford, Jack Allgeyer gave Miles Men a three run lead with home run over the right field fence that plated Cobb, who had led off with a single to right, and Santos, who had walked, before him. Walks to Lozano and Harris in the second set the stage for Cobb’s RBI single to left that put Oakland up, 3-0..
After that, Spencer was lights out. He gave up an infield single to Harris in the third, and that was the last time a Baller reached base on him until Harris again singled, this time to center, to lead off the bottom of the eighth. Spencer retired Cobb on a fly to center and then exited the game, still responsible for the runner on first. The big hit was Bufford’s three run blast to dead center field, his second three run four bagger in two days.
The Ballers showed off some glittering defense. Allgeyer made a sliding pick of Johnny Pappas’ second inning, bases loaded slow grounder. jumped to his feet, and threw the Chukar catcher out at first to end the inning.
Noah Millikan, the ace of the Ballers’ rotation, got the start but had to exit after only two innings of shutout baseball with shoulder stiffness after two innings of shutout baseball. He surrendered two hits and three walks. Adam Bogosian relieved him and earned the win with 3-1/3 innings of stellar mound labor. Dylan Delvecchio and James Collyer held opposing batters hitless, but Oakland’s closer, Connor Sullivan, coughed up a leadoff homer to Trevor Rogers in the ninth. But it was too little, too late for the Chugars, and the newest Oakland team has won all the marbles.
For at least the second time this season, 860 AM, The Answer chose not to broadcast the game. It aired on a weak station in Palo Alto that was nearly inaudible inside the ballpark.
It would be fun to hear cries of “Break up the Ballers,”and we might very well hear them, but the labyrinthian eligibility rules for the Pioneer Baseball League will do that in a few years without any fishy fire sale. The PBL promotess repeated perpetual renewal
So, what can we expect from the 2026 Oakland Ballers? If the past is any guide to the future, we can expect a whole lot more of the unexpected.
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