Oakland Ballers pitcher Brody Eglite picked up his second win of the season against the Glacier Range Riders at Rickey Henderson Field in Oakland on Fri June 20, 2025 (Oakland Ballers photo)
Glacier (11-17) 200 003 100 6 7 4
Oakland (19-9) 104 050 00x 10 8 0
Time: 2:43
Attendance: 2,005
Friday, June 20, 2925
By Lewis Rubman
OAKLAND–In spite of their Mid-Summer Night cum Juneteenth’s 5-2 loss on Thursday to the visitors from the Glacier National Park, your Oakland Ballers entered Friday evening’s version of the Friday Night Fights at 18-9, with only one game standing between them and the league leading Missoula Paddle Heads.
Appropriately enough, public transit was the theme for the meeting, and the visitors’ moniker is Range Riders. When the post game dust had settled, the Ballers had ridden over the Riders, 10-6, in a game that featured abrupt and extreme changes of fortune and an act of exemplary stoicism. After all the Pioneer Baseball League action had ended, the Ballers, at 19-9, were the sole occupants of first place in the entire circuit.
As is their wont, the B’s quickly found themselves looking up at their adversaries; Brody Eglite went to a full count to Glacier’s leadoff hitter, TJ Clarkson, who entered the fray batting .409 before driving the ball over the right center field fence.
The Oakland righty then went to a full count on Logan Beard (BA .452) before walking him. Before you could say “line out to third” and “bunt single,” Kingston Liniak smacked the pitch to deep right center, where center fielder Darryl Bugs II caught it for the inning’s second out, and Beard scored on the sac fly to put the Range Riders up, 2-0.
The Ballers cut Glacier’s advantage in half with Davis Drewek’s two out four bagger in the bottom of the inning and went ahead in the fifth by the seemingly insurmountable margin of 10-2. Darryl Buggs II opened hostilities with a leadoff single to right.
Tremayne Cobb, Jr., who did some nifty defensive work at short, sent him to third with a single to left. DH Esai Santos fanned. Drewek’s single and an error by Glacier’s first sacker brought in Buggs and gave the B’s two runners in scoring position with one down.
It also took the Range Riders starter. Rayne Supple out of the game. He would be charged with the loss after having thrown 92 pitches in his 4-1/3 inning stint. Nine runs would be charged to him, but only (!) four would be earned.
His successor, Jacob Hasty, would close out the frame on ten pitches and be charged with one, unearned run before giving way to Noah Cole (1-1/3 perfect innings), and Cam Cowan (1-2/3 shutout innings of one hit, two walk baseball).
Christian Almanza’s single to right plated Cobb and Drewek. Harris was next to cross the plate, on a ground out by Lou Hemig, and Almanza came in on a wild pitch by Hasty.
You’d think that the Ballers had nothing to worry about after this outburst, but you’d be forgetting one of the Pioneer League’s primary precepts, no lead is safe, and not just at high altitudes. Yogi Berra is said to have said it best, “It ain’t over ….” You know the rest of it.
In the bottom of the sixth, a foul ball off Almanza’s bat bounced up into Glacier catcher Angel Mendoza’s crotch, causing him extreme pain that kept him on his hands and knees, fighting for breath for several minutes. When he finally was able to stand upright, he received loud applause from the crowd, which immediately afterwards was stunned by the backstop’s decision to remain in the game.
To make a long story somewhat shorter, the visitors answered their hosts’ five run fifth with a three run seventh, ending speculation that Eglite might go 100 pitches. He ended up throwing 91 of them and getting the win, his second in two decisions.
Four of the five runs he allowed were earned. He gave up five hits, including Clarkson’s homer in the first,and the one Jack Lynch hit in Glacier’s comeback rally in the sixth. Eglite also struck out five of the 22 batters he faced and walked two of them.
Saturday, Rickey Henderson Field will replace Ernie Raimondi Park. It will be Rickey Henderson Day. Starting at 4:35, we’ll see if Rickey can give the Range Riders a run for their money.
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