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Diverging Reports Breakdown
‘Absolute mayhem’: Brawl shuts down recreational baseball game in Mass.
The fight started in the stands during the bottom of the fourth inning. The game was between Milford Post 59 and East Springfield. No injuries were reported and no arrests were made. Police are reportedly investigating and considering charges against three people allegedly involved in the fight, including at least one player and one fan.. American Legion Baseball fields amateur teams with players aged 13 to 19 across the country, according to the website. Milford police were called to the field when the game was suspended just after 9 p.m., according to The Boston Globe. Tuesday night’s resumption of the game in Milford was canceled by police, the Post 59 president said. The team announced Tuesday afternoon that the game would not be played “to ensure the safety of all involved to finish the game.”
An American Legion playoff game in Milford had to be halted Monday night after a brawl spilled onto the field and police were called to the scene.
The fight started in the stands during the bottom of the fourth inning among fans watching the game between Milford Post 59 and East Springfield. The game was tied, and with two outs and the bases loaded, East Springfield was poised to take the lead with Milford facing elimination from the playoffs, according to a livestream of the game.
A time out was called, with Milford TV’s play-by-commentator Tim Caouette noting that “fans are starting to get into it over on the third base side.”
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Soon, he said, the fans were scattering.
“Absolute mayhem taking place over by the third base dugout as members of the Milford crowd have now come onto the warning track over on the third base side,” he said.
The broadcast appeared to show members of the East Springfield team throwing punches in the brawl after at least one fan ran onto the field before umpires could separate those involved.
“Never in all of my years covering legion baseball have I ever seen this kind of activity from the fans,” Caouette said during the broadcast.
The commentator told Boston 25 News that Milford fans appeared to be involved in taunting East Springfield players and then approaching the team’s dugout.
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“There were definitely members of the East Springfield team involved,” he told the station. “The Milford players, themselves, were separated on the other side of the field.”
Milford police were called to the field when the game was suspended just after 9 p.m., according to The Boston Globe. No injuries were reported and no arrests made, but police are reportedly investigating and considering charges against three people allegedly involved in the fight, including at least one player and one fan.
East Springfield manager Eduardo Colon told the Globe the fight started when a Milford fan argued with one of his player’s parents in the stands, allegedly shoving the mother and taking a swing at the father.
“When the [fan] came around [the dugout], he swung at another parent that tried to stop him from coming, and he was just going swinging,” Colon told the newspaper. “So the kid that had seen his parents getting pushed and swung at, you know, swung back.”
Colon also alleged that in breaking up the fight, one of the umpires pushed one of his players in the face.
American Legion Baseball fields amateur teams with players aged 13 to 19 across the country, according to the website.
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Milford Post 50 announced Tuesday afternoon that the game, originally rescheduled to resume Tuesday evening, would not be played “to ensure the safety of all involved to finish the game.”
“We will post updates as soon as we have them,” Cindy Stulac, Post 59 president, wrote. “We appreciate your patience and understanding during this challenging situation.”
The decision to cancel Tuesday night’s resumption of the game was made by Milford police, she wrote.
Dialynn Dwyer Dialynn Dwyer is a reporter and editor at Boston.com, covering breaking and local news across Boston and New England.
Baseball Teams Trying to Fight Off Japan’s Torrid Summer Heat
Tatsuya Imai, an ace pitcher for the Saitama Seibu Lions, was replaced after suffering a heatstroke. The stadium, which has a roof but no outer walls, lacks an air-conditioning system.
Tokyo, July 23 (Jiji Press)–Japanese professional baseball teams are working on ways to protect their players and fans from the country’s sweltering summer heat.
On June 27, Tatsuya Imai, an ace pitcher for the Saitama Seibu Lions in the Pacific League of the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization, or NPB, was replaced after suffering a heatstroke while pitching at a game held at the team’s Belluna Dome stadium in the city of Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, against the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.
The stadium, which has a roof but no outer walls, lacks an air-conditioning system that covers all corners of the facility.
“We are taking the heat seriously as a challenge,” an official said.
Starting this month, large mist sprayers have been installed near spectator seats. For players, new commercial freezers equipped with ice packs have been set up under the dugout.
[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
Summer baseball league race all but over
If there were a time for the season’s momentum to change, it would have been last weekend. Healdsburg held a 4-1 lead at the end of four innings, then in the top of the fifth the Crabs snapped back. The Crabs were on a roll, having won five in a row and 14 of their previous 15 games. With only three or four games left for each team, a different pennant winner is impossible. The three straight home losses seemed to take the wind out of the Humboldt Crabs, or at least gain some ground. But while they were losing to the Packers, the Lincoln Potters took five out of six from the Medford Rogues to slip into a tie for second with the Crbs. The first game of the series reached a climax with an eighth inning lead-off home run from JC Osorio-Agard.
To no one’s surprise, the Healdsburg Packers begin the last full week of PEL (Pacific Empire League) play on Wednesday with an unassailable 5.5 game lead over two second-place teams, their 20 wins against only three losses demonstrating their dominance. With only three or four games left for each team, a different pennant winner is impossible.
Congratulations, Prune Packers!
If there were a time for the season’s momentum to change, it would have been last weekend’s three-game series against the Humboldt Crabs in Arcata, the college town north of Eureka. The Crabs were on a roll, having won five in a row and 14 of their previous 15 games. Hosting the Healdsburg team in their foggy home town should have given them an edge, but it was not to be.
The visiting Packers squeezed out a 3-2 win on Friday, July 18, the first game of the series that reached a climax with an eighth inning lead-off home run from JC Osorio-Agard to break the tie. If anything, the second game was even more exciting: the Crabs had a 3-2 lead at the end of five innings, but the Prune Packers scored two in the sixth when Logan Sutter doubled to take the lead. Healdsburg added an unearned run in the next inning and won the game, 5-3.
Starting pitcher Matt Barnes struck out 10 in his 4.2 innings of work, though reliever Bandon Mann got the win by facing only 13 batters in his stint, whiffing six and not allowing a runner to reach base.
The third game started Sunday at 12:30, with the sky grey where the fog had turned to cloud, and the temperature barely cracking 60. This was the last chance for the Crabs to show their home fans some winning baseball, and the tension was in the stands as well as the dugout. Healdsburg held a 4-1 lead at the end of four innings, then in the top of the fifth the Crabs snapped back.
It was the sort of inning that drives visiting pitchers mad, and home team fans into delirium. Center fielder Timmy Reed drove the first pitch off starter Alec Belardes for a single, and scored two plays later on a Cameron Sewell single. Adam Enyart drove in a run, and Sewell himself scored on a bases-loaded walk from Hattenbach in relief. Finally Enyard scored on a wild pitch, giving the Crabs a 5-4 lead – their first of the series.
That lead held for three scoreless innings, until the Prune Packers did what they’ve done all year, rallied for the win. Maximo Martinez homered with one out, and two more runs scored when Logan Sutter hit his ninth home run of the season for the 5-3 win.
The three straight home losses seemed to take the wind out of the Humboldt team; they had entered the series with a real chance to take over first place, or at least gain some ground. But while they were losing to the Packers, the Lincoln Potters took five out of six from the Medford Rogues to slip into a tie for second with the Crabs, both now at 5.5 games behind.
The insurgent Lincoln Potters certainly bear watching. In the PEL’s inaugural 2024 season, the Placer County team also finished strong and took the playoff seat from the Humboldt Crabs. Then the Potters had the audacity to win the first of three championship games, 13-12 over the Pack.
The Wednesday, July 23 game this week find the Lincoln Potters hosting Healdsburg in a regularly scheduled league game, one of five the two teams meet in the regular season. So far Healdsburg has won the first three, July 8-10.
This year’s playoff series is scheduled for Tuesday, July 29; Thursday, July 31; and Friday, Aug. 1, at locations to be determined. See prunepackers.org.
Minor league baseball roundup: Love’s comeback continues
Austin Love is 4-0 with two saves and a 2.20 ERA for the St. Louis Cardinals’ Double-A team. Cobb Hightower is batting .210 for the Class-A Lake Elsinore Storm. Vance Honeycutt is having a rough season for the High-Class A Aberdeen Iron Birds. Dylan Driver is batting. .232 in 27 games with the Ottawa Titans of the Frontier League.. Owen White (Carson) is 0-7 with a 5.72 ERA, 47 strikeouts and 34 walks, for Charlotte. The 20-year-old is still No. 6 on the San Diego Padres prospects list, but he struck out five times in a row on July 19. He is 24 for 27 on steals and has yet to ground into a double play.
Staff report
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — Austin Love (West Rowan, UNC) is having a terrific season in Springfield, Mo., as a relief pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals’ Double-A team.
Love is 4-0 with two saves and a 2.20 ERA. He’s pitched in 25 games and has finished nine.
He’s struck out 33 in 32.3 innings. His walk rate (21) is a little high, but he’s been very hard to hit. He’s allowed only 16 hits and one home run all season.
The Cardinals haven’t used him for more than 40 pitches in an outing. He usually pitches one inning.
Love, a 6-foot-3, 232-pound right-hander, had a great season for UNC as a reliever in 2019 and had shined as a starter in 2021.
A third-r0und pick by the Cardinals in 2021, Love dropped off the radar for a while after an injury that was followed by Tommy John surgery.
The Cardinals used him as a starter for their Peoria farm team in 2022. He struck out 151 batters in 125.2 innings, but his other numbers weren’t great. He was making a transition back to relief pitching in 2023 when he was injured. He missed most of the 2023 season and all of 2024 before returning to action this year. He’s 26 now, but he still has plenty of time to make it to the big leagues.
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Owen White (Carson) is 0-7 with a 5.72 ERA, 47 strikeouts and 34 walks, for Charlotte. He hasn’t pitched since July 10.
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Cobb Hightower (East Rowan) is batting .210 for the Class-A Lake Elsinore Storm, although the 20-year-old is still No. 6 on the San Diego Padres prospects list because there are quite a few positives beyond the batting average. Hightower likes to swing the bat, but he has more walks (27) than strikeouts (25). He’s scored 26 runs in 33 games. He’s handled shortstop well, making four errors in 272 innings.
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No turnaround yet for Vance Honeycutt (Salisbury, UNC), who is having a rough season for the High-Class A Aberdeen Iron Birds that has dropped the 2024 No. 1 draft pick off the Baltimore Orioles top 10 prospects list.
Honeycutt is batting .172 with a .295 OBP, with both numbers trending downward. He has three homers, four triples, nine doubles and 19 RBIs. He’s drawn 45 walks and scored 32 runs, but he’s struck out 131 times in 325 plate appearances. He struck out five times in a row on July 19.
Honeycutt has played center field, left field and right field, but mostly center. He’s played well in the outfield, with several assists. He is 24 for 27 on steals and has yet to ground into a double play.
Honeycutt is 22, so there’s plenty of time to turn things around at the plate.
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Dylan Driver (Carson, Catawba) is batting .232 in 27 games with the Ottawa Titans of the Frontier League. Driver has one homer. He’s scored 15 runs and knocked in nine. He plays center field for the Titans.
Where to Watch the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup 2025 – World Baseball Softball Confederation
The WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup 2025 presented by RAXUS will run from 25 July to 3 August in Tainan (TPE) It features the top 12 teams in the world in the U- 12 age group – Australia, Cuba, Czechia, Dominican Republic, Germany, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Panama, South Africa, Chinese Taipei, USA. A Tournament Pass is available for US$14.99, granting access to every pitch of this world-class event.
The WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup 2025 presented by RAXUS will run from 25 July to 3 August in Tainan (TPE) and features the top 12 teams in the world in the U-12 age group – Australia, Cuba, Czechia, Dominican Republic, Germany, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Panama, South Africa, Chinese Taipei, USA.
A Tournament Pass is available for US$14.99, granting access to every pitch of this world-class event.
Additionally, exclusive broadcast rights for the tournament have been awarded in the following territories:
Dominican Republic – VTV Canal 32
– VTV Canal 32 Japan – J-Sports, Asahi Television Broadcasting Corporation
– J-Sports, Asahi Television Broadcasting Corporation Korea – SpoTV
– SpoTV Mexico – Megacable
– Megacable Panama – uniCOS
– uniCOS Taiwan – Videoland, EBC, ELTA, Getwin Sport YouTube channel, Hami Video, and PTV+
– Videoland, EBC, ELTA, Getwin Sport YouTube channel, Hami Video, and PTV+ Venezuela – 1 Baseball Network
Tournament Schedule
The WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup has the traditional WBSC Baseball World Cup format, with 12 teams split into two groups.
World No. 1 Japan, No. 2 Chinese Taipei, No. 4 Mexico, No. 10 Cuba, No. 12 Australia and No. 17 Germany will compete in Group A.
Group B includes No. 5 USA, No. 6 Korea, No. 8 Panama, No. 11 Dominican Republic, No. 15 Czechia and No. 31 South Africa.
* Subject to where TV rights are sold. See GameTime for more info.
Source: https://themw.com/sports/baseball/