The Buttery Buzzsaw, Montgomery Baseball History, Numbers Game

 

A flaky, home baked, steaming hot buttery buzzsaw. That's what this Montgomery Biscuits club has been so far, chalking up victory after victory and able to dismantle Southern League opponents with five different weapons: hitting, pitching, defense, mojo and swagger.

Mojo and swagger, not technically a metric for analytics but certainly part of the eye test and this Biscuits squad is leading the league in both. The Gumpskitz look to keep the good times rolling at home with a ten game homestand against Pensacola and Biloxi. 

So far the Biscuits hurlers have combined for one no hitter and are chucking a combined ERA under 4.00, good for third in the circuit, which longtime Montgomery fans have rarely seen in early season stats. "Give the bullpen time to gel" has been the annual mantra through the end of May as long as most of us can remember. But these guys have turned the tables, pitching top shelf stuff and looking good doing it.

The Biscuits haven't even needed an opener in the first three series! 

 

THERE GOES JOE

Joe LaSorsa was promoted to Durham, continuing a tradition of not making it thru the series that the coverboys face adorns the program cover for. At least this guy went the right direction!

MANFREDS TREATED BALLS

The Southern League this year is using pre-tacked baseballs. Well, they are pre-tacked but they aren't exactly pre-tacked baseballs. What I mean is, the balls are normal MLB standard orbs. But in order to improve grip they have been sprayed with a chemical treatment developed by 3M and MLB in an experiment that would end the tradition of using mud to rub baseball before the game.

Upsides include better grip, more uniform application, makes baseball extra white

Downsides include short-lasting, sometimes spray obscures logo, makes baseball extra white

 

NUMBERS GAME

Graham Spraker

Biscuits pitchers are punching out opponents at a rate of over 12 per nine innings and are tied for fewest free passes in the league.

1.249 Biscuits pitchers lead the Southern League in WhIP.

32 203 .762 Biscuits hitters lead the league in stolen bases, total bases, OPS

6  Stolen bases thru fifteen games for Greg Jones and Ronny Simon, tied for third in the SL.

Heriberto Hernandez has more walks (11) than hits (10).

Starter Sean Hunley has been posting eye-popping numbers through three starts, allowing just one earned in 13 innings while punching out 17 against only six hits and has yet to allow a free pass. 

Want more eye popping strikeout numbers? Montgomery reliever Mike Mercado has whiffed 13 men thru just five and two-thirds innings!

Logan Driscoll

.361 Logan Driscoll's batting average, good for third in the circuit. Logans four homers also gives him a share of the league lead in round trippers.

Biscuits reliever Victor Munoz is a work in progress through three games. His strikeouts (12) are great for his number of innings (7 2/3 IP) but Victor has surrendered a whopping 16 hits and six walks resulting in a ballooning ERA over 14.00 in the early going.

NEXT TIME:

THE RETURN OF YUKON CORNELIUS 

Graeme Stinson returns to the Biscuits after a short absence. More later as it becomes available.

#BULLPENLIFE

HISTORY TIME

 

No we have not stopped having history! Here is this weeks history file, with the ever-dangerous Ike Durett involved in his infamous ump-beating that led to a ban from the Southern circuits. Also Steve Trella's No-Hitter vs the Suns and the Negro league great Cuban Stars visit!

APRIL 24 1976 Steve Trella no hits Jacksonville 1-0

April 25, 1966 Southern League/ Michael D. Kilkenny of the Montgomery Rebels had 5 wild pitches v the Macon Peaches.

APRIL 25 1926 Montgomery Grey Sox host Cuban Stars in two game series at North Side Park

APRIL 26 1906 Montgomery manager Ike Durett, in a game at Birmingham, assaults umpire Buckley. This would be a factor two days later, when Durett is refused permission to sit in the dugout during the game and results in a forfeit when Durett refuses to leave.

APRIL 26 1916 Grey Sox vs Cuban Stars of Havana in Montgomery.

APRIL 27 1893 Montgomery Colored Baseball Club organized in Montgomery Alabama

Ike Durett

APRIL 27 1956 The Rebels host the Augusta Tigers in Sally League play, losing 6-4 in a game that takes 4:24 to play, finishing at 12:09 am

APRIL 28 1906 Montgomery forfeits to Birmingham Barons after manager Ike Durett is refused permission to sit in the dugout by an umpire he attacked two days before. Durett will be fined $300 by President Kavanaugh and eventually released by Montgomery.

Happy New Year! Opening Day 2023

 

 

Its Opening Day for the hometown Biscuits who welcome the Tennessee Smokies to town for the first home series of the year. The Biscuits are off to a fine start with a pair of wins in their first road series and look to extend their luck in front of the home fans.

Biscuits ballpark has gotten a fresh coat of paint and is ready for a new tilt around the southern loop.

BISCUITS WELCOME SMOKIES FOR GRAPE JELLY SERIES

Among the Smokies arriving its expected that top prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong will be with the visiting ursine franchise that is well-laden with potential. Outfielder Owen Cassie and infielder Chase Strumpf and catcher Miguel Amaya pepper the prospect list as well as the Smokies batting order. 

Also with the Smokies for the first installment of the 2023 Grape Jelly Series, lefthanders Jordan Wicks and DJ Hertz and righthanded Ben Brown along with fellow righty Daniel Palencia, are all possible future members of the Chicago rotation. Porter Hodge and Ryan Jensen also find themselves listed among top arms in the Cubs stable assigned to Tennessee. 

Smokies manager Mike Ryan is a five year major league veteran with the Twins and Angels. Smokies development coach Tyler Ladendorf, who was in the majors with Oakland and the Cubs, has a long minor league career as an infielder, and also has one MLB appearance as a pitcher!

PRE-TACKED BALLS

The word on the street is that the Southern League is the testing ground for Manfreds sticky balls. We will soon get a look at the orb in play and I wouldn't think it would take long to know if sticky balls are a good thing or not.

A similar experiment took place last summer with a ball coated with sticky stuff being forced up the games in the Southern League. The result of that foray was uniformly failure, as the spheres were yanked from use in less than a week and never even appeared at Riverwalk.

OVER ON IG

I do post my pics of game action on Instagram and have begun working together with a Biscuits fan page there, be sure to check them out @ BiscuitsRising on IG and hopefully they enjoy reading the blog!

Once we get a look at the team in action I will have lots more info to share. Happy New Year!

 

Cooking Something Good!

 

I'm cooking something. Of course we will all get to taste it when it's done, but first lets catch up.

 

I thought I had been traded to ASU but after a few attempts to get in touch with them I was met with noticeable apathy which abated my own ambition to pimp their team and ballpark. It's a shame as they have a long baseball history that I am not sure even they are aware of, with pedigree ties to the game that are unrecognized today. Perhaps they will yet decide to work together but I admit my desire to force myself on a scholastic athletic club is somewhat lacking. 

 

In other news the Biscuits look to break the bank with their jersey sales this year, including, but not limited to, Star Wars, Marvel superhero, camo jersey. In the past its been noted that the same group of fanatics go hard for the jersey auction and its thought the team often trys to give as many opportunities as possible to get fans shirts. Or they make money on the deal. Or both. Either way they are going all-in this year to fill fans closets and empty their wallets. Sadly, no throwback uni for Montgomery this year.

COOKING UP GOOD NEWS

The big news from my offseason wasn't just compiling the team roster for Montgomery to fill out a decade-wide gap in the history books. Okay, it was for me but everyone else will probably be more excited to learn that Montgomery will host the 2024 Southern Association Baseball Research Conference!

The conference, known as the SAC, brings together the top baseball historians, authors, researchers and enthusiasts as concerns the game in the southern USA. Usually held in Birmingham at historic Rickwood Field, the conference offers a chance to meet and compare notes, networking among the attendees and viewing displays of rare memorabilia. Speakers give presentations to share their research among their peers and baseball history is the focus. 

 

Other cities that have hosted the SAC include New Orleans, Atlanta and Memphis with this years meeting being held in Nashville, all cities in the former Southern Association. After nearly twenty years of exploring the history of the segregated Southern Association, its teams, players and ballparks, organizers agreed there is a need to branch out to cover all types of baseball in the area of the city hosting the conference. That includes Negro League, independent teams, industrial leagues, barnstorming games and a wide variety of places and individuals that have been too long overlooked by historians.

The organizing committee has asked me to be the point-of-contact for the SAC in Montgomery.

The planning is for the SAC Montgomery 2024 is moving along swiftly, with a huge assist from the State Dept of Archives, who recently added new items to their collection and agreed to display them during the SAC. Their curators have even been kind enough to invite me to personally help select items for display, and I have a few choice requests that I am sure will be fascinating, ones that even my good friends in the Archives may not even have noticed in their storage!

Also on board is the fantastic Biscuits front office and owner Lou DiBella, who kindly took the time to take my call concerning the SAC and made the experience even more fun than I could already imagine. Having the Biscuits as a part of the conference seemed a must, as the most important part of Montgomery baseball history has been its pro teams.

 

In fact, 2024 marks 70 years since Montgomery's first integrated team in 1954 and will be the focus of my presentation for the SAC, and after ten years of study on the Rebels clubs, I have some real surprises in store! 

Also it's the twentieth season of Biscuits, having lost one to that recent unpleasantness. It's my hope we can tie in the history of the Biscuits with the integration of the Rebels and Montgomery's other great teams, players and games in a way that fans can digest easily and appreciate fully.

BULLPEN LIFE