Nine Brooklyn Knights players made the League 1 All-Star team. Brooklyn’s ace, Tony Tamayo, was named the starter. For the League 2 All-Stars, the Corals’ Ronaldo Mijangos got the start. The game was completely dominated by the League 1 All-Stars. Its powerful lineup pounded opposing pitchers for 20 hits and 18 runs. Mabon Beninger, the rookie shortstop for the Dunedin Otters was recognized as the player of the game. Beninger went four for four, including a home run, three runs, and two RBI.

                     1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9   R  H  E
League 1 All-Stars   4 4 0 2 2 0 2 4 4  18 20  0
League 2 All-Stars   0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 X   0  3  0

W: P. Quinoñes
L: R. Mijangos

After a scorching hot start to the season, the Brooklyn Knights entered June with a 43-8 record. Brooklyn found things a bit tougher in June, going 19-9. Overall, the Knights played well. However, they were swept by the Luck in a three game series in Las Vegas. Later, they dropped all four games in Brooklyn in a series against the Cornfield Axemen. Most concerning of all were the injuries suffered at the end of the month. In the last week of June, closer Bris Clark went to the disabled list with a sore back and is expected to miss three weeks. Worst of all was the loss of star pitcher Ralph Kerfoot. After going 21-5 last year and 11-2 this year, Kerfoot will miss the rest of the 2015 season. His torn rotator cuff will require eight to nine months to heal.

June 2015 awards:

League 1
Batter of the Month: Rob Wintle (Luisville Beasts)
Pitcher of the Month: Steve Towell (Nashville Firecats)
Rookie of the Month: Sancho Malclonado (Nashville Firecats)

League 2
Batter of the Month: Adelmo Porcayo (Key West Corals)
Pitcher of the Month: Alamandeto Trillio (Key West Corals)
Rookie of the Month: John Patterson (Phoenix Rattlers)

The Brooklyn Knights kept rolling in May, posting a 24-5 record for the month. In Brooklyn, the Knights have been nearly unbeatable with a 24-1 home record for the season. There was a scare on the last day of the month, however. Playing the Cornfield Axemen, staff ace Tony Tamayo left the game with elbow pain after pitching five scoreless innings. The team was greatly relieved by the medical diagnosis. The injury was not serious. His elbow soreness may cause him to miss at most one start.

May 2015 awards:

League 1
Batter of the Month: Dacey Rager (Nashville Firecats)
Pitcher of the Month: Tony Tamayo (Brooklyn Knights)
Rookie of the Month: Sancho Malclonado (Nashville Firecats)

League 2
Batter of the Month: Pete Porter (Washington Allies)
Pitcher of the Month: Cory Gregory (St. James Crusaders)
Rookie of the Month: Toshiharu Fujii (Phoenix Rattlers)

The 2015 NALB season is currently on a hiatus. OOTP Baseball 17’s latest patch, version 17.10.65, caused some problems. Minor league rosters of a few teams were adversely affected. Unfortunately, my organization was hit by the bug. Inexplicably, several dozen players on my single-A club were released, including some promising prospects. That left the team with only four players, far fewer than required to field a team.

While I wait for a fix to OOTP, I decided to play another classic Apogee game. I recently enjoyed Pharaoh’s Tomb and Arctic Adventure, so I chose a similar puzzle platform game. The game was Monuments of Mars from 1990. It had a similar structure to the previous two Apogee games with four parts of 20 levels each. The setting was futuristic but the game mechanics were familiar—jumping, flipping switches, activating items, and shooting. The CGA graphics, which took some getting used to when first playing Pharaoh’s Tomb, were now familiar and no distraction at all. I ripped through it more quickly than the other games, completing all 80 levels in five hours or so. It was a fun little diversion from my baseball league’s woes. Although very dated by today’s standards you can’t argue with the price (free from 3D Realms).