There is only one month to go in the NALB regular season now that we are through August. The Brooklyn Knights have all but wrapped up their division with a 93-43 record. The Knights' magic number is only 5 and they have a 22 game lead over the Las Vegas Luck (71-65). Dayton fell to 66-70 and finally lost their grip on second place. St. Rock played .500 ball in August and stayed in last place with a 56-80 record. The Cornfield Axemen (74-62) kept their place atop Division 2, maintaining a 9 game lead over the Luisville Beasts. Over in League 2, the Stade Maples (78-58) continued their slide but maintained a tenuous hold on first place. The Washington Allies (77-59) are only 1 game back and are knocking on the door. The Phoenix Rattlers (63-73) relinquished first place to the Vancouver Wild (65-71) in League 2, Division 2.

For Brooklyn, it was a spotty month. We lost 4 out of 5 games in one stretch. Due to a quirk in the scheduling, we played Dunedin 14 times in August. We split with the Otters, winning only 7 out of 14. Relief pitching was a particular problem. We let several games slip away and blew a lot of leads in the late innings.

The NALB is now through the month of July. Brooklyn got off to a great start in the month, winning its first six games. After extending their success in July to 18-4, the Knights hit a three game losing streak. They still finished with a very good 20-7 record for the month and 76-32 overall. More importantly, they extended their first place lead over the Dayton Grizzlies (55-53) from 12 games to 21 games. Barring a monumental collapse in August and September, it looks like the Knights are well on their way to winning another division title. Las Vegas (54-54) stayed in third place and St. Rock (42-66) had another disappointing month, keeping them in last place. Cornfield (56-52) maintained their place on top of their division. In League 2, Stade (65-43) is still the team to beat. The Phoenix Rattlers (51-57) lead the weakest division in the NALB.

Jeff Castino, the Knights' cleanup hitter was a consensus choice for the League 1 Player of the Week on July 25. He had a .536 batting average on 15 hits in 28 at bats and powered 4 home runs, scored 12 runs, and drove in 9 runs. Unfortunately, the streaky Castino went ice cold for the last week of the month with only 1 hit in 15 at bats. Fortunately, several other Brooklyn players had hot months. Dick Moran was back to the form that made him one of the most dangerous hitters back in April. He hit .336 in July and blasted 10 home runs and 33 RBI. Dan Kelley was named the League 1 Batter of the Month. He hit an impressive .323 and rapped 5 doubles and 10 home runs. All month long, Kelley was a vital cog in the Knights attack with 31 RBI and 22 scored. Fred Millard was named July's Pitcher of the Month. The 29 year old tossed 39 innings of quality baseball, going 5-0 with a 3.23 ERA. He sat down 33 batters on strikes.

I added another Dungeons & Dragons campaign to the Role-Playing section of Game Central. The campaign was Ravenloft, our foray into TSR's world of gothic horror. We played this one over the course of two months back in the fall of 1993.

The League 1 All-Stars defeated the League 2 All-Stars by a score of 4-3 in the 2005 NALB All-Star Game. The Brooklyn Knights provided a team-leading eight players on the League 1 roster. Kid Detherage, Brooklyn's star outfielder and June batter of the month, ignited the offense for League 1 with a two-run homer in the first inning. The score was 3-0 when the League 2 All-Stars finally got on the board in the fourth. Art Cihocki hit a solo home run to make it 3-1. They added two more runs in the top of the fifth to tie the score at 3-3. Dan Kelly of the Cornfield Axemen scored the deciding run when he hit a solo homer in the bottom of the sixth. League 1 nailed down the win with solid relief pitching. Jeff Ramirez was on the mound in the ninth and got the save for the 4-3 victory. The Axemen's Hughie Grover was credited with the win and William Rambo of the Sky Chiefs took the loss.

The regular season is at the halfway point with three out of six months down. The Brooklyn Knights had a rough month, posting an 11-12 record in June. However, they still lead their division at 56-25. The Dayton Grizzlies are in second place at 44-37 but failed to gain any ground on the Knights. Las Vegas (41-40) remains in third place and St. Rock (32-49) improved but is still in the division cellar. The Cornfield Axemen (43-38) lead the other division in League 1. Over in League 2, the Stade Maples (52-29) lead their division. The other division has a tie at the top between the Phoenix Rattlers and the Vancouver Wild (both at 38-43).

For the Brooklyn Knights, it was certainly a disappointing month overall. The offense missed out on many opportunities to score runs and the pitching staff was more inconsistent than usual. One bright spot was Kid Detherage, who was named the batter of the month. During June, Detherage had a .362 BA with 7 HR, 21 RBI, and a .485 OBP. Another plus was the return of first baseman Dan Kelley. Kelley strained his achilles tendon running the bases back on June 4. He returned to action on June 23 and responded by hitting a home run in his first game back.

Half of the season has passed, so it's time for the annual North American League Baseball All-Star Game. Here are the All-Stars Game Rosters.

Playing for the League 1 All-Stars are
SP G. Battle (DUN)
SP H. Bedford (COR)
SP H. Fishback (LV)
SP H. Grover (COR)
SP D. Hambright (BRO)
SP F. Millard (BRO)
SP G. Rodriguez (LV)
SP O. Valera (BRO)
MR M. Conigliaro (NSH)
CL D. Eiteljorge (SR)
CL J. Ramirez (BRO)
CL E. Sherling (LUI)
C D. Clarkson (LUI)
C T. Pollet (BRO)
1B V. Hetzel (SR)
1B L. Ladd (LUI)
2B J. Gilligan (DAY)
2B D. Moran (BRO)
3B H. Goetz (BRO)
3B J. Martinez (SR)
SS L. Sullivan (LUI)
LF K. Detherage (BRO)
LF P. Foster (DAY)
LF S. Johnson (LUI)
CF S. Burke (LUI)
RF D. Kelly (COR)
RF D. Mavis (DAY)
RF B. Scott (SR)

Playing for the League 2 All-Stars are
SP M. Brown (STD)
SP D. Creamer (WSH)
SP J. Lombardi (STD)
SP R. Maria (VAN)
SP H. Oxley (WSH)
SP R. Wilkins (KW)
CL J. Hallman (VAN)
CL M. Hodgin (RMD)
CL F. Minoso (STD)
CL W. Rambo (QUE)
CL C. Simpson (WSH)
CL E. Sullivan (KW)
C T. Blefary (STD)
C R. Fallon (WSH)
1B A. Cihocki (QUE)
1B J. Hamrick (WSH)
1B P. Lyons (STD)
2B D. Andrews (KW)
3B T. Rambo (STD)
SS D. Adams (QUE)
SS Z. Kearns (PX)
SS S. Schultz (VAN)
LF A. Cadore (STD)
LF N. Spade (QUE)
LF C. Yeabsley (PX)
CF B. Hamburg (RMD)
RF M. Keener (KW)
RF G. Manuel (WSH)

The NALB Amateur Draft was held on June 15, 2005. The draft consisted of 15 rounds. Here were the draft picks made by the Brooklyn Knights listed by round. I was quite surprised that we were able to select Alvino Flores given the fact that the Knights picked last in the round. Flores was ranked the #1 prospect by SION (Sports Interactive Online Network) prior to the draft. As you can see, middle relievers were not highly drafted and there were many left in the later rounds.

1. Alvino Flores, C
2. Bernard Gastelu, MR
3. Edwin Byers, 1B
4. Ettore Kinser, SP
5. Alex Martínez, 3B
6. Jack Downs, CF
7. Dustin Madson, RF
8. Siu-chung Chow, SP
9. Javier Asencano, MR
10. Arend Velthuizen, 2B
11. Víctor Trujillo, SS
12. Jerome Collen, MR
13. Aquilino Alfaro, MR
14. Keith O'Rourke, MR
15. Joe Ryan, MR