The FMBA is putting out a call to all of our FMBA membership, friends, and family members! A fundraiser has been organized for our good friend and long time FMBA member Trevor (Marv) Freeman. Marv has been a part of our league and family for decades and now faces a very tough battle with cancer that he has been fighting for the better part of this year with his young family.

100% of the proceeds of this raffle will be going to Trevor and his family to help them in their fight. A range of prizes have been donated to be raffled off to ticket buyers in a “draft style” raffle draw, where the first ticket drawn will get their pick of all the available prizes. The second ticket will then get second choice from all the available prizes and so on and so forth until all of the prizes have been claimed!

Continue reading “#MARVSTRONG” →

Longhorns rookie Justin Willis has acquitted himself nicely in his first season of FMBA action and is establishing himself as a force in their lineup moving forward. He currently sits in third on the team in RBI for the year despite having a little over half the plate appearances of the two players in front of him, and is carrying an absurd batting average of .619 and an OPS of 1.679 on the year. The Longhorns will surely be trying to figure out how to get him to the field more often, as he’s been a small sample darling in the month of June, but the ratios were just too good to ignore. Willis racked up 9 hits in 12 AB’s for a .750 average this month and got on base in 82% of his trips to the plate, yes, you read that right. The Longhorns currently sit in a tie for 4th place at 8-6 with 8 games left to play, and finding a way for Willis to log a few more games might be crucial in their pursuit of a high playoff seed the rest of the way.

Wolfpack ace Curtis Smith (4-0) is making his second straight appearance on our Pitcher of the Month list as his dominance has continued well into the second half of the season. Smith spun two more complete games in June, this time of the shutout variety, and one of those two starts was his second career no-hitter. Having gone the distance in all four of his starts this year, Smith still hasn’t allowed an earned run and continues to lead the league in strikeouts by a healthy margin, he’s tallied 55 K’s while allowing 7 hits and 5 walks through 26 IP. The Wolfpack are currently in 1st place at 11-3 with 8 games left to play, but with the Diamondbacks hot on their heels with 5 games in-hand they will have to continue their winning ways if they hope to clinch the first seed heading into playoffs next month.

With the first month of FMBA action in the books, it is time to recognize a couple of standout performances from the early season slate with our Player of the Month and Pitcher of the Month awards.

White Sox catcher Lane Aman has come storming out of the gates offensively this year posting an absurd .611 batting average over the first month and reaching base over 65% during his trips to the plate. He has yet to be struck out on the season, and is also terrorizing opposing teams on the basepaths with 5 steals which puts him in a tie for third in that category leaguewide. The White Sox are off to a 2-4 start so the production out of Aman hasn’t quite translated to team success yet, but if this level of production continues he can pencil himself in for an All-Star selection in September.

Wolfpack starting pitcher Curtis Smith is off to an equally hot start on the hill with two dominant outings to his name this month. He has yet to surrender an earned run through his two outings and has registered a miniscule WHIP of 0.67 while tallying 25 strikeouts at a 14.58 K/7 clip, both good for second in the league at this stage. The Wolfpack are have jumped out to a 6-2 record while leading the league in run differential thanks to hot bats and strong pitching from the rest of their staff behind Smith.

With Week 1 of the 2021 FMBA Season in the books, it’s time to take a look back at the action from around the league:

Diamondbacks Roaring Out of the Gate

The Diamondbacks are off to a 4-0 start and have grabbed first place in Division A on the backs of some stellar offensive performances this week, J.P. Willner chief among them. The FMBA Player of the Week went 8-15 with 4 HR’s, 9 RBI, and 7 runs scored on the week while posting an absurd 1.896 OPS. It was more than just Willner destroying baseballs though, as the Dbacks had 5 of their regular starters check-in with an OPS over 1.500! Their pitching held up all week and the 45 runs of support we good enough to net them 4 wins this week. The Diamondbacks are now off until June 30th when they start their season series with the White Sox.

Cardinals Historic Defensive Struggles Drop Them To Bottom of Division B

The longest tenured organization in our great league has struggled in the early going. The offense has been there, but their 15 errors (!) across their first four games has cost them the opportunity to stay in most of their games, and their offense so far has only been able to bail them out of 1 of those 4 games, saddling them with a 1-3 record. The team is full of veteran leadership, so a turnaround is certainly not out of the question, perhaps the COVID layoff has just given them a bad case of the yips, but if any team is capable of sneaking up from behind the rest of this division it’s them. They are in action this Wednesday night at 6:30pm against the Longhorns.

Giants Victim of Tough Early Schedule

The Giants were off to a promising start when they dimed the Twins on Opening Day to jump to 1-0, but then they ran into the buzz saw that is the Diamondbacks offense. Their next 3 games were against the Dbacks and if it wasn’t for Steven Latos’ stellar outing in their last game Sunday night, all three may have been blowouts. The FMBA Pitcher of the Week made two starts for his club this week, throwing more innings than anyone in the league and earning a win in his first appearance against the Twins before taking the tough loss Sunday night to cap off the week. He ended up with 11.0 IP, 12 K, 2 BB and allowed only 6 H and 2 ER to finish the week with an ERA of 1.27 and miniscule 0.727 WHIP. The Giants schedule lightens up significantly as they roll into their series with the last place Twins on Thursday at 6:30pm.

Longhorns Lose Key Piece of Staff To Injury, Still Hunting First Win

2021 got off to a rough start for the Longhorns, who lost their ever-reliable starter Ted Eisthen to a freak injury in their opener when he was struck in the elbow by a line drive comebacker against the Cardinals. The Longhorns had gotten out to an early lead in that game, but the loss of a core player and teammate seemed to take the wind out of their sails as they would end up dropping the game 11-10. They played their second game the very next night against the Dinos and walked 13 batters, the Dinos capitalized and blew the game open in the 4th inning to get their first win of the year. The Longhorns find themselves winless albeit with only two losses, and their three games this week will be against the Cardinals and their defensive woes, so perhaps this series is just what the doctor ordered for them to right the ship.

Guns and Canadians Both Off To 3-1 Starts

The Guns and Canadians both jumped out to strong starts in the win/loss column. The Canadians lost a tight one in their opener versus the Wolfpack as they just couldn’t get their offense going, but three games against the Cardinals and their hapless defense to close out the week seemed to warm the bats up as they scored 22 runs in those three games after being held to one unearned run against the Pack. The Guns followed a similar path in that they dropped their opener to the White Sox before running into a struggling Twins team for three games to finish out the week. Guns SS Luke Carmichael looked like he had Player of the Week honours locked up early in the week before his bat cooled off a little on the weekend and the Diamondbacks started smashing baseballs all over the yard. He still enjoyed a solid week at the plate however and popped his first home run of the campaign as well.

Light Schedule For Sox, Dukes, Dinos, Pack

The season kicks off in earnest during Week 2 for these four teams as each only got the chance to play 1 game during Week 1 of the season either due to weather or just a light early schedule. Each team will have 3 games on tap against their respective divisional opponent (Sox vs. Dukes, Wolfpack vs. Dinos).