THE REVERE ADVOCATE – FRIDAY, JULY 10, 2026 Page 13 Marquis Hall, 6, with handler Sloka Nereilla, riding Popcorn. Shown from left to right, are: Ward 5 City Councillor/Council Vice President Angela Guarino-Sawaya, Abraham Lincoln School third grader Lucas Villadas, 7, Julie Villada, Rafael Villada, and Marianne Eldridge. Face painter Caitlyn Hurley painted Hello Kitty onto Lucia Loperfi do, 2. Matthew Milla, 2, riding Tina. SPORTS | FROM Page 9 pitch he threw anywhere he wanted on the plate. On this day, the two “Best of the Best” were facing off in Revere, and everyone came to watch, and we mean EVERYONE. It is said that every single MLB team had at least one scout there; some of the teams had two or more. Also, check this out: How many times has THIS ever been said about a Greater Boston League game? Some of the many college baseball programs represented on that windy day in Revere (isn’t it ALWAYS windy in Revere?) were some of the top teams in the nation: UMiami Hurricanes, LSU, Alabama, Oklahoma State, University of Florida. ALL those programs had scouts at this game, at a GBL game in Revere! Unheard of, and never seen before, or since. This ended up being a classic example of coming to see one player and end up getting a bird’s-eye view of another. The fact is, many of the scouts who journeyed to Revere High that day were Mike Spinelli watchers, coming to see him another time just weeks before the draft. McGlinchy’s ‘stock’ soared that day By the time they left, Malden’s McGlinchy’s “stock” had soared in their estimation, following one of the best games he pitched at the high school level. Considering he won 15 games as a high school hurler, some of them bigtime “Ws,” that is saying something. Spinelli threw gas that day, the radar guns multiplying as the game went on, directly behind the backstop, recording him at between 87-90 mph for most of his fastballs. He touched 91 on two pitches, scouts said afterward. The Revere lefthander also had two other deadly weapons in his arsenal: a classic 12-to-6 curveball (that was basically unhittable) to complement his fastball and his pièce de résistance, a killer pickoff move. Hands down, there simply has NEVER been a better pickoff move by a lefty pitcher in GBL or state baseball history. Saying it was “nasty,” a common baseball adjective, does not even scratch the surface. Consider this: That April 25 game was only Revere’s seventh of the season. Spinelli had already picked 13 runners off fi rst to start the season! Remarkably, “Spinna” only picked off one, lone Malden baserunner all game that day, and even that move sparked a lengthy “did he balk, or did he not?” powwow by the umpires after a challenge from the Malden bench. “No balk, he’s out” was the fi nal decision. Overall, Malden had a decent day at the plate, managing seven hits on the day and drawing several walks off Spinelli to take a 2-1 lead after four innings. McGlinchy, meanwhile, was setting them and knocking them down, punching out seven Revere batters for strikeouts over the fi rst four innings. McGlinchy surrendered just three hits, one of them a runscoring double by senior Revere catcher David Lightbody to score Mike Popp in the bottom of the fourth inning to cut the lead to one run. This was probably no surprise since Lightbody, in four years of varsity baseball against Malden maybe made just one or two outs and hit close to.900 when facing the Blue and Gold at the plate. SPORTS | SEE Page 19
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