2026 MSBL Player Profile: Bill Magoolaghan, Bay Area (San Francisco) MSBL
By Steve LaMontia-Carlentini, MSBL Director of Communications
In our continuing search for the MSBL movers and shakers across the country, we asked Bay Area League President Jim Frenn for recommendations regarding members of his league in San Francisco. He came back with a real winner.
“Bill Magoolaghan is someone you definitely need to speak with. We always refer to him as Bill Magoo! He has been the perfect ballplayer in the BAMSBL for over 25 years. More than anyone I know, Bill has been on more championship teams in our league and is a frequent MSBL World Series participant. Between Bill and Pat Carroll, they have won over 2/3 of our league titles over the years!”
We discovered that Bill had a lot to say about his MSBL journey. To present the most comprehensive compilation of Bill’s baseball life, we switched up to a Q&A format and just let him go! He did not disappoint. Bill also provided comments below each of his pictures for us. Please enjoy Bill’s story as much as we did!
Your name: Bill Magoolaghan
City or town of residence: San Bruno, California, south of San Francisco
Age: 62
League name: Bay Area Men’s Senior Baseball League (BAMSBL)
Town where league is based: San Francisco
Where did you grow up? Levittown New York
What do you do for a living? President of a Market Research Company doing high-tech research
Family information: Happily married to my wife Betti for nearly 25 years with four children, two girls, Charlotte and Gabi who are in college at St. Mary’s and Loyola Marymount, respectively, and two boys, Liam and Cole, who are attending Junipero Serra High School.
My youngest son, Cole, is a freshman, and he plays on the Serra Freshman team. Liam just recently tried out for the BAMSBL and will be playing in our 18+ league this summer. He was the second player chosen in the draft, just like I was so many years ago.
Describe your baseball resume: I started playing baseball in an empty lot in Levittown with all the neighborhood kids. My first team was called “Consolidated Charcoal,” and I led the league in hitting as an 8-year-old.
I moved on to “Exxon Car Care” as a 9-year-old, and we were the first-place team. In the playoffs, I gave up a hard ground ball to shortstop in the bottom of the sixth inning of a 0-0 game, and it rolled to the fence for an inside-the-park home run, a walk-off loss. After the game, all the kids signed a baseball for me as a goodbye gift, as the next week, my parents moved our family to Phoenix, Arizona.
In Phoenix, I had one of the highlights of my baseball career, winning the league championship as a 10-year-old, pitching a complete game for the “Bill’s Bikes & Toys Orioles” and being carried off the field by my coach as parents and our sponsors cheered.
I played baseball at Shadow Mountain High School in Phoenix, two years ahead of Curt Schilling. When I graduated, I got a full academic scholarship to Northern Arizona University. Unfortunately, that was the year they ended their baseball program, and I wouldn’t play baseball again for 15 years until the fall of 1996.
When did you start playing for MSBL, and how did you hear about it? I had a small black and white TV on my kitchen counter in my apartment in San Francisco. I had moved with my college girlfriend to San Francisco the day after graduating from NAU. There was a newscaster named Vern Glenn who did a segment called Mr. Involvement, and the segment that day was him attending the BAMSBL tryouts.
I jotted down the contact name and phone number they put on the screen, and I called and talked with Bill Holman, the League Commissioner at the time and someone who would become a close friend. I didn’t attend tryouts, but instead waited and joined the Fall League with a team called the Birmingham Black Barons in our PCL League. After a fun fall season, I tried out in the spring and was the second pick of the draft, taken by the Baron’s coach Joe Madero.
What team and age bracket do you play for now? The BAMSBL started a 60+ league last year, so after winning the Championship with the 50+ Cubs, I moved up to the 60+ league and won the Championship with the Monarch, coached by Ron Robinson. We are looking forward to trying to repeat this year.
How many teams are in the league, and what age divisions? Last year we had 27 teams and expect to have the same number this year. We have four divisions: 18+, 30+, 45+, and 60+.
What is the best thing about your league? The best thing about our league is the players. From the first moment I stepped on the field in the Fall League back in 1996, I have met so many wonderful people from a variety of backgrounds, working in a wide range of jobs. I have made friends at every turn, and it has been a blast getting to play ball with so many great people.
Do you participate in any MSBL national tournaments? After winning the batting crown in my first year with the Barons and winning the Rookie of the Year Award, I was invited by Mark Sieben and Wes Thomas to play with the Beavers in Phoenix. After playing with other teams for a few years, I brought the Bay Area Rockies to Phoenix in 2001, where we won the MABL 18+ Central Division Championship, the first BAMSBL team to win rings down in Phoenix. We moved up to the MABL Federal Division in 2002 and won the Championship as well, back-to-back Champions.
I have since gone down to Phoenix and played for a variety of teams, being lucky enough to bring my two sons to Phoenix with me, having them sit in the dugouts of major league spring training facilities, rooting us on, and having a blast.
Note that Mark Sieben and Wes Thomas would later create the Bay Area Madbirds team, eventually run by Bart Zeller after Wes Thomas moved from the Bay Area to Chicago. I played with them for a couple of years. The Madbirds had a successful run of playing in a variety of tournaments, including going 6-0 in pool play in Phoenix in the 30+ division.
Who is your favorite player of all time and why? Baseball gives you gifts. Unexpected gifts. As a result of the initial out-of-the-blue Mr. Involvement news segment, all of these amazing things have happened.
When I was a kid growing up in Phoenix, my brother and I would play wiffle ball endlessly in 100+ degree heat in the backyard, drinking gallons of Kool-Aid to try to stay hydrated. He and I would play, pretending to be the lineups of various teams from the early to mid-70s. I was a big Reds and Giants fan (we’d go to Phoenix Municipal Stadium regularly to watch the Giants’ AAA team, the Phoenix Giants, play).
One of the guys I imitated was Terry Whitfield, who played for the Giants and Yankees. My first year in the BAMSBL, I won the Rookie of the Year Award for the PCL League, and Terry Whitfield won the MVP award for our AAA League. Years later, our daughters ended up going to school together, and Terry’s sons coached our daughters on the basketball team (they went from being shy girls to ferocious 7th-grade league champions).
Terry and I became friends and still run into each other regularly. He’s a great guy, a wonderful hitting coach, and an amazing story teller. So, my favorite player of all time is … Willie Mays, but Terry comes in a close second!
Are there any additional personal comments you wish to add about your playing or life thus far? After my first year playing for the Barons, Bill Holman asked me to join the BAMSBL Board, which I did. In our first meeting, Bill resigned, leaving woefully inexperienced me with a board of guys I’d never met. In one of our first votes, which was to extend the regular season from 16 to 18 games, the vote was 6 to 1 against, with me being the only board member voting to expand the season.
Not a great start, but it did get a lot better. Being on the board got me involved in all the aspects of running the league, including getting to have dinner with Steve Sigler when he visited. Wonderful guy. As we walked after dinner, I thanked him for creating the MABL/MSBL, not just because we all got to play baseball, but because it brought so many friends into our lives.
Life isn’t easy for a lot of us, and having teammates to rely on and fall back on when times get tough is an amazing thing to have.
In 2010, my family was involved in the San Bruno explosion, as a huge 30-inch PG&E gas pipeline exploded down the block, killing eight of our neighbors and destroying over 40 houses. Our house caught fire and ended up having to be rebuilt, and all of the houses to our west were gone, burned to the foundation.
As I was frantically driving from my office in SF to San Bruno to pick up my wife and kids who had run barefoot down the block alongside other neighbors (some of whom were literally smoking), teammates and friends from other teams kept calling me to make sure I was ok and offering assistance in any way possible.
That’s the kind of support the league has given me, not just the chance to play baseball, but it has changed my life.
What is your greatest baseball moment, either watching or playing? There are so many great moments, including playing at the SF Giants Stadium after it first opened (then known as Pac Bell Park), playing at Petco Park in San Diego after it first opened, and playing at the Big “A” in Anaheim.
Of course, winning our first Championship in Phoenix was incredible. There’s a picture of me in the outfield after the last out was made, my arms raised in triumph, just an amazing culmination of so much work. Also, winning a tournament in Chicago, having been invited by Wes Thomas and other Madbird teammates to fly out and play with them, culminating in me pitching the Championship game, which we won 20-0 (thanks, Gino, Mike, and Wes for inviting us).
However, my greatest baseball moment was winning the Championship with my original team, the Barons, taking them from a last-place team to the best team in the league. It was a 3-game series played over two weekends. I pitched 10 innings in the first game, and we won, until we didn’t!
In the bottom of the 10th inning, we walked it off with a base hit to center, except the runner on first didn’t go to second base, he ran home to celebrate. The Beavers’ center fielder threw the ball to an infielder, who stepped on second base. After a brief argument with the umpires, the runner was called out, and the game continued … and we lost. Merkle’s boner redux.
This meant we had to win two games the next weekend, which was an issue since we didn’t have a lot of pitching. I pitched at Albert Park on Saturday night, striking out 13 in 8 innings for the victory. Bill Holman came in and pitched the ninth. The next night we played at Washington Park. Our starter, Tim Durazzo pitched a gutsy 4-innings, with me coming in to relieve him in the fifth inning. I struck out 8 batters in five innings, including striking out the last batter with the tying run on second base.
The umpire called strike three (it was actually a bit outside), and my amazing catcher, Ed Delaney, leapt from beyond home plate and jumped into my arms. We had done it, after years of battling, we had become champions. That was my greatest baseball moment, being able to achieve that with my teammates, being champions.
Are there any comments about MSBL you wish to share? The BAMSBL has been a huge part of my life over the last 30 years. I have been lucky to have been surrounded by so many great players and great people. I have been able to win 14 league championships, two rings in Phoenix, championships in Las Vegas, Woodland, Tri-Valley, Chicago, San Jose, Palm Springs, etc. I was able to build the very first BAMSBL website, where I posted the league schedule, directions to fields, game stories, and pictures.
I have been able to play with BAMSBL teams at San Quentin, even helping them set up an online schedule so they could play games with more of our teams. I had been on our BAMSBL board for several years, had been the MABL Commissioner, and had run our Fall League, expanding it from 8 to 20 teams. The league has brought so many good things into my life; it’s difficult to list them, and difficult to list all of the people I need to thank for making all of this possible.
Special stories or considerations: So many people to thank. First of all, Steve Sigler, for making all of this possible. Thank you, Steve. Growing up on Long Island, I had always dreamed of playing shortstop for the NY Mets. I didn’t quite make it (although I haven’t given up hope), but playing for the BAMSBL has given me so much.
Also, I need to thank the BAMSBL Presidents and board members, past and present, who have worked so hard to make baseball possible for all of us. Thank you to our current league President, Jim Frenn, and to all of the current and past board members, all of whom have worked so hard and have overcome so many challenges to keep the league going in the right direction. Tony Michaels, Billy Holman, and Jon Maples have helped lead the league, making it better every step of the way.
Finally, a huge thanks to all of my teammates who, quite frankly, make life so much better and have made me a better player and a better person. I cannot imagine life without all of you.
It has been an honor to play alongside Pat Carroll, Wes Thomas, Sean Lake, Jesse Irwin, Rick Ruselle, Ed Delaney, John Sechler, Thiago Lopez, Jim Meehan, Jimmy Hemphill, Craig Bevan, Mike Villasenor, Aubrey Moore, and so, so, so many others. I’m just incredibly lucky. I could list hundreds more players I have played with and count as friends.