Mullaly's Devotion to Local Sports Burns Brightly with Scoreboard Donations
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
April 11, 2023
HILLSDALE – Sports have always been a big part of Bill Mullaly’s life.
In high school, he played on the 1975 Hudson football team that set a national record with a 72-game winning streak.
He coached an Arizona high school team to back-to-back state softball championships in the 1990s.
And the 63-year-old Hillsdale resident has spent nearly three decades as an MHSAA-registered official in basketball, volleyball, baseball, and softball.
Now, he’s giving back to multiple communities and school districts in southeast Michigan by purchasing and donating scoreboards for use at recreation and high school fields.
"Bill is a great example of everything that is right with sports,” said Pittsford athletic director Mike Burger. “He has so much enthusiasm and love for the game. I have known him a long time and can honestly say he is one of the good ones that I have had the good fortune of meeting along my journey.”
Mullaly decided to start his scoreboard campaign a couple of years ago and, so far, has donated a total of 15 scoreboards to seven communities in south-central Michigan, including four in his hometown of Hudson.
“It’s to make the games more fun and more enjoyable,” he said. “I’ve been to two places this spring where they have scoreboards, but they aren’t working. It’s frustrating. It improves the whole game. It’s for everybody, the coaches, the players, the fans. It helps everybody.
“I’ve got a lot of positive feedback. People are grateful.”
Mullaly said he is fortunate to be in a position to help out the communities. His donations have all been to either recreation fields or high schools to which he has a connection, whether it be where he’s from ( Hudson), where he is a substitute teacher (Litchfield) or where he hosts baseball youth tournaments (Concord).
One of the scoreboards in Pittsford is in memory of his mother, Beverly, a 1948 Pittsford graduate.
“Someone said to me a couple of years ago, ‘What’s your legacy going to be?’” Mullally said. “I started thinking about what I can do to make a difference.
“I saw a lot of recreation fields that do not have scoreboards. Most of them don’t. A lot of schools don’t have a scoreboard, in fact. I looked into the price and what it would take to get them and came up with this thing that I’m going to donate scoreboards to parks. I saw a couple of schools that needed them.”
Mullaly purchases the scoreboards, then leaves it up to the school district or community to install them, which sometimes has been a hangup. In Hudson, he enlisted the help of a friend, Bruce Isenhower, and his son, Ryan, a former Hudson quarterback who now owns a construction company. They’ve put up all four scoreboards Mullaly has donated to Hudson.
“It’s more than just buying it, it’s getting it put up,” Mullaly said. “They have installed them, completed the wiring and it’s great. It’s great to have a working scoreboard there. I’m just trying to give back and make a positive difference.”
His first donation was to Concord, which went to the town’s recreation organization.
“They have five fields and three scoreboards,” he said. “It just adds to the game, the experience. Everyone wants to know the score at these games.”
In Hudson, two went to Memorial Park and two to Will Carleton Park, which is home to Hudson’s middle school and junior varsity softball teams.
Last winter his donation went to North Adams-Jerome for a varsity softball field.
“I’ve been there before,” he said. “The thing barely worked, and you couldn’t see the numbers. I wanted to help them out.”
Pittsford has installed one of two scoreboards Mullaly has purchased for the district for its baseball and softball fields. Quincy and Litchfield are using scoreboards donated by Mullaly. He has also donated a scoreboard to Union City.
“A guy was building a new complex two years ago. I said, ‘If you build it, I’ll donate the scoreboard.’ He said, ‘You will?’ I thought it was great what he was doing, and I wanted to be part of it,” Mullaly said.
Most of the signs include the moniker, “Donated by Bill Mullaly – For the Love of the Game,” which is something he and a friend thought up.
“My main focus was to do it for parks that the rec teams play on,” Mullaly said. “They don’t have a booster club or a budget. That’s how it began, but then I started going around to high schools and noticing they need scoreboards too.
“I get some satisfaction looking out there,” he said. “I feel blessed that I am able to do it. It’s neat when you are umpiring a game and you look out there.”
The first scoreboard Mullaly purchased in 2021 cost less than $3,000. They are now running a little more than $4,000 each.
“It’s useful and practical and can last for years if they take care of them,” Mullaly said.
After college, Mullaly lived for 15 years in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., where he taught and coached softball. He makes a return visit annually to that area and manages to get on the high school softball umpiring schedule while in town.
He retired as a teacher at Homer Community Schools in 2010. In addition to being a substitute teacher at Litchfield, umpiring and working as an official in other sports, he writes about sports for the Hudson Post-Gazette and Homer Index, two weekly newspapers. He’s done that since 1996. He also is a historian for the Hudson football team and area athletics.
He’s never far from some aspect of sports.
“I’m just trying to give back to the communities, to the sport,” Mullaly said. “I wanted to do something positive.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) A scoreboard donated by Bill Mullaly stands tall at Pittsford High School. (Middle) Mullaly, middle, stands last July with Jo Ann and Watson Clark in front of a scoreboard he donated to Will Carleton Park; the photo was taken during the 22nd David Clark Memorial Baseball Tournament. (Top photo courtesy of Pittsford High School; middle photo courtesy of Bill Mullaly.)
St. Mary's Standouts, More Michigan Stars Taking Major Steps in Pro Baseball Climb
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
July 16, 2026
It took former Orchard Lake St. Mary's star Brock Porter three years to reach five professional baseball victories on the mound.
It's taken only four months for Porter to win five more.
Porter is one of four Eaglets from the 2019-22 MHSAA Finals champion clubs now navigating their way through professional baseball. The 2022 Mr. Baseball Award winner, now a 23-year-old right-handed pitcher, went a combined 30-0 with an ERA under a run per game for those three championship teams (with 2020 was canceled due to COVID-19) before being tabbed by the Texas Rangers in the fourth round of the 2022 MLB draft.
Injuries slowed his first three minor league seasons, and Porter didn't win any games over his first two in the Rangers chain. But a healthy Porter has taken significant steps forward this season with the High-A Hub City Spartanburgers (S.C.) with a 5-2 record, 3.56 ERA and 52 strikeouts over 43 innings and 13 games. Porter was actually 0-9 over his first two minor league seasons before going 5-1 a year ago with Hickory of the Class A Carolina League.
He said he doesn't feel rushed in moving up the Rangers minor league ladder.
"I still have time," he said. "The big goal for me is I want to move up throughout the chain. Things are going very well, I'm excited for the season. Health-wise, I feel very good. I still want to grow into the dominant pitcher I was in high school."
Porter's role within the organization has changed. While he started 28 games over first two seasons, Porter has transitioned to the bullpen, where he's pitched in a combined 54 games during last two summers.
His former Eaglets teammates also are winding their ways through the minors.
Among them, Ike Irish was one of two former Michigan high school baseball stars who played in Sunday's prestigious MLB Futures Games as part of the all-star festivities in Philadelphia. Irish, a first-round pick a year ago, has emerged as Baltimore's No. 2 prospect as ranked by MLB.com. He went 0-for-1 with a walk after starting the game as his team’s designated hitter. The other past Michigan prep star playing Sunday was Okemos’ Caleb Bonemer, a top prospect in the Chicago White Sox chain. He went 0-for-2 as the starting third baseman for the American League.
Irish, an outfielder who also can catch, has dominated High-A Frederick (Md.) with 12 homers, 15 doubles, 47 RBIs and 18 stolen bases while batting .264. Irish hit .230 in 20 games with Low-A Delarva (Md.) in 2025 after batting .350 with 39 homers over three years at Auburn University, where he was named an All-American as a junior.
Irish, who batted .427 and .450 with a combined 19 homers and 95 RBIs during his two seasons at St. Mary's, said his professional goals don't include obsessing over posting numbers.
"No, I just want to go out there and play," he said. "I don't care about numbers or hitting X number of homers. I would rather just go out and play."
In addition to Porter and Irish, former St. Mary's star Nolan Schubart has heated up at high-Class A Lake County (Ohio) of the Midwest League. A Cleveland Guardians prospect, Schubart was named last Monday as the league's Player of the Week after hitting three homers with 12 RBIs and 20 total bases. The former third-round draft pick is now batting .248 with 67 RBIs in 69 games with a 37-game on-base streak.
The fourth former St. Mary's player in the minors is infielder Alex Mooney, the 2021 Mr. Baseball Award winner. Mooney is batting .203 with 36 RBIs and 18 stolen bases in 22 attempts with Double-A Akron (Ohio). Mooney was taken by the Guardians in the seventh round of the 2023 draft out of Duke. He started his professional career as a shortstop, but has branched out to playing 27 games at second base and 17 at third this season.
Mooney said playing at the Double-A level has been an adjustment.
"It's a tough place," he said. "I'm not really a huge stats person; I just take it day-by-day. When you're playing 140 games a year in the minors you just try to get better every day. That's the mindset. You just try to get better and win the battle in the war."
A fifth member of the 2021-22 Orchard Lake St. Mary's teams will have a shot at professional baseball. Former Eaglets pitcher Nolan Higgins was taken by the Toronto Blue Jays in the fifth round of Sunday's MLB draft.
Meanwhile, Okemos’ Bonemer has been in the national spotlight twice over the first four months of this minor league season. A member of the coaches association all-state Dream Team as a high school senior in 2024, he gained a painful national notice May 5. The New York Yankees' all-star pitcher Gerrit Cole, while rehabilitating from an injury with Hudson Valley (N.Y.), surrendered a homer and single during Bonemer’s first two at bats, then drilled the Chicago White Sox prospect with a 97-mph fastball to the shoulder. The move incensed White Sox fans, who believed Cole was trying to send Bonemer a message after banging out the two hits.
Bonemer not only survived, but has thrived. He hit .238 with High-Class A Winston-Salem (N.C.) to start this season, but slammed 18 homers and 15 doubles along while totaling 43 RBIs and 10 stolen bases. That earned him a promotion to Double-A Birmingham (Ala.) where he's off to fast start with a .279 average, three homers and 11 RBIs over his first 17 games.
Four other former Michigan prep stars have had active professional seasons. Outfielder Dante Nori, who helped Northville to the 2024 MHSAA Division 1 championship, has built on his rapid start this spring when he batted .400 for Italy in March's World Baseball Classic. A member of the all-state Dream Team as a senior at Northville, Nori is batting .245 at Double-A Reading (Pa.) in the pitching-heavy Eastern League. Nori has 12 stolen bases and 11 doubles.
Former Saginaw Swan Valley infielder Mitch Jebb has played in 20 games at Double-A Altoona (Pa.) and Triple-A Indianapolis in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ system, batting .273 with eight RBIs. A 2018 all-stater at Swan Valley, this is Jebb's fourth season in the minors after batting .327 in 147 career games at Michigan State.
Howell native and the state's 2017 Mr. Baseball, Sam Weatherly, is playing his fifth year of professional baseball. Weatherly is 1-3 in 23 games at Double-A Hartford (Conn.) of the Eastern League, a Colorado Rockies affiliate. He's struck out 34 batters in 28 innings.
Jeff Criswell from Portage Central is still recovering from Tommy John surgery a year ago. A member of the 2019 NCAA runner-up Michigan club, Criswell was called up to the Rockies for two games during the second week of June. He's divided time between three levels this season, with a 2-1 record and 6.86 ERA over 19 games and 29 strikeouts in 21 innings. In 2025, he pitched in 13 games for the Rockies with a 2.75 ERA before the surgery.
PHOTOS (Top) Orchard Lake St. Mary’s grad Brock Porter delivers a pitch for the Hub City Spartanburgers this season. (Middle) Ike Irish runs the bases for the Frederick Keys. (Below) Caleb Bonemer takes the field for the Birmingham Barons. (Porter photo by Becca Torncello/Hub City Spartanburgers. Irish photo by Robert Kimble. Bonemer photo courtesy of the Birmingham Barons.)