Everyone wins: Veterans, firefighters and Bouchon Bistro team up for a day of baseball and community spirit with the support of PG&E
At Yountville’s historic Borman Field, the Mixed Nutts veterans’ softball team closed their season with another victory and a reminder that some of the best community service happens simply by showing up.
As with any Mixed Nutts game, the score was questionable and the rules negotiable. The players ranged in age from their 20s to their 90s at Borman Field on Tuesday, Oct. 20.
The occasion was the inaugural Servers vs. Those That Served softball game, pitting the Bouchon Baguettes, a team of employees from Yountville’s Bouchon Bistro, against the Mixed Nutts, the softball team of the Veterans Home of California, Yountville, which was reinforced by firefighters from Yountville Fire Station 12’s Dirty Dozen and some pinch runners from PG&E.
Organized by the Tug McGraw Foundation, the game served as the Mixed Nutts’ season finale and brought together veterans, restaurant employees, firefighters and community volunteers for an afternoon that was about connection.
While the Mixed Nutts officially claimed victory, the real winners were the volunteers and spectators who shared a day of giving back in the form of hometown “baseball.”
The idea began with a simple question from Bouchon Bistro General Manager Ericka Briscoe: How could her employees give back to the community in a way that was meaningful, engaging and a little different?
Briscoe approached Tug McGraw Foundation CEO Jennifer Brusstar about creating an employee community outreach opportunity and the result was far more spirited than a traditional volunteer day.
“This was community outreach for us, so that we can go out and meet people who actually live here,” Briscoe said. “Sometimes service looks differently than just a volunteer day of Thanksgiving turkeys, right? Sometimes your service could be just being active and being present with the community.”
Brusstar, whose foundation promotes brain health and quality of life for veterans and others affected by brain-related conditions, recognized an opportunity to bring different parts of Yountville together.
The unlikely matchup, she said, made perfect sense, adding that veterans, firefighters and culinary professionals all work in environments where teamwork, timing, preparation and trust are essential. Whether responding to an emergency, serving in the military or managing the demands of a restaurant, each profession is built around service to others.
For the Bouchon employees, trading the intensity of restaurant service for a morning on the baseball diamond offered a welcome change of pace. And what about recruiting players? Was it a challenge?
“Not at all,” Briscoe said when asked whether employees were reluctant to participate. In fact, she had more willing players than she could use, even after last-minute staffing demands at the restaurant required some employees to return to work.
Briscoe hopes the experience will become a regular tradition, potentially expanding to include other restaurants in the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group. “Maybe I’ll have a team. Maybe The French Laundry will have a team, maybe Burgers and Half Bottles,” she said.
Her larger goal is to make community involvement something employees embrace throughout the year, rather than on designated volunteer days. “Let’s normalize this type of community service,” Briscoe said. “It’s beautiful.”
Before the first batter stepped up to the plate, the morning began with a tribute to those who served. Air Force veteran Elizabeth Boyd and Navy special operations veteran Alejandro Becker raised the American flag alongside a Marine Corps flag.
Marines among the Mixed Nutts and Station 12 firefighters honored Chef Thomas Keller who rode onto the field in a camo-covered golf cart, in remembrance of his father, Marine Edward James Keller. The Mixed Nutts also presented each Bouchon Bistro team member with a baseball signed by the veterans.
Bouchon Bistro’s Melody Neal delivered the national anthem, and Keller himself took the mound to throw the ceremonial first pitch.
“Our average age is 81 and theirs is 31,” declared Mixed Nutts coach Tom Parkinson. “Fifty years of experience beats young legs every time. And remember, there are no rules when the Nutts play.”
First in the line-up and leading the veterans was the team’s oldest player, 94-year-old Navy Seabee veteran David Budworth. Another veteran, age 92, impressed the visiting volunteers with his batting ability, while the women of the Mixed Nutts, representing branches including the Navy and Air Force, contributed hits and runs of their own.
The rules accommodated players of all ages and abilities, with some batters hitting from a tee and others facing pitches from a machine. As for the innings, balls, strikes and official score? Those were more suggestions than rules and regulations.
John Leyba, senior vice president of business processes for PG&E’s Wildfire Emergency Operations, described the contest as a delightful departure from conventional baseball.
“Our service day of the game between the Yountville Veteran’s Home Mixed Nutts and the Bouchon Bistro Baguettes could be best described as a farce, but, boy, it was a good one,” Leyba said. He compared Borman Field to the ballpark in the movie A League of Their Own, complete with sound effects and the familiar declaration that there’s “no crying in baseball.”
Innings were determined less by the scoreboard than by whether everyone had a turn at bat. Somewhere along the way, according to the organizers, a few Baguettes runs appeared to vanish from the tally. The Mixed Nutts ultimately prevailed, although accounts of the final score varied.
PG&E volunteers helped shuttle helmets, run bases and joined the action on the field. Leyba recalled the final, game-winning runs coming courtesy of PG&E pinch runners.
Adding to the atmosphere were DJ Wes, who kept the music and sound effects rolling, and veteran Elizabeth Boyd, who served as the voice of the Nutts. Joining her as a co-announcer was Veterans Home chaplain Jacob Matchak, whose enthusiasm for baseball and playful commentary began long before he arrived in Yountville.
Matchak, who has worked for the state of California for 20 years, lives on the Veterans Home campus with his family. He grew up as the oldest of eight boys in a family of nine children, which meant there were always enough players for a backyard baseball game.
“Every summer evening we’d be in the backyard playing our own little baseball games, and the entire time that we played, I would just be talking the whole time,” Matchak recalled. “I’d be making jokes, calling out slams, giving digs. So, it’s just a part of my personality.”
That childhood pastime has become part of a family tradition at the Veterans Home. His daughter often sings the national anthem at Mixed Nutts games, while his 7-year-old son runs the bases for the team.
“We’re just here to support the community, support our veterans, support our home and just have a blast,” Matchak said. “We have a lot of fun doing this.”
Off the field, along with Brusstar, PG&E’s Emergency Preparedness & Response team made sure nobody went hungry.
Led by Rachel Phillips, PG&E’s chief of staff for Emergency Preparedness & Response, Wildfire Emergency Operations, the volunteers served a ballpark spread of hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, soft-serve ice cream with strawberries, old-fashioned glass-bottled Coca-Cola and even butterscotch beer.
Hot dogs were passed to the players and the crowd, which comprised Veterans Home residents, longtime Mixed Nutts supporters and neighbors in the stands. Among them were the team’s official fan club, Dan McCabe and members of his Mustang car club, as well as members of SIRS, Sons in Retirement Serving.
Veterans Home staff helped residents requiring higher levels of care attend the game, ensuring that those who could not take the field could still participate. Veteran Connie Darr also lent a hand, continuing her support of the Tug McGraw Foundation.
For Leyba, the experience challenged the usual definition of a corporate service day. “There was a lot of laughter and joy, and I can’t believe we get to do this sort of thing now and again as ‘community service,’” he said.
The historic setting added another layer of hometown character. Baseball has been played at Borman Field since the late 1800s, and the Napa Valley Baseball Club continues to maintain the grounds for the community.
For Brusstar, the day’s success wasn’t measured in runs or innings but in the connections made among people whose lives might otherwise rarely intersect. “This is what community is,” Brusstar said. “Seeing Station 12, the employees of Bouchon Bistro, and PG&E all coming together to further brain health, for our veterans and for themselves, furthers our mission.”
Brusstar also acknowledged Keller’s longstanding generosity toward the veteran community and the significance of his restaurant team spending the day alongside the Mixed Nutts. “Chef Keller has always been generous to our veterans and sharing a day when his team came to entertain our veterans, and we got to serve them, was truly heartfelt,” she said.
Both Brusstar and Briscoe envision the game as the beginning of something larger, such as a series of neighborhood matchups that bring local businesses, organizations and residents together with the veterans.
“Our hope for the 2027 season is to bring more neighborhood teams together to bridge the community with our veterans and create more healthy brain engagement opportunities,” Brusstar said. “We can’t wait to do it again.”
When the game was over, the final score didn’t matter. It was clear that at Borman Field, everybody won.
