SURVIVING AND ADVANCING ... Coming off a victory at the District 52 All Stars Championship on June 23, the Palo Alto 13s All Stars moved on to the California Section 3 Intermediate All Star Tournament. On July 2, in the opening round of the Section 3 tournament, the Palo Alto 13s All Stars fell 10-0 to Granada Little League in a lopsided game. This loss placed them in the elimination bracket; one more loss and they would've been eliminated from the tournament. In their first two elimination games, the Palo Alto All Stars outscored their opponents by a combined 26-3 margin to advance to a rematch with Granada. Palo Alto had to beat Granada twice in the span of two days to win the tournament. In the first game, Palo Alto won the July 5 rematch, 13-10, in a barnburner that went to extra innings. The second game saw an unexpected heroic performance from pitcher Lucas Lai, who had yet to pitch in an all-star game earlier in the season prior to this appearance, Palo Alto Little League President Saxon Noh wrote in a post-tournament recap. On July 6, Lai threw 75 pitches in his first-ever complete game to lead the Palo Alto 13s All Stars to victory in the winner-take-all game of the California Section 3 Intermediate All Star Tournament and advance to the Northern California State Tournament. As of July 13, the Palo Alto 13s All Stars lost its first game of the Northern California State Tournament to Woodland National Little League, 11-1, but bounced back with a 30-3 victory over Tracy Little League and a 14-4 defeat of Ferrasci Park Little League. Fans can access the bracket by visiting the "Tournaments" tab at cadistrict10.com, then click on "2022 Northern California State Intermediate."

AN IMMENSE TRIBUTE TO FRIENDSHIP ... If you've walked around the Stanford campus lately, you may have noticed a new public art installation set up last month near the university's tall and mighty trees. "The Stanford Columns," by the late American sculptor and environmental artist Beverly Pepper, stands across the street from the Anderson Collection on Lomita Drive. The artwork, created exclusively for Stanford, is an iteration of "The Todi Columns," Pepper's sculpture in Todi, Italy, according to a July 1 article by Stanford Report. The local installation consists of four Cor-Ten steel columns that each weigh between 3-5 tons and stand 40 feet tall. They're comparable to colossal tree trunks, according to the Stanford Report article. The artwork's reddish-brown color is expected to get darker over time. "We determined that the expansive arboretum adjacent to the art museums would be the perfect place for Beverly Pepper's monumental work that suggests classical ruins, urban engineering and the towering trees on campus," Matthew Tiews said in the article. (Tiews is the university's outgoing associate vice president for campus engagement who led the Public Art Committee until this past May.) The work is a gift from the Fisher family to honor alum Doris Fisher and her lifelong friendship with Pepper, a renowned artist who won the International Sculpture Center's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013. (To learn more about Stanford's arts district, read "Art in the neighborhood" on page 20.)

SAVED BY A GOOD SAMARITAN ... A Palo Alto resident is grateful for a good Samaritan who returned a wallet she lost on June 11 after withdrawing money at the Wells Fargo ATM in downtown Palo Alto at the intersection of Hamilton Avenue and Waverley Street. She noticed her wallet was missing a short time later while shopping at The Market at Edgewood grocery store on West Bayshore Road and quickly headed back to her home in the Community Center neighborhood. There, she found the lost wallet had been returned to her doorstep. All of her possessions, including cash and cards, were still inside the wallet. She told the Weekly was relieved to find that the money she had withdrawn earlier that day ahead of her planned vacation to Africa, was still there. "There are good people out there, and whoever it was, thank you, thank you, and I owe you at least one return act of charity," the resident, who requested anonymity for privacy reasons, said in an email to the Weekly.