I got home to Billings just in time to see the Montana State University Billings baseball home opening weekend 10-11 April  against Northwest Nazarene of Nampa Idaho. According to their very useful program, ($1), they have been playing since the middle of February at least on weekends, though some of those games look like they might have taken place in Arizona. They are 16-18 for the season up to today’s 1st game, part of which I saw at Dehler Park.

Yesterdays’s games (9 and 7 innings) were won by MSUB 6-3 and 6-5. Today’s first game also went 9 innings, won by MSUB 6-1. This could have been a 3 hit complete game shutout by left-hander Brian Howe [N.B. the Gazette on Easter Sunday had a different pitcher; not sure who is correct]  but the right fielder lost a ball in the sun late in the game to allow the Nazarene’s only run. Howe looked strong in the 5 innings that I saw him pitch. I didn’t see the scoring by the Jackets as it was early in the game.

From the box scores of yesterday’s games, conveniently provided in today’s program, the pitching must have been fairly strong too. The statistics for the hitting and pitching, also provided in the program, shows 8 guys .280 or above, and 5 pitchers in the 3 to 5 ERA range, pretty good for college games with metal bats.

The rest of the schedule looks like 4 games next weekend here in Billings against Central Washington, then 8 games against Bemidji State and Western Oregon the first couple of weekends in May.

I heard from Bob Sandler that the Legion teams start playing games in May as well, and don’t the Little Leagues start playing her in late April/early May too? Wow, watch this space for your baseball fix. As you can see there are a lot of good seats available for these games, @1.50/game, a good deal.

Oh, I almost forgot, the announcer was a sensible, low-volume guy for whom the home team batters were not the cousins of Jesus Christ: just name, number, position at a reasonable volume and non-tortuous announcements and music between innings. Sometimes he didn’t say anything, bless him. He should give lessons to the Mustangs announcer.

I should know the names of these flowering trees on the edges of Dehler Park. They are coming out just as baseball is starting, how convenient.

Dead Robin

Sometime last week both Maggie the Dog and I were startled while she was snoozing under the breakfast table and I was on my 2nd cup of coffee and 1st Sudoku puzzle. It sounded like a bird had run into one of our sunroom windows, which seems to happen a lot, summer or winter, though we have tried to warn them away by various means. I did see a bloody spot on the window but we have several of those and when I look for the bird I usually don’t find them. During the summer I’ve heard them run into a window, then I’ve seen them shake their head, get up and after a short rest, they usually fly away. Occasionally a cat gets them before they have recovered their wits.

So then, as a consequence of the chinook winds for the last few days the snow on my back porch has receded and revealed this dead bird. I don’t know if it died from a broken neck or from hypothermia after being incapacitated from blunt force injuries. In any event, the manner of death would appear to be accidental.

Muellerstuff

Aaron is definitely a stream of consciousness kind of guy which makes him pretty fun to read.

Welcome aboard Aaron!

That being said, I was blessed to find three new to me Billings blogs today.

Gazette reporter Matt Hagengruber on his On the Margins blog pointed out City Councilman Chris “Shoots” Veis has a new blog and looking over Shoots’ new blog I noticed he already had a previous blog.

Both of Shoots’ blogs are event blogs. The first is the Shoots Marshall Fellowship Blog about his travels in Germany and the second is Shoots in South Africa. He is in South Africa as I write this and I look forward to his updates. It’s nice to see a member of our city government willing to put himself out there.

Last but certainly not least is Katie Brown’s new blog, Montana is Going Brown. Katie is Roy Brown’s daughter. Yep, that Roy Brown. Katie’s endeavor reminds me of Meghan McCain’s blog. Katie wants is to show the side of her father she knows and loves and by doing so she hopes Montana gets to know her Dad better. Montana is Going Brown isn’t officially a part of the Brown/Daines campaign but a labor of love by Katie.

I had the pleasure of meeting Katie for the first time this evening and she is a charming young lady. I wish her well with her blog.