Big Sky Little League: Runner-up at Little League World Series

A parade and fireworks and speeches by big politicos, and crowds of people seeking their autographs and maybe 5 thousand fans giving them a big welcome back home.

Standing Room Only at Dehler Park for Returning Little League Heroes

Antique Glacier Park Bus Carries Coaches

Actually, now that I think about it, and read up on it, the swallows travel over 6000 miles from their summer home in Argentina, and I guess they are getting a little tired as fewer birds and smaller flocks have been noted for the last 10 or 15 years or so. This is not due to global warming they tell me, but rather to the increase of places to nest and the increase of places to feed along their route.

The Billings Scarlets played a double-header today, winning the morning game 11-1. The first game was called early on account of the 10 run rule—some say “we mercied ‘em!”

Left-hander Joe Barta looked pretty good for Opening Day, the hitters were swinging well, the running looked hesitant, though they may have just been avoiding running up the score too early, and the Great Falls Chargers did not play their best defense, either on the mound or in the field.

It was too windy to stay for the 2nd game. See the costumes of the fans to the right.

According to the Gazette, Coach of the Scarlets Adam Hust expects a fairly experienced crew back this year. It’s a good review of all of the young athletes returning for the Scarlets this year. They are modestly confident they will be near if not actually at the top of the standings when the State Tournament comes around this year at Butte, July 27-31.

By the way, in addition to the State Tournament in Butte this year, Billings’ Dehler Park will be hosting the  Northwest Regional Tournament August 4 through Aug 9th. Put that on your calendar as both Scarlets and Royals could be playing in this tournament.

The Mustangs lost 3-0 to the Helena Brewers. I listened to the crowd in different places tonight. Only a few were unhappy. Most people knew what the outcome was likely to be. They were accepting, almost serene. But they also knew what had happened last night. Amazingly, two walk-off home runs, something not seen this year at Dehler Park, had enabled the Mustangs to win a Pioneer League double-header.

So hope is not entirely beaten out of us. And therefore, almost everyone stayed to the end. They all gave our Italian pitcher a warm send off back to his home to play in World Cup games for Italy. He did well. Our batters have failed us all year but we are forgiving fans. We will be back next year.

The team actually has six more games to play before the season ends. 4 in Missoula and 2 in Great Falls. I might just take in a couple of those.

This is the scoreboard just after 18 year old Daniel Corcino induced the 8th batter in the 9th inning to line out hard to the first baseman Nurre for the final out.

The other youngster from the Caribbean was 16 year old Yorman  Rodriguez, the under age beer batter for the game. I wonder, do they have any child labor laws in Venezuela? He was just picked up a few games ago and seems to have a big bat. He had a double and a home run tonight, the second since he came to Billings.

The pitchers did well until the ninth. Snowden threw 6 scoreless innings. Then a couple of relievers put them down until the ninth when the first four batters singled and two runs had ruined the possible shutout.  Then young Corcino came on to get the double play with another run scoring and emptying the bases.

We all breathed a sigh of relief and held our breaths while the next batter singled and the next is walked. Can this be a repeat of something we’ve seen earlier in the season?  It turns out to be a ploy to heighten the tension, finally broken by the line drive into Nurre’s trusty glove. Whew!

I wonder if it is reasonable to hope for a .500 season this year? Not hopeless but possibly out of reach already.

There were the usual number of errors for both sides plus a couple of triples over the head of the Mustangs’ left fielder, which doesn’t happen that often. A couple of hits in the bottom of the 10th gave the win to the Mustangs 6-5.

Our cheerleader-in-chief managed to turn down the volume after the first inning or so which made all of us happy.

Not obvious in this picture because the sun was still fairly fierce early in the game, so most everyone was sitting on the Royal side where there was at least some protection from the sun.

No one explained to me why the Scarlets wore green shirts tonight but it seemed to be good for their hitting game or perhaps bad luck for the Royals pitching game.

Both probably as 15 hits were rapped out by each team but 3 double plays by the Scarlets held the scoring down to 6 runs for the Royals while they Scarlets erupted for 8 runs in the  3rd which seemed to take the air out of the Royals.

They responded with 3 runs of their own but then another 4 run Scarlet outburst in the 5th and finally a walked in run in the bottom of the 8th brought the affair to a merciful 10 run rule ending.

Wildness on the part of several Royal pitchers and some curious throws in the outfield and infield, though not recorded as errors, certainly did not look good to the ordinary fan in the stand.

These kids always provide good baseball for Billings. They are 1-2 in the state  right now. There might have been 2000 fans there tonight. Congrats to Head Coaches Steffanich and Hust for all the work they put in.

The four pennants in a column on the left indicate that Great Falls is on top and Billings is on the bottom in the northern division of the Pioneer League I think.

Sorry friends, it is taking me longer than usual to get caught up with what is new at Dehler Park. Chalk that up to age and being away for three weeks.The picture to the lower right was taken from left field trying to give you an impression of the vastness of the outfield, something we don’t always appreciate from the grandstand behind home plate.

I mentioned the 329 Club earlier but forgot to include a picture of the serving girls and to remark on the presence of these very nice young ladies in scattered places around the park, in addition to their presence out in the left field corner, almost like the stewardesses on airplanes in the olden days.Well, now wait a minute, now that I think about it the stewardesses I remember never dressed in red tank tops.

Perhaps the management is trying to make up for the awkwardness and forced cosiness of most of the seats. The young ladies take your orders for drinks etc and bring them back to you with a smile. See below left for a picture of the one serving Sec 111.

The Fourth of July featured an early game with the home team wearing the funny striped socks and short trousers we all wore back in the 50s, when we were playing baseball that is.

The Mustangs continued their losing streak, 3-2, to Missoula this time. Our batters completely fell asleep in the latter half of the game. At this level if the pitchers hold the opponents down to say less than 6 runs then it should be up to the offense to get 7 runs. A few errors and a few walks are to be expected.

Fleury switched to catching and Sosa switched to first base and both did well if I remember correctly though nobody made much of a dent in the Missoula pitching.

I’m not sure if these LazE Boys are permanent seats here or not. The colors seem to go with the Cincinnati red color. As you can see everybody needs to bring their own protection from the elements. Today it was the sun.

That reminds me, there is something else new at Dehler Park in addition to an unfortunate start by the Mustangs. That is the 329 Club, also out in left field with bar stools for friends and even girls to get your beer and brats.

Apparently this is another profit-generator for the Mustangs as they will rent it out to groups that would like to party with a pleasant background of minor league baseball. In the meantime us ordinary folks can get in for $5 I guess. Or maybe it is $3 for the SRO ticket and $5 for the 329 Club. They have regular stadium seats for the traditional masochists too.

As you can see it only takes 4 guys to water the infield at the AAA level, whereas I think it takes about 12 to do it for a major league team at least in spring training.

The title: Those are the names I came up with in 3 seconds of not-very-serious thinking about what to name a baseball team from any city in Nevada. There are probably hundreds more and better. The name finally bestowed on the DiamondBack’s AAA Tucson franchise, which I suspect that Tucson lost rather than Reno won, was the Aces.

This very new park is fairly close to downtown Reno and seems to have plenty of enthusiastic fans this first season in the Pacific Coast League. It reminds me of Dehler Park, except that this one is bigger and has many nice luxury boxes providing shelter for those in them and under them, perhaps like Dehler Park was supposed to be originally.

The only drawbacks were the cheerleading announcer and the dopey mascot—see below. I think you ought to be forced to wear a short skirt and carry pom-poms on the dugout if you insist on announcing the home team  and providing inter-inning blather in any other than a normal tone of voice.

With the addition of Reno to the Pacific Coast League you can see a lot of AAA baseball within a couple hours drive. There are the Sacramento River Cats, who used to be in Canadian Vancouver, champions of the PCL last year, and part of the Oakland farm system; and the Fresno Grizzlies, belonging to the Giants.

And then the Las Vegas 51s, now belonging to the Toronto Blue Jays as the Dodgers went back to Albuquerque where the Dukes had been for a long time, only now they call themselves the Isotopes—don’t ask why; and of course, the Reno Aces, part of the Arizona Diamondbacks system. The last used to be in Tucson but I guess that city got tired of supporting a AAA team in the manner they would like to become accustomed to.

On Saturday the Royals took on the Bozeman Bucks at Dehler Park in a couple of 7 inning games. On Mother’s Day the Scarlets hosted the Great Falls Stallions in a similar format. I only managed to see parts of the first game of the doubleheaders that were played each day. Apparently the Scarlets opened their season in Sheridan last weekend with a couple of wins.

According to the Gazette the Royals won the second game 4-1 after losing the first game 6-3. The good news in the first game was that hitting, pitching, fielding and base running all need a little work. These things are doable I think.

Apart from giving up 9 runs in the 2nd inning of their first game on Sunday the Scarlets looked fairly good, except of course, for some problems with fielding and base running. The scoreboard at the end of the game pretty much tells the story.

Come on down to Dehler Park. Season tickets are $25. The old and the young get in for nothing. Here is a website that leads you to schedules etc for all four teams.

Next weekend the Royals take on Great Falls Stallions there on Saturday, and Gillette and Miles City here at Dehler Park on Sunday afternoon. The Scarlets take on Bozeman on Saturday afternoon at Dehler. Be there. There is info on the Cardinals and the Blue Jays at the website too.