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.

Wild turkeys crossing Rimrock Road near MSUB

I saw these turkeys, a flock of perhaps a dozen or so, crossing Rimrock Road near the MSUB campus, about a month or two ago. I haven’t seen them since though I drive slowly through that area and look for them. I wonder if we have a season in which to hunt them. Naturally, I had to look them up on Wikipedia. In addition to more than I wanted to know I found this note near the bottom of the entry:

The idea that Benjamin Franklin preferred the Turkey as the national bird of the United States comes from a letter he wrote to his daughter in 1784 criticizing the choice of the Eagle as the national bird and suggesting that a Turkey would have made a better alternative.

This letter to Franklin’s daughter was written after Congress spent six years choosing the eagle as the emblem of the newly formed country. While Franklin’s disapproval with the choice of the Bald Eagle was evident, it is not apparent that he ever officially advocated for the turkey.

Sorry, couldn’t resist the urge to let my fellow citizens in on this secret.

The Meistersingers, Westwinds, Vox Nova, and the Chamber Choir, all vocal groups from Billings West High School, together with their instrumental friends were in good voice Thursday evening at Mount Olive Lutheran Church. Parents, parishioners and alumni filled the sanctuary. This was billed as a Holiday Concert. And it was, and curiously enough the holiday celebrated was the Nativity, commonly known as Christmas. The brass quintet was a little too loud for the Chamber Choir and the Meistersingers had some trouble with entrances in the Hallelujah Chorus but these kids sang with passionate hearts and the audience knew it.

The numbers that really stood out were the comic Straight No Chaser arrangement of The Twelve Days of Christmas by the Westwinds; Elgar’s The Snow by all the ladies was splendidly mystical and musical; and What Child Is This? by the Meistersingers.

A nice touch was ending with Beautiful Savior by everybody including alumni. I noticed some recent graduates among the guys and a number of proud moms and maybe a few dads amongst the alumni. It takes a community to raise great kids.

More pictures, from late November, of the new building going up alongside and connected to one of the older buildings on the campus of Rocky Mountain College.

One school was honored in each of the four athletic classifications.
The Class AA award went to Billings Skyview, Class A to Billings Central…
[...]
Winners are determined by averaging the grades earned by students who took part in athletic, music and speech and drama programs.

Congratulations to everyone involved with these schools for all of the hard work they do for the future of Montana!