The Pioneer League season always ends abruptly, but no one saw the close of the 2006 Billings Mustangs campaign coming. After winning both halves of the split-season schedule and going 51-25 overall, the Mustangs “two-and-barbequed” in the playoffs.
The best team I’ve seen in my five years with the club was gone in an instant.
Maybe the only explanation as to why the team that was the class of the Pioneer League this season didn’t win a single playoff game and got bounced in the first round is that the Baseball Gods have rules. Rules based on long-standing superstitions. 
Not five minutes after my last post, I got into my car and drove to Great Falls, Mont. The Mustangs had clinched home-field advantage in the Pioneer League Northern Division Championship series, but still had two meaningless regular-season games against the hometown White Sox. After Great Falls, the Mustangs would travel to Missoula to play the Osprey in the first game of the Pioneer League Northern Division Championship. Games two and three (if necessary) would be held in Billings at Cobb Field.
The Mustangs field staff decided pitcher Jordan Smith (the ace of the Billings staff who finished the regular season with a 6-3 record and a 3.01 ERA) would start the first playoff game in Missoula. Anthony Gressick (who also won six games, lost just two and had a 4.50 ERA) would start game two in Billings. Manager Rick Burleson and pitching coach Doug Bair decided Gressick should go to Great Falls to work out with the team for two days. What they didn’t want was for Gressick to take the bus to Missoula, sleep in a hotel, watch the first playoff game in Missoula and then have to take the 350-mile bus trip back to Billings.
My mission was simple: Go to Great Falls, watch the second-to-last regular-season game, let Gressick work out with the team on the final day and then drive him back to Billings so he could sleep in his own bed before his game two start.
That’s when the Baseball Gods stepped in and the problems started. Never mess with the superstitious rules of baseball.
I was about 20 miles outside of Great Falls when I got a call on my cell phone from hitting coach Jeff Young. He informed me that the fungo bats for himself, Burleson and bench coach Ricardo Cuevas had been left in Billings. (Fungo bats have taped-up barrels and coaches use them to hit during practice.) Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal, but these were the same ones that the coaches had used all season and the Mustangs had done pretty well with them.
I arrived just before game time at Centene Stadium in Great Falls. I settled in to drink beer and watch a Pioneer League baseball game – something I never get to do because I’m usually working. Right away, our field staff saw me and summoned me to the visiting dugout.
Young told me under his breath that the fungo bat deal was huge.
“We’re out of our routine,” he said pointing to Burleson, seated a few feet away.
Burleson, Young and Cuevas each described their fungo bats to me in detail. Burleson’s was red, which I knew, Cuevas’ was black and Young’s had “JY” printed on the end of the handle. Superstitions being what they are meant that we had a problem. I was informed that the fungo bats had to be in Missoula for game one. I called my boss to describe the gravity of the situation. He was slightly amused but realized it has to be done and overnighted the bats to Missoula.
The first problem was solved, so I went back to drinking beer and watching the game. You don’t know how much fun that can be until you can’t do it anymore.
The next day, I golfed with our radio guy, Andy Price, and the Great Falls radio guy, Matt Pinto, voice of the Los Angeles Clippers, who took a sabbatical to call White Sox games this summer. Pinto wasn’t the first announcer to go from the NBA to rookie ball. Mark Boyle, voice of the Indiana Pacers, started a bit of a trend by doing the same thing with the Mustangs last season.
After golf, I went to the stadium, picked up Gressick and headed back to Billings. As we drove, we listened to Price on the radio – even with the wrong fungo bats, the Mustangs prevailed in the final contest of the season – and Gressick played “old-school” video games on his laptop. It was one of those moments when you realize how old you are. Gressick was playing games like Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!! and Tecmo Bowl, talking about how he loved the games as a little kid.
I stopped short of telling him of the endless drunken Tecmo Bowl games played at Collier Hall with my fellow dorm mates as a freshman at the University of Oregon. Age difference aside, it was a pleasant drive back to Billings with the right-hander from Ohio University, the Reds 26th-round selection this year. We successfully dodged about 100 deer on the two-lane highway and made it home safe.At about the same time we arrived at Cobb Field, the Mustangs boarded a bus headed for Missoula. After I dropped Gressick off at the yard, I went home and fired up my computer.
Superstitious problem number two.
For the first time since it was published, I read my last Mustangs post. I find out that some editor, who will remain nameless but might be associated with this particular website, has changed a key sentence in my article. When I wrote about the playoff schedule, I typed, “If we prevail – knock on wood – in the Northern Division Championship, we will host the first game of the three-game Pioneer League Championship on Sept. 12.”Somehow that became, “When we prevail (here’s me, knocking on wood) in the Northern Division Championship, we will host the first game of the three-game Pioneer League Championship on Sept. 12.”
Now we had officially pissed off the “Baseball Gods.”
No predictions. No guarantees. Never. Ever. Especially when you don’t actually play on the field.
The “When” gets fixed the next morning, but I still was scared my copy is posted on the clubhouse wall of the Missoula Osprey. On top of that, the Osprey can throw it. Game one starter is Osbek Castillo,a 25-year-old Cuban defector who has been mowing down everyone in the Pioneer League.
We started out all right, though. In game one, Castillo couldn’t get out of the fifth inning without the Mustangs tagging him for three earned runs. Smith threw five strong innings for the Mustangs – giving up just two hits and allowing no runs.
Things were looking good. Castillo was gone and we were up, 3-0, when both teams went to their bullpens. We gave up two in the bottom of the sixth and got one back in the top of the seventh, so it was 4-2 in the bottom of eighth inning.
Reliable Mustangs right-hander Marcos Mateo (5-1 with a 3.20 ERA and one save in 18 relief appearances) gave up two singles to the start the bottom of the eighth and was lifted for Terrell Young (he of the 98-mph fastball and nine saves to his credit.) Young is a Mississippi kid who is very likeable and funny once you learn how to understand his accent, but I still don’t know if he was calling me “doc” or “dog” throughout the season. He promptly gave up a single to load the bases, but followed that by striking out the next batter.
Then, unfortunately, Young gave up a grand slam to Missoula catcher John Hester. The Osprey went up 6-4 and, in hindsight, ended the Mustangs dream season.
The Mustangs went down in ninth and got on a bus back to Billings, down one game in a three-game series. The question was whether they would arrive ready to go home, or, ready to rebound and put their names in the record book as Pioneer League Champions.
When I entered the Mustangs clubhouse before game two of the Northern Division playoffs, it was tough to tell what was going to happen. Some of the role players clearly wanted to go home – asking when they would be flying out if we lost – but the regulars seemed pretty normal. And after spending three hours in my car with Gressick, I knew he wasn’t going to take a dive.
It didn’t matter. Missoula had the momentum and came out swinging. Gressick didn’t survive the first inning – giving up four runs while getting just one out. First-round pick Drew Stubbs led off the bottom of the first with a homer, but from there Osprey cruised to a 10-2 win.
Season over.
A few Mustangs staffers say the reason the Mustangs campaign ended so badly was sitting in a large cardboard box in the Mustangs business office. Superstitious problem number three started when the mysterious box showed up in Billings on Aug. 23. While the Mustangs were in Utah, the Orem Owlz asked our trainer to bring it back to my boss.
We didn’t even open it for about a week.
When we finally relented, we discovered the box contained the Pioneer League Championship trophy that Orem won in 2005. Turns out, the trophy was replaced with a new version, and the one sitting in our office was obsolete.
Nevertheless, many believe the trophy was cursed and derailed our season. After the Osprey won the Northern Division crown and celebrated on Cobb Field, we asked Missoula General Manager Matt Ellis to take the trophy back to Missoula with him and give it to the league commissioner.
He laughed and politely refused.
Minutes later, our general manager was on the phone getting plane reservations for our players and coaches. Most of them would be gone in less than 24 hours. As their travel itineraries trickled in, the clubhouse became a frat house, with players drinking beer while packing up bats, gloves and other equipment.
I made my way to the clubhouse to say goodbye. It’s always a tough situation, basically because you have to say, “Hope I don’t see you in Billings again.”
A second year in the Pioneer League is not a good thing, unless you’re a very young player. Because the Mustangs played so well this regular season, most of this year’s team will get promoted to the full-season Class-A Dayton {Ohio} Dragons. If they struggled this year with the Mustangs, they might return to Billings, or be released, depending on their age and how the big club feels about their ability. Short of the independent baseball leagues, getting released – or “going to the house,” as the Reds’ baseball people say – at the Pioneer League level means it’s time to do something else.
Terrell Young – who everyone calls “T.Y.” – made our parting a lot less awkward when he walked up and put his arm around me.
“I’m going to miss you dog,” (or possibly doc), he said. Then he pointed to players in the clubhouse who had less than decent season. “Don’t worry, you’ll see him, him and him,” he laughed as he called out teammates. As usual, T.Y.’s act was warmly received, even by those he was sending back to Billings.
I don’t know who we will see next year, but I hope they are as good on and off the field as the 2006 version of the Billings Mustangs.
For the record, Missoula proved to be no fluke, dominating the Idaho Falls Chukars in a two-game sweep in the Pioneer League Championship.
Although our season is over and our players are gone, my job isn't done. My future posts will inform you as to what a full-time minor league baseball executive does in the off-season. It’s not as exciting as baseball, but people tell me it’s still cool.
Now if you’ll please excuse me, I have to go clean up the clubhouse.
Matt Bender
Assistant General Manager
Billings Mustangs Professional Baseball
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
{Editor’s note: It was an honest mistake, I subconsciously wrote “when” instead of “if.” Either way, Bender informs me that I will “wear” the unfortunate ending to the Mustangs 2006 season. One game, perhaps, but there is no way I eat the Cobb Field loss. I’m fairly certain the Baseball Gods aren’t reading this website.}
(Mustangs game night, national anthem and Young photos courtesy of Paul Hartman.)
(Gressick, concession stand and Bender's office photos courtesy of R. Dean Hendrickson.)
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