1969: a rough restart for the Billings Mustangs
A last-place finish in the seven-team Pioneer League.
Attendance at Cobb Field that rarely topped 900 spectators.
A skunk that roamed the ball field, giving onlookers a literal stinky time.
A team manager frustrated enough by his team’s play that he snubbed a young sportswriter’s request for an interview after a loss.
When the Billings Mustangs resumed play in 1969, ending the Magic City’s five-year absence from the ranks of professional baseball, the team hardly got a smooth ride. Mentioned earlier were four examples of challenges they faced.
The Mustangs hadn’t played since 1963, when the Pioneer League, then a Class A circuit, folded. The league reactivated as an all-Idaho, four-club rookie league in 1964 comprised of Idaho Falls, Twin Falls, Pocatello, and Caldwell.
Playing their first season as a rookie league team in 1969, the Mustangs compiled a 26–45 win-loss record. That left them 18 games behind pennant winner Ogden. Ahead of Billings were Great Falls; Magic Valley, an Idaho team; Salt Lake City; and two more Idaho teams, Caldwell and Idaho Falls.
Attendance figures are incomplete, but what may have been the largest crowd of the short season, 986 people, showed up for the home opener on June 30, 1969. They saw Ogden sweep Billings in a doubleheader.
Matters got dire enough that Billings Gazette sportswriter Bob Davis wrote a column published on July 30 with the headline: “Is Pro Baseball Dying in Billings?”
Davis’ column began this way:
“Despite professional baseball’s return to a baseball-hungry town, Billings fans have been somewhat remiss in supporting the new Mustangs. The question arises: why?”
Davis wrote that Magic City baseball lovers had had to be satisfied with watching Billings’ powerhouse American Legion Royals from 1964 through 1968. And he didn’t mean to demean the Royals, especially since they had produced star Baltimore Orioles pitcher Dave McNally who in 1969 helped propel the Birds into the World Series against the New York Mets.
Still, as of late July 1969, an average of just 700 “hardcore diamond addicts” had come through the Cobb Field turnstiles to watch the Mustangs.
“Where were those who, in the six-year vacuum (actually five years), pleaded for pro ball’s return?” Davis asked. His answer was maybe the 700 attendees per game.
After all, in 1962, a winning Billings team drew larger crowds from a slightly smaller city population than in 1969. Attendance figures under 800 were rare in 1962, and attendance more than 1,000 wasn’t unusual.
And it wasn’t as if baseball didn’t play well in Billings. For example, the Royals drew 4,132 spectators for their Little League night promotion. Compare that to the 690 spectators for the Mustangs’ Little League night.
And a true stink greeted players and fans on August 20. That’s when the Mustangs and the Salt Lake City Bees split a doubleheader. The nightcap was interrupted when officials had to chase a skunk off the field.
A bit later, in an August 31 article, the Gazette asked if a young sportswriter on its staff–me–was the object of a snub by Mustangs manager Ronald LeBlanc. Or was LeBlanc reflecting the frustration of another loss through his comments.
After Billings lost to Great Falls, 6–4, I asked LeBlanc for a post-game interview.
“Come back tomorrow at 12:30,” LeBlanc snapped. He had become the team manager a month before when the Seattle Pilots, with whom the Mustangs were affiliated, assigned original manager Bob Mavis to other duties.
I opened my conversation with LeBlanc by saying I had hoped to interview him before the game “but didn’t have the chance.”
“Sorry, buddy, you don’t have the chance now either,” LeBlanc answered. Then he walked into the showers.
I landed a job as a fulltime sportswriter on the Gazette’s staff in June 1969 after spending my senior year at Billings West High School as a parttime sportswriter, working weekends and covering mostly prep sports. The summer 1969 job, under the tutelage of Gazette sports editor Norm Clarke allowed me to expand my horizons by, for example, covering several Mustangs games. Then, when the summer ended, I headed to Chicago and enrolled at Northwestern University and began my pursuit of a journalism degree.
Major league baseball expanded in 1969 with the addition of four teams. Besides the Seattle Pilots, the new teams were the Montreal Expos, the Kansas City Royals, and the San Diego Padres. The Royals and the Padres still exist, but the Expos moved to Washington, D.C., in 2005 and became the Nationals. The Pilots lasted just one year in Seattle; they moved to Milwaukee in 1970 and became the Brewers.
In 1977, Seattle again got major-league baseball with the creation of the Mariners.
Note especially to Billings readers or people who may have lived here and moved away: if you, like me, were perhaps a teenager in the summer of 1969, or an early 20s-someone, and you watched any Mustangs games then and have memories, I’d love to hear from you. You can drop me a line at: dennis@treasurestatepress.com. Thanks in advance!