The evenings are long, the sunlight still filters down well towards bedtime
On evenings like this, Butte used to have some evening entertainment. Until 2001 Butte had a minor league baseball team, the Copper Kings, of the Pioneer League. The Kings played their home games at Montana Tech's baseball field, just up the hill from me.
Seating for perhaps 200 people, there was no such thing as a bad seat. The players were all from 17 to 21, from all over, including Latin America. Sometimes, the weather early in the season was a bit startling to them.
A few went on to have a cup of coffee in 'the show', most are doing something other than baseball now. But watching these enthusiastic, talented kids play ball was fun, baseball as it should be.
Then there was the principal owner of the Copper Kings......
Yep, the guy from "Stripes", "Lost in Translation", Bill Murray. He was often in the stands, rousing the crowd. Although I never took part, I'm told he'd take fans after the game and end up closing a local bar with them.
I once went to a game with a buddy and his family. His wife saw Murray near us, took a program to him for a signature. She came back grinning and showed us his autograph, along with the phone number of his room at a local hotel.
Small town entertainment at it's finest.
Indeed. We had Triple AAA in St. Paul where I got to watch some future Brooklyn Dodgers and listen to them in school losing to the hated Yankees in the World Series....:)
ReplyDeleteI remember the 1956 series, I was in the fourth grade. Our teacher, the only male teacher at St. Francis Elementary School had a transistor radio, he turned it on for the afternoon game for us. We're gettin' old, TB.
ReplyDeleteThis is a feel good story. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite time of day is when the shadows are long and the light filters down horizontally, as in your second photo.
ReplyDeleteLilacs here were hit with an unseasonable heat spell and fried before they were half-bloomed. I can almost smell their perfume from your picture, though.
You've run into some very interesting people in your life, Mike. Bill Murray certainly looks like a small town league owner in that shot. He might have been good in "A League of Their Own," instead of Hanks. Certainly would have brought a different energy to the film.
We're supposed to get the heat here this week, today it was hot until a thunderstorm cooled it off 18 degrees in 5 minutes.
DeleteI suppose I have, never talked to Murray. I think most of us met interesting people, I was reading a blog today by someone who had a class from Nabokov.....now that's something. And, sometimes the people of little fame are the most interesting.
There's a local baseball team here, but I've never been (not a sports person!).
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