Yesterday we took a trip into town to see the Missoula Osprey take on the Great Falls White Sox.The Missoula Osprey are the Pioneer League affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Osprey are also the 2006 Pioneer League champions. Ollie the Osprey is the Missoula Osprey mascot (see picture right).
The Pioneer League is short season (June-September) minor league baseball found in the Rocky Mountain region and includes the following teams; Billings Mustangs, Helena Brewers, Missoula Osprey, Great Falls White Sox, Oren Owlz, Ogden Raptors, Casper Rockies, and the Idaho Falls Chukars.
The Osprey play at Ogren Park at Allegiance field in Missoula Montana by , the stadium was built in 2003 and holds 3,500 people. The field bears the name of Bitterroot motors owner Kathy Ogren. The field is 309 feet to the left field line, 398 feet to center field, and 287 feet to right field line.
We had great seats (see picture left) behind the third base line immediately behind the home team dugout. These were the most expensive seats in the house at $10 a piece. Drinks and food were relatively expensive at over $3 a beer, peanuts were $2 a bag, but I managed to have a couple anyway. I know what you are thinking but I shared some of those peanuts with the family, I promise.The Osprey started off shaky with 2 errors and allowing 1 run in the top of the first, but answered with 2 runs of their own in the bottom of the inning. The game slowed down a bit until the 6th inning where things started to get a little crazy.
In the 6th the Osprey had 3 runs only to give up 8 runs in the top of the 7th inning, yes 8 runs. They tried to mount a comeback but fell short with a final score of 12-10.
There was a friendly, light police presence, the crowd was well behaved, and Ollie was quite entertaining for the kids. Prior to the first pitch the coach walked out from the dugout turned around and called for my son, then threw him a ball, which my son caught with his glove. All in all a nice family friendly experience.
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