Remembering Montana's last World Series team

Bruce McEvoy would have been happy if any Montana team had made the Babe Ruth World Series. As the commissioner for Babe Ruth baseball in Montana, McEvoy, a Kalispell attorney, doesn’t have a rooting interest as long as the Treasure State succeeds.

So when Montana topped Idaho in the 13-and-under Pacific Northwest regional championship game, a weight was lifted off his shoulders. It just happened to be his former team that was headed to the big dance.

As a manager in 1983, McEvoy took the Glacier All-Stars to the 13-to-15-year-old Babe Ruth World Series in Frederick, Md.

The 2014 Glacier All-Stars 13U team played their first World Series game on Aug. 17 in Glen Allen, Va. — the first Montana team in 31 years to qualify.

“I’ve been saying for a long time, it’s been a point of pride for me to have been the manager of the first team to go,” McEvoy said. “I was sick and tired of being the last. (Glacier All-Stars) manager Mike McPhee pulled a 31-year-old monkey off my back. I was thrilled for him.”

While separated by a generation of baseball, the teams have their similarities.

The Glacier All-Stars teams have the benefit of pulling talent from Whitefish, Columbia Falls and Bigfork. That advantage comes with one major downside — asking bitter rivals to play nice for the same cause.

The 1983 World Series team in particular adapted quickly after struggling the previous season. In 1982, even with the talent on hand, the All-Stars never jelled, failing to make even the state tournament. When the team re-formed, it found a common bond in its will to compete.

“I was very surprised at how well they molded,” McEvoy said. “We have such a short season. These kids play against each other in high school and junior high. There’s no great love lost for most of the year in these communities. For them to come together the way they did as quickly as they did was truly amazing.”

As Ray Queen, president of Glacier Babe Ruth, put it, “The first day you practice with them, you couldn’t stand them. The next day, you’re brothers.”

Queen was an outfielder and pitcher on the All-Stars in 1983.

“You let that rivalry interfere the first day but it’s gone after that,” he said.

The 1983 squad was packed with talent. Seven of its 12 players went on to play sports in college, and one, Billy Walker, was drafted into Major League Baseball. After losing the first game of the 1983 season, the All-Stars won 21 straight games, winning the state and regional titles to qualify for the World Series.

“We were just a bunch of nutball kids playing baseball. We didn’t know any better,” Walker said. “Everybody told us we were only going to go so far, and we just kept winning.”

After clinching the regional title in Wheatland, Wyo., and traveling two days back in a yellow school bus, the team had just three days to recover and pack up the bus again for Great Falls. From there, the team flew to Washington, D.C.

With such a short turnaround, it was the job of fans and supporters back home that helped the team the most.

“Team moms — the backbone of youth baseball,” McEvoy said. “They went to work. Those who were not in Wheatland, the families who stayed home, they went to work immediately. By the time we got back, they already raised more money than I thought we needed.”

When the team got to D.C., it was in a different world. Tall buildings, wall-to-wall people and drowning humidity were all stark changes from Northwest Montana.

“We got kind of ovewhelmed,” Walker said. “There were so many people everywhere. Unnerving to me. Wall-to-wall people. Different cultures. People talked different. It was crazy. But it was fun. We learned a lot.”

The team lost its first game 6-2 to host team Frederick, Md.

“The pitcher that started against us was 6-4 and weighed 250 at 15 years old,” Walker said. “Our tallest guy was 5-10. We’re looking at a full-grown man on the mound throwing 90 miles per hour at us. We’d never seen that before.”

The All-Stars adjusted in its second game, beating Cranston, R.I., in an exciting 11-10 game that, while sloppy on both sides, produced a lot of drama. Their tournament ended in a 12-0 no-hit loss to Fern Creek, Ky.

The All-Stars went through tragedy the next year, losing friends in a Whitefish High School bus crash that winter and teammates Ray Johnsrud and Jimmy Sapa in a car-train accident following baseball practice the next summer.

Most of the team went on to play for the Glacier Twins, winning the state American Legion championship three years later.

While the games at the World Series didn’t go their way, all of the participants hope the current batch of Glacier All-Stars can have as good an experience as they did.

 “The kids that are going now are never going to forget it,” Walker said. “I hope they go there to play, but I hope they don’t take themselves too serious and have a blast. My advice for them is to go there, play their butts off and have a blast.”