The Bozeman Co-Ed Softball League championship came down to the bottom of the seventh at the Regional Park complex Thursday night, where the Bleacher Creatures held off the Free Agents 11-10 on a walk-off grounder that the shortstop decided not to charge.
“The line held,” said Randy Pflug from his usual spot behind the backstop, scorebook open on his knee. “That’s the game right there. The line held, and the other team’s line didn’t.”
The Regional Park diamonds, which the city describes as a premier recreational facility, feature three fields with lights, a concession stand that opens when volunteers remember the key, and a portable restroom situation that has inspired at least four letters to the editor this season.
“It’s a luxury complex,” said third-base coach Dale Hargrove of the Bleacher Creatures, wiping infield mix from his forearms. “My buddy plays in a league in Billings. They got AstroTurf. We got rocks that used to be part of the parking lot. But we got the mountains right there. You can’t put a price on that.”
The Bleacher Creatures roster includes a physical therapist, two MSU adjunct professors, a guy who installs sprinkler systems, and a woman who manages the front desk at a downtown hotel where the rooms start at three hundred a night in July. The Free Agents counter with a welder, a barista who works the early shift at the Co-op cafe, and a real estate agent who showed up in the second inning wearing a headset.
“I missed the first inning because I was showing a condo on Babcock,” said Free Agents catcher Marnie Loomis, still breathing hard. “The buyers were from Austin. They asked if the HOA allows chickens. I told them the HOA allows whatever you can afford.”
The winning run scored when the Free Agents’ left fielder, a first-year MSU grad student from Connecticut, lost a routine fly in the lights and the wind simultaneously. The ball dropped. The runner from second didn’t stop. The throw home arrived three seconds after the slide.
“We practice on Tuesdays when the fields aren’t rented by travel ball,” said Bleacher Creatures captain Tom Velez. “Sometimes we just hit fungoes in the outfield at the middle school. The sprinklers come on at six. That’s our signal.”
The league banquet is scheduled for next Thursday at the Elks Lodge. The trophy is a bowling pin someone spray-painted gold in 2012.