By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
It is quite a ways from Missoula’s Ogren Park to Camden Yards in Baltimore, but two men who once had ties to the Missoula Osprey are now making the Baltimore Orioles a contender. Buck Showalter was the manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks when Missoula became a part of the D-Backs system. Showalter was very aware of what was happening with the affiliates and was excellent at promoting the Osprey. Jim Pressly spent the 2004 season in Missoula manager of the Os, Pressly was manger the first season that the new stadium was open and had to deal with a schedule hampered by irrigation problems at the new park. Showalter is now the Manger of the Orioles and Pressley is the east coast O’s hitting coach.
For the first time in 50 years the Kansas City Chiefs have the first selection in the pro football draft. Actually when they made their selection to begin the 1963 draft the franchise that would be the Chiefs was the Dallas Texans of the American Football League. The Texans Chiefs made history by Selecting Grambling star defensive tackle Buck Buchanan thus making him the first player from a predominately black college to be the top draft choice in any pro sport league. Buchanan made an immediate impact in his pro debut when he intercepted a pass recovered a fumble and sacked the Denver quarterbacks 3 times in a 59-7 opening game win for the Chiefs.
The University of Montana Volleyball team has successfully ventured into South Texas for one of their prize recruit for 2013. Blocker, Claire McCown comes from Spice Wood Texas. Claire has been raised by her father Troy and Paternal grandmother Judy. If you are wondering, Spice Wood Texas is just east of Possum Kingdom Lake.
For the first time in 2013 the Montana Grizzly football team will play a home game in August. Appalachian State visits the Griz on August 31st. to open the new season. In 2002 the Griz opened at Hofstra (which for the record no longer has a football program) and then at Maine in August of 2003, in both cases Montana picked up road wins.
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Chris Walterskirchen has been an observer of Montana sports for nearly half a century. A Kalispell native, Chris has worked in various capacities for professional and college sports organization of at various times: ranging from announcing and statistical work to the concessions and even a stint as a costumed mascot.
Chris has academic degrees in communications and elementary education. His style of sports trivia involves more than just who won and who lost, but also focuses on the obscure or human side of sports. In this blog you will learn things like the Grizzly football team has won 210 games over the 19 seasons since they have had Monte as their mascot or that UNLV is the only school that both the Griz and Lady Griz have both faced in the NCAA basketball tournament
When not following sports Chris enjoys taking care of animals of all kinds (a peacock rescue?) and reading to pre-schoolers.