UM Sports Trivia | Week of June 6

By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN

It’s hard to believe that it was 40 years ago this week that the first Wyoming-Montana all-star games were played.  Montana that first year was led by Missoula Hellgate star Blaine Taylor. The Wyoming All-Stars swept the first series, but it didn’t take long for Montana to get the upper hand in the series. The girls All-Star portion of the series was added in the early 1990’s.

With the ZooTown All-Star team about to begin practicing as the Junior Softball World Championship of 2015, a question was raised “Has any Little League World series played in Montana?”  As a matter of fact, the Billings Mustangs in 2004 featured infielder/outfielder Todd Frazier who was the winning pitcher with Toms River, New Jersey in the 1998 finals in Williamsport.
Happy to learn this week that former Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota coach Joe Glenn will be back in the booth this fall helping call for regional sports network and some for ESPN.
Currently the Chicago Cubs have the best record by 5 full games over any other Major League team. For what it is worth.
In March the Duke Blue Devils struggle past the UNC-Wilmington Seahawks in the opening round of March Madness. Last Friday the two schools met again in the opening round of the NCAA baseball tournament and the Seahawks prevailed 12-1.
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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.