BILLINGS - Baseball has always been said to be America's pastime. It has been around in this country since the 1800s, with the first team to play the game under the modern rules believed to be the New York Knickerbockers founded on September 23, 1845.
Baseball also hits close to home right here in Billings.
Lauren Hunley knows how important baseball has been to the city.
“They have got to find something that brings them together, and baseball provided that for them,” said Hunley.
Hunley, a community historian at the Western Heritage Center, would know. She's got quite the historic baseball collection to show off, which even features worn uniforms from one hundred years ago.
“This particular uniform is likely from the ’30s and ’40s," she said referring to the Billings team known as the Young Democrats. "The team itself does predate that and they do go back to the ’20s.”
Baseball goes back even further in Billings to 1883, just a year after the city was founded.
“Within six months after the founding of the city, there are baseball games here, so from the very beginning,” said Hunley.
One of the biggest changes in recent history came in 2007, when the city said hello to Dehler Park and goodbye to Cobb Field.
“Cobb field had that mystique to it," said Curt Prchal, the food and beverage director for the Billings Mustangs.
Prchal has been in his position with the Mustangs for 32 years now.
“Everybody loved coming to Cobb Field. All of the people there, we just had a good time,” he said.
Prchal remembers well the transition to Dehler Park.
“It was a very, very difficult first year but also very rewarding because of what we learned," he said. "It’s amazing how many of those routines are still around today because that’s how you run Dehler Park. The park tells you how it needs to be run.”
Prchal has now spent as many years at Dehler as he did at Cobb, and he says the new park has lived up to expectations.
“With our crowds and all that, everything just about doubled from Cobb Field to here. It has kind of continued through these whole 16 years, just a new venue, and people, they have embraced Dehler Park."
Just like folks have embraced baseball in Billings for over one hundred years.
