The Billings Mustangs are an independent baseball team of the Pioneer League, which is not affiliated with Major League Baseball (MLB) but is an MLB Partner League. They are located in Billings, Montana, and have played their home games at Dehler Park since 2008. The team previously played at Cobb Field.
The Mustangs joined the Class C Pioneer League in 1948, then a full-season league. The club was founded by Brown Derby founder Bob Cobb, a Billings native who enlisted Hollywood stars such as Bing Crosby, Cecil B. DeMille, Robert Taylor, and Barbara Stanwyck to purchase stock at $500 to $1,000 apiece to help launch the club. Local residents also purchased stock to help fund $100,000 in upgrades to Billings' Athletic Park, which was renamed for Cobb.[3]
In the inaugural 1948 season, the Mustangs were an independent club, though they maintained a loose relationship with Cobb's other club, the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League. After their inaugural season, the Mustangs had affiliations with the Brooklyn Dodgers (1949–1951), Pittsburgh Pirates (1952–1956), and St. Louis Cardinals (1957–1963), winning Pioneer League championships in 1950, 1957, 1959, and 1962. However, despite this success, the club folded following the 1963 season, ending a sixteen-season run.
After going dark for five seasons, the 1969 Major League Baseball expansion created the need for more minor league affiliates. The Mustangs were reborn in the now short-season Pioneer League as the Rookie-level affiliate of the Seattle Pilots in 1969. That was followed by a four-year stint as an affiliate of the Kansas City Royals (1970–1973), earning Pioneer League titles in 1972 and '73. Future Baseball Hall of Fame inductee George Brett began his professional career with the 1971 Mustangs.[4]
In 1974, the Mustangs signed as an affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds, beginning a relationship with the Reds that stretched for 47 years. As of 2019, the Reds-Mustangs partnership was tied for the fifth-longest affiliation in all of Minor League Baseball.[5]
Billings claimed league championships in 1978 and 1983, with the 1978 team becoming best-known for the record-breaking exploits of Gary Redus, who set a still-standing all-time minor league record by batting .462. The late 80's were leaner, but still featured memorable moments, including snapping the minor league record 29-game winning streak of the Salt Lake City Trappers in 1987 and featuring future Hall of Famer pitcher Trevor Hoffman in 1989, who played shortstop that season before moving to the mound a year later.
The Mustangs won three consecutive Pioneer League championships from 1992 to 1994, then won another in 1997. The 1994 season featured a club-record fifteen-game winning streak and a perfect game by Jason Robbins on August 1, the only perfect game thrown in the Pioneer League since 1951 and one of only three in the league's 85-year history.
After sweeping the Provo Angels in the 2001 championship series, the Mustangs repeated the feat in 2003. In the latter year, Billings, the last team to qualify for the postseason, won game one at Provo 8–5 in 11 innings, then, Billings won 3–0 on a no-hitter by James Paduch to win the championship in front of a sold-out Cobb Field in Billings. The game was a pitchers' duel between two of the top pitchers in the league (Provo's being 2003 Pioneer League Pitcher of the Year Abel Moreno).
In 2006, Chris Valaika set a Pioneer League record with a 32-game hitting streak during the Mustangs 51-win campaign. The Mustangs snapped an 11-year drought in 2014 with their Pioneer League-record 15th league championship.
The Billings Mustangs changed their logo for the 2006 season. The 2007 season was their last at Cobb Field and the Mustangs begin the 2008 season at Dehler Park. On September 11, 2014, the Mustangs defeated the Orem Owlz for their first Pioneer League Championship since the 2003 season. After the 2014 season, the team introduced its new ownership group, Main Street Baseball at a December 5 in a press conference at Dehler Park.[6]
After the cancellation of the 2020 season, Major League Baseball contracted 43 minor league franchises for the 2021 season, including all eight members of the Pioneer League. The Pioneer League converted to an independent baseball league and became an MLB Partner League.[7]
In this new arrangement, the Mustangs enjoyed a playoff appearance under the leadership of former MLB manager Jim Riggleman in 2022, before reaching the Pioneer League championship series in 2023, where they fell to the Ogden Raptors.
The Pioneer Baseball League is a professional baseball league based in the Western United States. It operates as one of four Major League Baseball (MLB) Partner Leagues in the American independent baseball league system without MLB team affiliations. The league is contested by twelve teams from the Northern California and Rocky Mountains regions, who play a regular season split into two halves. The top two teams at the end of each half qualify for a postseason tournament that determines the overall champion.
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