It's official: Kalispell getting Pioneer League baseball team

A professional baseball league dating to 1939, the Pioneer League confirmed Monday that an expansion franchise has been granted to the family of Marty Kelly, who runs a commercial construction company.

"Our family is proud to bring minor league baseball and professional sports to the Flathead Valley community," Kelly said in a release from the league. "We look forward to giving back to the region and bringing friends and families together through professional baseball and events all year long."

Owning a minor league franchise has been a Kelly family goal.

"It's been a long time coming, really," Chris Kelly, Marty Kelly's son and vice president of Ridge Run Baseball LLC, said via phone interview. "My father has been involved in baseball at a variety of levels for a long time, from young athletes on up to collegiate. Minor league baseball has always been a dream.

"This coming to fruition happened fast at the end here, but it's been a long-time dream."

Word of a Pioneer League team landing in Kalispell surfaced in late June, and Mike Shapiro, president of the league, confirmed it would happen pending approval from the league's nine team owners.

Currently eight teams play, with Windsor/Fort Collins, Colorado (formerly the Orem Owlz) joining the league 2022. Nine teams would make for tough scheduling, giving Kalispell's addition to the circuit more legs.

The league vote, originally expected in mid-July, came last week. Chris Kelly noted that things moved quickly enough.

"These things can take years to consummate," he said. "Really this is a process that's only about two months old. What takes some people years we've accomplished in a couple of months with the PBL."

The Kelly family's baseball background includes the founding in 2005 of the Sunbelt Baseball League, a collegiate summer wood bat circuit straddling the Georgia and Alabama state lines.

Reached in June, Marty Kelly spoke glowingly of bringing a professional team to the valley.

"With the summer league and always wanting to be involved in some way or other with professional baseball, and this opportunity… I'm looking forward to giving these kids an opportunity, and not just in baseball," the elder Kelly said. "There's things past baseball, so they're preparing for a life after. I'm hoping to partner with businesses in the Flathead Valley to provide opportunities for these kids past ball."

Plans are in place to build a 2,500-seat stadium north of Kalispell.

"It's just north of the old Thornton race track," Chris Kelly said. "It's a parcel that we have acquired and have had talks with the county commissioners on. We've gotten their support."

"The atmosphere for baseball here in Flathead County is a perfect fit," Flathead County Commission chairman Randy Brodehl said in the PL release. "We could not be happier to see a Pioneer League expansion team here — a team for all of the communities here in the valley to support and rally behind."

The PL was a Major League Baseball-affiliated rookie-advanced league from 1964-2019; MLB then contracted 40 minor leagues and the PL became a "Partner League," getting some backing from MLB and signing its own players outside of the annual amateur draft.

Kalispell would be the 15th city in the Pioneer League's history, and joins Great Falls, Billings and Missoula in Montana. Teams in Helena and Butte moved; the Helena Brewers relocated to Colorado Springs in 2019 and became the Rocky Mountain Vibe.

A couple nicknames have been thrown around, Chris Kelly said, but nothing final. That and a ballpark — stands, lights and a diamond — are among the goals ahead of opening day, mid-May in 2022.

The park will be built in stages, which isn't unusual. When Missoula joined the league in 1999 it played at the American Legion Lindborg-Cregg Field, then had temporary clubhouses for a couple seasons at Ogren-Allegiance Park.

"The construction will be a huge undertaking," Kelly noted. "We've gotten a lot of great partners on board to work with us so far. We're looking forward to developing more partnerships in the Flathead as we get this going, and build a ballpark that the community can be proud of."

The league provided an artist's rendering of the stadium, which will have grass berms in addition to the seating.

"Moving forward, it's a huge monumental task," Kelly said. "We're looking forward to bringing baseball to the entire Flathead Valley. We look for it to be a very family-attractive venue. It is going to take a full community involvement to get this where we are playing baseball at the start of the 2022 season. That's the goal: The team will be playing baseball in 2022."