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Sunlight peered through the clouds as if nothing had ever happened, allowing Jim Riggleman, gray hair poking out from his hat, the chance to hit ground balls to his infielders.A first time for everything, even now. Riggleman, who will turn 70 in November, has been in baseball in some capacity for nearly 50 years, including stints as a major-league manager with the Padres, Cubs, Mariners, Nationals and Reds.Riggleman watched from the dugout of Wrigley Field in 1998 when Sammy Sosa hit 66 home runs, and saw Tony Gwynn flirt with .400 firsthand in 1994. On this afternoon, though, he is about as far away from the big leagues as you can get.Riggleman is in his first season as the manager of the Billings Mustangs of the independent Pioneer League, which has teams stretched across Montana, Idaho, Utah and Colorado; routes traveled on buses that slip past small towns in the middle of the night, like knots on a string.The Mustangs are one of 43 minor-league teams that were contracted by Major League Baseball in 2020, including every team in the Pioneer League. All the teams have gone the independent league route, filling a void for baseball in towns like Billings, Great Falls, Boise and many others.I’ve come here to ask Riggleman the most obvious question of all questions: What is he doing here?“I definitely sometimes still ask it,” said Jalen Garcia, an outfielder for the Mustangs, before a recent game in Kalispell against the Glacier Range Riders.You won’t find any chartered flights in the Pioneer League, no suites at the Four Seasons and no envelopes stuffed with cash for meal money. But it seems baseball is still in Riggleman’s blood, no matter where it is played.“When I first read the story about him doing this, I had the same question — why,” said former Padres general manager Randy Smith, who worked with Riggleman in 1993 and ’94. “But the more I thought about it, it’s an awesome opportunity to get back to the kind of baseball he likes.”A phone call, the offer of a unique challenge and the chance to pilot a team again were factors that brought Riggleman — or ‘Riggs’ to his friends and players — out of professional hibernation and back into his element.He’s been joined by his longtime friend, 71-year-old Dan Radison, who coached with Riggleman in three stops in the big leagues and, essentially, leaving his retired life in Florida, dropped what he was doing to join his buddy this summer.“I was happy in retirement,” Radison said. “But it’s Riggs, you know? Riggs loves being a manager, loves his relationship with the players. He’s never been a big status guy and it’s not about money.
It's a shame he ruined his managing career with a moment of stupid.
