Driving down Homestake pass late on Saturday, March 15, I was more excited than usual to see the skyline of Butte, America.

Butte High’s girls’ basketball team had just finished a Class AA State tournament in which the Bulldogs made the Mining City proud. I assumed the gallows frames would be lit up in purple to honor and welcome home a team that left everything it had on the court.

After all, Butte’s gallows frames were lit up in purple last fall when the Butte High football team played its two playoff games on the road. The entire community welcomed the site as they cheered on their Bulldogs, and the boys felt the love when their bus rolled into town after the games.

So, it was a little disheartening to see that the gallows frames were lit up green the night the Bulldogs played on a Saturday of the state tournament for the first time since 2009.

Yes, it was two days before St. Patrick’s Day, which is a huge deal in Butte. Also, I found out it is not quite as easy to change the colors as I was thinking it was. It cannot simply be switched by the push of a button on the computer just yet.

Still, it was disappointing to see that the girls, once again, did not get the same treatment that our boys receive.

I griped about that to my brother, and he told me to calm down. He said it was just an oversight.

He is right. It was just an oversight. There was absolutely no ill intent by the county employee in charge of changing the color of the gallows frame lights. He, too, was very proud of the Butte High girls.

In fact, he told me that. He said he should have changed the colors, and my bet is he will the next time.

The thing is, it was yet another in a series of oversights. It is not always one big thing that leads to the girl athletes getting the shaft. It is one little oversight after another.

It is the crowd not being nearly as big for the girls’ games as it is for the boys. It is the reduced media coverage for the girls’ state tournament games, even though they were the only high school players from Butte still competing on the final weekend of the season.

It is not noticing the fact that the girls play on crappy softball fields while the boys play at a gem of a stadium about a mile away. It is the discontent shown for the two men, Sid DeBarathy and Mike “Skinny” Foley, who have been fighting for girls’ equity for more than two decades.

Sid and Skinny have been battling with School District No. 1 and Butte-Silver Bow for better softball fields since 2003. They even filed a Title IX complaint on behalf of the girls.

That lead to some improvements at the Stodden Park facility. But, let’s face it, the fields still stink.

Chief Executive J.P. Gallagher likes to tell people that we have the “best softball fields in the state,” and that is always greeted with a huge laugh by the people who know better. Yes, Stodden did get new infields because of that Title IX complaint, but they were not installed correctly.

The sand and clay were not mixed the right way, so the infields at Stodden more resemble a sand trap or a long jump pit than they do an infield. They dry out quickly, and the entire facility is usually a dusty mess when a game is being played on any one of the three fields.

Those poorly-constructed infields are also an injury hazard.

Sure, the fields can hold up during a heavy rain storm better than most fields in the state, but that is about it.

The outfields are so uneven that you wouldn’t let your grandma even walk on the grass, and the fences are broken and dangerous. An adult softball player slid into the fence while trying to catch a foul ball a few years ago, and a bolt sliced his head open. He had to sue the county to pay his medical bills.

The fences for the fields were installed in the mid 1970s. The bottoms of those fence are curled up and frayed. It is only a matter of time before we see a player seriously injured when running into one.

The dugouts are small and offer the girls no shelter from the weather, and the backstops are as hindering as they are dangerous. There is no way a ball will ever take a true carom off the backstops at Stodden.

Also, it is only a matter of time before a foul ball seriously injures a player or spectator.

Several years have passed since a player was knocked out cold at Butte Central’s Laverne Combo Invitation softball tournament. The girl was hit by a foul ball that just avoided the fence and insufficient netting. The ball hit her in the head as she laughed and talked with teammates outside her dugout between Field 2 and Field 3.

Other than express outrage at the writer who pointed out that county was aware of that danger well before the injury, Butte-Silver Bow has done exactly nothing to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen again.

Former officials from the county and the school district told me flat out that they would do more, but they don’t want Sid and Skinny to win.

Granted, my cousin Skinny can be a pain. He has a severe shortage of tact, and he sometimes loses his temper. I’m told that those are qualities he gets from the Skuletich side of his family.

But there is no way you can argue he and Sid are not looking out for the best interest of the girls. There is no way any sane person can look at those fields and not see that they are telling the truth.

When Butte High announced it was going to be one of the last two Class AA schools to offer softball in 1990, the school said it planned to build two new softball fields on the south side of the campus. That space now is used as a practice field for football.

Butte-Silver Bow doesn’t have the Title IX worries that the school district has, or should have. Instead, the county has liability and economic issues with the fields.

Those fields at Stodden Park saw nearly 500 games played on them last year. That includes Butte High and Butte Central home games as well as youth tournaments and recreation leagues.

The youth tournaments bring a ton of money into town. They bring families to check out our beautiful Stodden Park. Even more tournaments would come to town if those fields were half as good as our chief executive falsely claims they are.

Last week, Sid and Skinny showed Brian Michelotti and Amy Bartles of the Montana High School Association the danger and insufficiency of those fields. Michelotti and Bartles agreed that immediate action should be taken to fix some of the problems, and they said a long-term plan must be perused.

Shawn Fredrickson, Butte-Silver Bow’s new parks and recreation director, showed genuine concern, too. He wants to work to make the improvements to the fields that Gallagher would not make when he was in the same job.

Officials with Butte High expressed concern and vowed to work to improve the fields.

Of course, Sid and Skinny have heard that many times in their 22-year fight for equality for the girls. They have heard as many hollow words and empty promises as they have insults.

Yet, they keep fighting for the girls of today and tomorrow.

That is because they know that, unlike the gallows frames, the poor fields at Stodden Park cannot be pinned on just another oversight.

This has been an issue that, for so long, our county and school district simply refused to adequately address.

 — Bill Foley, who gets his calm, cool and collected demeanor from the Foley side of his family, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74 or Bluesky at @foles74.bsky.social. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.