Never have I attended a baseball game when the announcer only acknowledged the existence of one team.

Until Saturday, that is.

Sure, the media in Seattle sometimes acts like the Mariners are the only team playing, but the public address announcer recognizes both sides during home games. So, it was a little puzzling to hear that only the East Helena players were being introduced before each plate appearance during Saturday’s junior varsity game against Butte High at Ryan Park.

While that did not really anger any Bulldog fans, it kind of made them scratch their heads a little bit. Why would you only announce one team?

Then, after a few of us dads put our thick skulls together and finally realized that the announcer sounded a little bit like the bad guy from the movie “Scream,” it started to make sense. The voice was just too perfect as it announced each Vigilante player. It was like the announcer was asking Sydney, “What’s your favorite scary movie?”

We also noticed that there did not appear to be anybody doing the actual announcing. So, we figured they were using some kind of app with an artificial intelligence voice calling out the players.

Sure, it would not have taken too much time to type in the names of the Butte High players, too, but that realization completely removed my annoyance for ignoring the Bulldogs. Some parents were still annoyed, but not me. I knew who the Butte players were.

High school activities directors have such big jobs, and that can be overwhelming in the spring. The schedules change by the minute, and there is just so much to do with softball, baseball, track, tennis and proms.

Finding someone to announce games is tough, too, since public speaking generally polls as the No. 1 fear in life for most people.

Not every place has an announcer for JV games, either. In fact, I have not been at a JV football or basketball game or volleyball match with a P.A. announcer in years.  So, I will give East Helena a pass for not announcing Butte High’s JV players. They did, after all, announce both sides when it came to the varsity game.

More than anything, we should be praising East Helena for having a baseball program in the first place. For that, the Vigilante administration deserves some serious kudos.

The same cannot be said about the two Class AA schools in Helena. It cannot be said about a lot of schools in Montana as the state jumps into baseball with the speed of a three-toed sloth.

This slow move has several factors, including cost and lack of facilities. With places like Helena facing teacher layoffs this year, it is hard to get too fired up about baseball. But I do anyway.

A far bigger crime than the visiting players being ignored by the announcer — real, AI or otherwise — was the fact that they were playing in a Little League field. Parents and fans crammed around the fence, sitting in their camping chairs or on the uncomfortable portable bleachers.

They did this while the beautiful Kindrick Legion Field sat empty two and a half miles away.

When the Bulldogs opened the season against Missoula Big Sky in Missoula, the teams played on a tiny Little League field that sits in the shadow of Lindborg-Cregg Field, the incredible home of the Missoula Mavericks.

Granted, the issue of facilities is kind of complicated. One reason for this is some American Legion baseball programs have not welcomed high school baseball.

Another major reason is Title IX. Some administrators probably figure that if the boys play in a nice Legion stadium, then they might get called onto the mat for not having enough facilities for the girls.

That, though, is no way to address the problem. You do not hold one group back to make it appear that the other one is equal. That is called robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Butte High, Butte Central and the Butte Legion program have a close relationship, which makes things run smoothly in Butte. The Miners, Muckers and Motormen of the Legion do not open the season until after Butte High and Butte Central are done playing. That makes it easy for boys to play in high school and Legion.

That is not the case everywhere.

More importantly, the Butte Legion program works hard to make sure cost is not an issue for the players. We might have the cheapest-to-join Legion program in the nation. It only costs $100 to sign up, and then each player must sell some raffle tickets and season passes.

Or, rather, their parents must sell those items. That reminds me. I have some tickets for the $10,000 cash drawing and some season passes to sell you. Let me know how many you want.

In other programs around the state, players pay thousands of dollars just to try out. Then, they do not get all that money back if they get cut. Missoula, Billings and Helena, among others, cut players, too.

Butte has not cut any player in as long as I can remember, and nobody is making any money off Legion baseball in the Mining City.

In some places, Legion baseball can be about the money. Why would a Legion coach who makes good money want kids to be able to play for the low price of a high school activity card when they could be paying him big bucks to play instead?

If more kids play high school ball, maybe less kids will try out for Legion ball, even though more kids are playing the game overall. That must be the thinking.

Well, that is not how it is supposed to be. More kids playing baseball is always a good thing. If you do not see that, then you just might be in it for the wrong reasons.

Youth sports should never be solely about winning, and it should never be about lining pockets.

We have many more barriers than money to overcome if we are going to make high school baseball work in Montana. If it does not work, then it could be lost forever.

For one thing, we are going to need many more umpires. As it is, we do not have nearly enough men and women in blue to do the job. If every school in the state fielded a team, we would not have close to enough umpires to cover all the games.

Also, some Class AA Legion coaches have told their players they cannot play high school baseball. That is because their Legion seasons are ready to start, and Legion offers a better overall baseball experience than high school right now.

It is hard to blame a Legion coach who wants all his players to be available to play the entire season. If you are paying thousands of dollars so your son can play Legion ball, you also want him to go to as many games as possible.

Somehow, though, they pull it off in the other 47 states that offer high school baseball. Players can represent their high school and then seamlessly move into the Legion season for the summer in other states — while paying top dollar to play.

We should be able to do that here.

For the first two years, Butte High and Belgrade were the only two Class AA teams to play baseball. That number rose to eight this year with the addition of the three Missoula and three Billings schools.

Next year, the two schools in Great Falls and two in Bozeman will join the party. That leaves us only waiting on Helena and Kalispell.

Hopefully those four schools come to the table soon so we can have all 16 Class AA schools in the mix. Then maybe we will start to believe that high school baseball is going to make it in Montana.

After that happens, we can start getting worked up about announcers forgetting that each game includes two teams.

— Bill Foley, who doesn’t like any scary movies, 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.