Know Your Foe: The Glacier Range Riders
Welcome to Know Your Foe, your friendly fast facts to get to know the Ballers’ opponents at Raimondi Park this season.
Next up: The Glacier Range Riders!
Their Season So Far:
The Ballers and Riders met in Montana just weeks ago, in early June, where the Ballers took the series 5-1. For the Riders, Kingston Liniak (#20, “The King”), who leads the team in home runs and RBI (and holds single-season home run records as well as more than 30 homers with the team in his career), and Xavier Casserilla (#21, “X”) are top hitters and have top nicknames. Overall, the Riders are 8-13 on the season coming into Raimondi, good for 9th of 12 in the Pioneer League.
Hometown: Kalispell, Montana
- Kalispell is the seventh-largest city in Montana with about 25,000 people. The name is drawn from the Salish word meaning “flat land above the lake.”
- It’s one of the main gateways into Glacier National Park, the “crown of the continent” that straddles the continental divide, feeds three or four major waterways (Hudson Bay, the Gulf, the Atlantic and Pacific), and is about the size of Rhode Island.
- Speaking of water: nearby Flathead Lake is the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi…and is exactly one square mile bigger than Lake Tahoe.
- Maybe there’s something artistic in the water: Director/genius Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille, The Iron Giant) and actress Margaret Qualley (The Substance) were born in Kalispell, and actresses Michelle Williams and Lily Gladstone were born and raised there, Gladstone on the nearby Blackfeet nation.
- The city’s Outlaw Inn was once a celebrated hub for stars and crews filming in the area; Kris Kristofferson would “jam with his band” in the lobby, and actors were known to fire prop arrows into ceilings when not….shooting…on set.
- The city and immediate vicinity hosted films like Buster’s Mal Heart, Michael Cimino’s notorious flop Heaven’s Gate as well as Leonardo DiCaprio’s fur trader survival epic The Revenant (and wait…is that…me…just down the row from him and Tom Hardy at the Academy Awards, right before Leo won his Oscar for the movie? Yes, yes it is).
Mascots: Cliff, Goat Ranger, and Huck (Huckleberry), the bus driving grizzly bear
- Cliff the Mountain Goat Ranger: his name was chosen by fans, and he compliments his goat-based climbing skill with his uniformed authority as a ranger!
- Huck the Bear: he rides a red bus that locals would recognize as those carrying tourists along the Going-to-the-Sun Road, itself a National Historic Landmark and one of the highlights of Glacier National Park.
Team History:
- The Riders began play in 2022, and they made the playoffs for the first time last year, losing the league championship in four games to the High Wheelers.
- They won the McCurdy Cup in 2024, awarded to the Pioneer League team that “best demonstrates continued excellence both on and off the field.” (Sound like any local team you know, say, in 2025?)
- They play at Glacier Bank Park, with its beautiful tree-filled outfield showing an expanse of the Flathead Valley, which was named Ballpark of the Year in 2023.
- Last season, pitcher Jonathan Pintaro’s contract was purchased by the New York Mets organization mid-game, causing him to be taken out to teammate hugs and a standing ovation from the fans after only two innings of work.
- The “Mission Mountain Matchup” with their in-state rivals the Missoula Paddleheads (who the Ballers just played this past week, dropping two of three in the series there) is but one rivalry in the state where four Pioneer League teams play.
Best Promos:
- Along with the Billings Mustangs, the Riders wore specialty jerseys last year in a game to promote “"Let's Talk About It,” a suicide prevention program in Montana.
- Paw Patrol Day: my son has already built a time machine and bought a Greyhound ticket to go back for this one.
- Trunk or Treat: trick-or-treating from car trunks in the stadium parking lot (again, I know a few kids that might love this one for maximal time-and-distance-to-candy ratio).
- Hunger Games Night: ok, maybe this is an informal one, but star Josh Hutcherson came out to a game last year.
What to Watch For:
- The team’s arrowhead logo, which survived a challenge from the National Parks Service for trademark infringement. Just last month, the NPS withdrew their claim, and the team will continue riding…the range…with arrowheads not shot into hotel lobby roofs. (And to the Park Service—those aren’t actual goats or bears out there either.)
