BILLINGS — Baseball called out to Mike Martinson during a particularly trying time in his life.
In March of 2024, Billings Central announced that it would join the growing list of Montana high schools to add varsity baseball to its athletic repertoire. For most people, there was an obvious candidate for the head coaching position.
A life in baseball that led him to a five-year career in the minor leagues and the distinction of having once caught Nolan Ryan in spring training were only part of Martinson's appeal for the job.
His knowledge of the game, his genial temperament and his 34-year tenure as a religion teacher with Billings Catholic Schools — where he's earned the unwavering respect of colleagues and the admiration of multiple generations of students — were surely others.
But with his wife Kim, his spouse of 38 years, ailing from cancer at the time, Martinson did not have baseball on his mind. Furthermore, for all his years in the school system, he had never coached.
But he got all the encouragement he needed.
"The last week of her life she said about three times, 'You should take that job,'" Martinson, 69, recalled of his wife's reassurance.
Kim Martinson passed away on Palm Sunday 2024. That September, he was officially approached about Central's baseball coaching vacancy. Ultimately, Martinson took a leap of faith.
It all paid off last Saturday at Vester Wilson Field in Hamilton when Central, the No. 3 seed from the East division, defeated Belgrade 4-3 to win the state championship.
"There's no way I envisioned this," Martinson said amid the celebration after the game. "We were wondering if we'd have enough guys to come out this year. It was really an experiment from the beginning.
"We made some mistakes but we did some things right. I have a really good coaching staff. Everybody played a part in this win, even the guys that didn't play. You could hear them from the dugout. There was a lot of life, and I think that made a huge difference. It was definitely a team effort."
The championship itself was wild.
The Rams were in control, ahead 4-0 in the seventh and final inning before Belgrade pushed a run across. Central then found itself in deep water when, with the bases loaded, the Panthers' Sawyer Olson singled with two outs to bring in two runs to make it a 4-3 game.
But as the throw came in from center field, first baseman Paxton Prill ranged over to cut it off near the mound and snapped the ball to third baseman Zach McDonald, who tagged out a runner trying to advance all the way from first to end the threat — and the game.
Just your average 8-3-5 putout to win a championship, one of many big plays the Rams made over their three-day run in Hamilton.
"Our motto for this year was, 'It's all a gift,'" Martinson said. "Sports are amazing when they're done right. You've got parents involved, the kids, the umpires, everybody. I look back on my life and sports have been very, very good to me, and this is kind of like the icing on the cake.
"You look back on the year and there have been struggles. But it's a lot of gifts. A lot of graces. It's all worth it."
An all-around athlete growing up, baseball was Martinson's meal ticket.
He was a second-round pick of the California Angels in the 1974 MLB amateur draft as a catcher out of Lakewood High School in the Los Angeles area. He also had a full-ride Division I scholarship offer to Southern Cal from legendary coach Rod Dedeaux in the midst of the Trojans' run of six national championships in seven years.
But Martinson spurned that offer to sign with the Angels and spent the next five years in the minors, reaching as high as Triple-A. Martinson played in the Pioneer League in 1974, and even hit a home run at old Cobb Field in Billings that season, years before he'd move to town with his young family.
He eventually made it to spring training with the Angels, where he caught for Ryan, MLB's all-time strikeout king who had what Martinson described as "the most explosive fastball I've never seen."
But an injury to his throwing hand — which Martinson suffered trying to help a teammate move a stuck vehicle — eventually ended his playing career. He was released in 1979, though it wasn't all bad.
"I was feeling called to do something with my faith. I kind of put it in the Lord's hands," said Martinson, a devoted man who went on to study theology at Loyola Marymount in L.A. "That's when my life turned."
He married Kim in 1986 and together they had four children. They relocated to Billings in 1990 and he's been teaching religion at Billings Catholic Schools ever since. They also opened "Emmaus Road," a Catholic bookstore in town, in 1993.
It has been almost 50 years since Martinson last played professional baseball. A lot has happened since. He said he prayed to Kim at times this year when things weren't going so well on the diamond.
"Halfway through the season I said, 'We're going to have to have a talk when I get up there about this,'" Martinson commented with a smile, always cognizant of his wife's support to accept baseball back into his life. "It's like, 'What did you get me into?'"
But it couldn't have ended any better, as Martinson and the Rams brought home an unexpected state title to put a stamp on their first varsity season.
Baseball called Martinson back at a particularly trying time — perhaps when he needed it most.
In the end, just like Central's motto for their championship season, it was all a gift.
