American Legion Baseball: Players Who Went On to Baseball's Hall of Fame

Wikipedia has a long list of American Legion baseball players who went on to MLB Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.  Here are just a few of them.

Bob Feller,  Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Yogi Berra, Al Kaline, Bob Gibson, Frank Robinson, Don Drysdale, Johnny Bench, Carl Yastrzemski, Nellie Fox and Ryne Sandberg.

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In 2011, Shelby, North Carolina, was names as the permanent home for the American Legion Baseball World Series.  Attendance in 2016 was 120,000.  The last three winners:

Texarkana, Arkansas, Post 58 in 2016
Henderson, Nevada, Post 40 in 2017
Wilmington, Delaware, Post 1 in 2018

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Probably one of the most interesting names for an American Legion team comes from Hooker, Oklahoma, whose team is named the Hooker Horny Toads.  Hooker is in the Oklahoma Panhandle.  Of course, I just had to have one of their tee shirts.

Looking Forward to Baseball Season.  --Cooter

American Legion Baseball

Post 703 has been supporting an American Legion Baseball team for many years now and this year, we are planning a Legion Day for one of the team's home games at Grant Township High School.  More information on that will be given when we know the schedule in June.

Our team is comprised mostly of boys from the Fox Lake area and managed by Brian Talbot.

But, in the meantime, to prepare for the season, we'll take a look back at the history of American Legion baseball.

From Wikipedia.

American Legion Baseball is amateur played by  13 to 19-year-olds in all fifty states and Canada.  More than 3,500 teams compete each year.  The American Legion Department of South Dakota established  the program in 1925 in Milbank, South Dakota.

PURPOSE

To give players the opportunity to develop their skills,  personal fitness,  leadership qualities, and to have fun. Hundreds of thousands of boys have been taught this over the years.

--Cooter