In Play with Craig Mattick made possible by Horton in Britton, a worldwide supplier of engine cooling systems and proud member of the community for more than four decades, hortonww.com.
Craig Mattick: Welcome to another edition of In Play. I'm Craig Mattick. When it comes to players in Major League Baseball, more than half of them played Legion Baseball as kids. Almost every manager in the majors also played Legion Ball as a kid. And there are about 80 members of the Baseball Hall of Fame who played Legion Baseball as a kid. American Legion Baseball turns 100 years old this year, and the birthplace of Legion Baseball is in South Dakota, specifically Milbank. Population, 3,500, right there in northeast South Dakota is where Legion Baseball began. Today, there are over 3,700 teams in the United States and Canada who play American Legion Baseball. Pat Raffety is the mayor of Milbank. Hey Pat, welcome to In Play.
Pat Raffety: Well, thanks for taking the time to do this with me, Craig. I appreciate it.
Craig Mattick: When did you first come to know about American Legion Baseball in Milbank?
Pat Raffety: It would probably be in the mid 90s when my wife and I, we have a son that started playing baseball and got involved with the baseball community and started watching our Legion players go into some of the Legion games. And then as our son played his way on through there, he went through the Legion program. And then I had the opportunity to do the PA announcing for all of our CFW and American Legion and amateur teams for, I think five or six years, which was really a neat experience for me and got to really appreciate what Legion Baseball was all about for the young kids.
Craig Mattick: What does Legion Ball mean for the folks in Milbank?
Pat Raffety: It's a key part of our heritage. It was founded here in 1925. They had the American Legion State Convention here in South Dakota in Milbank. They had a speaker there, Major John Griffith, who was the commissioner of the Western Athletic Conference, which was a precursor to the Big 10, was here. And he urged the Legion guys to do something for the young men of America to teach them responsibility, good physical health, and all of that, and suggested baseball. And then as a result of that, at that convention, they passed a resolution asking the Legion to start a baseball program, which went on to the national convention in Omaha, Nebraska. And they passed the resolution there and that was how Legion Baseball was founded. And we wear that heritage with honor, the folks in Milbank, the Legion guys and people that are involved with the program understand what it means to the young men and really try and live in the correct way to support Legion baseball and make sure that it's successful because it makes such a great impact on our youth.
Craig Mattick: Pat, it is more than playing baseball. When you look at all the stuff they try to instill in the youth in playing Legion baseball, it's more than just turning double plays.
Pat Raffety: That's absolutely right. And I can speak specifically to my personal situation and what I've seen is that it's good for our young men. Nowadays, there are a lot of other activities that they could be doing and they have an obligation to their team, to their teammates, to the sport, and it keeps them headed in the right direction and it just builds good young men and they build lifelong friends. They meet kids from other communities at tournaments and it's not just a local thing, but it's statewide for a lot of these young men.
Craig Mattick: Kind of crazy, back in 1925, you mentioned Major John Griffith, who was the commissioner of the Western Athletic Conference. He had that idea at that time, and it's an idea that is still going on today. Those kind of stories are always neat to talk about
Pat Raffety: The foresight of somebody to think that far ahead about it, something that needed to be done to fill a void, or for what he felt was a void, and to have it thought out as well as he did and make that presentation and have the Legion guys take hold of that and ownership was pretty amazing. And for him to do all that pre-work, come, make the presentation, and for them to say, "Yep, we got this. We'll handle it from here," it's a real neat story.
Craig Mattick: Pat, I'm trying to think about those South Dakotans at that American Legion Convention up in Milbank in 1925 listening to this story, this proposal by Griffith and kind of wondering, what were their faces like when they heard this proposal from Mr. Griffith?
Pat Raffety: Yeah, at that time, the Legion was a real young organization, I think seven or eight years old. I think they were formed shortly after World War I. And real patriotic, a real devotion to our country and to America. And this was just another thing that they could pour themselves into. Those guys must have been just like, "Hey, this is a really good idea." Because most of the time, something like that wouldn't take the steam right away. Guys would think about it and try and work it out and whatever, but they were all in right from the end of the speech and did something about it. So that says a lot about that group as well.
Craig Mattick: Back in 1950, Legion Baseball is about 25 years old and Milbank decides to erect a monument. Tell us about that monument there in Milbank talking about American Legion Baseball.
Pat Raffety: Yeah. So, that was a key centerpiece or is a key centerpiece along Highway 12 that's dedicated to the birthplace of Legion Baseball, made out of local granite, beautiful four-sided monument with a baseball up on top of it. There are pictures of it on our Birthplace of Legion Baseball website, and we are actually going to relocate that here before our season gets rolling from its current position where it was by our old baseball field where there's an elementary school there and get it out by our new field, so it'll be a centerpiece, there'll be a nice plaza there.
But pretty neat that, it's been where it is right now for as long as what I can remember, for 55, 60 years, I can remember 55, but it's been there. But the city used to play, the Legion Baseball team used to play at a field that was built back in the WPA days. There was a baseball field back in the 30s, a baseball field, tennis court, and a football field. And the land eventually wound up being owned by the school and the residents of the school district voted to build a new elementary school and then that was the site that was chosen was a addition onto their current campus.
And so we had to decide what to do and we played on a field that we had developed in one of our other parks that was adequate but not what we had provisioned. And we looked at all of our recreation in the city and we made some recommendations. And one of the recommendations was that we build a new field out in our Lake Farley Park area, which we've completed last year. We did the initial rollout of it, had our grand opening, and we're excited to get playing on there this year.
Craig Mattick: By the way, it's the fourth different field in my understanding where they have played Legion Ball.
Pat Raffety: Yep. The original that they played on was down in what we called the fairgrounds edition, and I haven't even seen a picture of that and I'm not sure about the second place, but the old WPA field, I can remember that from back in the 60s and it was a really nice park and it was home. That was really hard for our baseball community to realize that we were going to lose that field. But we've approached this project as opportunity and try to keep everybody focused on the opportunity to what we have to honor our heritage and the founding and everything with being the birthplace of Legion Baseball. And this year is the 100th anniversary and we're really excited about that.
Craig Mattick: I've seen pictures of the new field. It looks fabulous. Can you give me a couple of big new items of the new field that maybe you didn't have before?
Pat Raffety: Well, this year we've got a new parking lot. The parking lot's supposed to be paved here in the next couple of days. The monument is going to be moving out here within the next couple of weeks, and we'll have our flagpoles out there. We have a new batter's eye that will be put up in the outfield, new press box, concession stand.
Craig Mattick: Oh, nice.
Pat Raffety: Nice dugouts that roofs are going on next week and we'll have some landscaping done and then our entranceway and then some perimeter fencing will all be done. We start here in two weeks, I think first game. So we've got a lot of stuff to pull together here, and it's May already.
Craig Mattick: With green grass too, right?
Pat Raffety: With green grass, yeah. I was out to the field yesterday and did a little walk around and stuff, and the grass has already greened up nice and beautiful. It's been, I think they've mowed it twice already, but it really looks good.
Craig Mattick: Well, this new stadium would not be where it's at today unless the town of Milbank came forward. What did they do, the town, to make this new stadium a reality?
Pat Raffety: Well, the city council in their budgeting here five years ago allocated $1.2 million to the initial construction of the field, and there was $825,000 of taxpayer money, and then $375,000, that was the buyout that we had gotten from the school. So the council did that, and our baseball community supported that very much.
And then we've done fundraising for the different amenities through there and our community and Legion clubs nationwide have supported the project to the tune of about $1.3 million in donations that we've raised and which we've put right back into the field. We still have a list of some high-end amenities that we'd like to have, a nice covered grand stand, in our preliminary drawings, there was a barn building out in right field that would be our museum for Legion Baseball, and then it had some indoor batting cages in it. And then a large digital scoreboard that we would like to get out in center field, not only for baseball, but also to be able to have community nights out there, have a movie on the big screen, let the people come and sit out in the grass in the outfield, and maybe just a gathering spot for our entire community.
Craig Mattick: I know you got a couple of tournaments coming up this fall, not this fall, coming up in August. You got the Class B Senior and the Class B Junior Legion Tournament there in Milbank.
Pat Raffety: Yep. We're real happy to host those this year. We actually have five Legion tournaments on schedule. We have our traditional Arnold Larson and Clayton Olson Memorial tournament here the first weekend in June. This weekend, June 19th through the 22nd, we're going to have the Post 9 Heritage Classic. It will be our first year of that, which will be a 12 team tournament.
Our big tournament for this year will be July 11th to the 13th, and that is the National American Legion Centennial Classic, and it'll be a 14 team tournament. South Dakota Milbank will be the host team from South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, and Minnesota, we'll have four teams, but that comes with sponsorship of the National American Legion. And so we'll be expecting dignitaries there. We're going to have a big banquet with a keynote speaker on Friday night, and then we'll have the tournament games and a lot of festivities going on. So we're really excited about that, hopefully get some real good exposure and let the National American Legion guys know why we've been pestering them so bad about what we have here.
And then the two state tournaments you mentioned, July 26th through 30th, is the State B Senior and August 2nd through 6th is the State B Junior. So we're really excited about what baseball will have for us this summer and be able to showcase our community and what we're all about and hopefully do right by what the people 100 years thought that we were ready to do.
Craig Mattick: So with the new stadium, is it kind of expectations? You're going to work to try to get more events at that stadium down the road?
Pat Raffety: Yeah, down the road we've talked about what we would like to have and our goal was to be able to host state tournaments or regional tournaments every year. But I'm a big picture person and I think we're halfway between Sioux Falls and Fargo, it'd be pretty neat to have a Canaries and Redhawks game in Milbank with the tie-ins there, it works pretty good. And who knows? This year, Major League Baseball's going to play a game down at Bristol Motor Speedway and maybe they want to come to Milbank. So it's like think big, and that's what we're trying to do, but it'll be a lot of fun community-driven events and we're going to try and get everybody involved. So it's night at the ball field, but it's a family night out too. People come out, watch a ball game, have a sandwich, and just spend some good time together.
Craig Mattick: A couple of guys who've been involved with the program joining us here on In Play, we're going to talk with the Milbank Post 9 baseball coach, Ron Krause, here in a moment. But first, he's the Post 9 Adjutant up at Milbank, Tim Jurgens. Tim, welcome to In Play.
Tim Jurgens: Oh, thanks for having us.
Craig Mattick: You're a past commander, by the way. You've been a part of American Legion, just American Legion in general for a long time.
Tim Jurgens: Yes. I hate to tell you how old I am, but I've been a Legion member for 55 years.
Craig Mattick: When did you first be made aware that there was American Legion Baseball in Milbank?
Tim Jurgens: Probably back in the 60s when I was playing Legion Baseball. I had the opportunity to play against a couple of the Milbank teams. I graduated from Wilmot High School in 1964, and so I played Legion Ball for Wilmot. And of course, we played Milbank and played against guys like Jim Nixon, Larry Westfall, Harlan Conrad. I could list a whole list of names of some very good athletes that came out of Milbank that played on the State B Legion Champions in 1962 and '63.
Craig Mattick: You played Legion Ball though, and we've always heard that American Legion stress more than just playing baseball. It's more of what you do off the field.
Tim Jurgens: Oh, absolutely. Legion Baseball, there's a code that's read before Legion Baseball games and so forth, and that code pretty much tells the story of what Legion Baseball is about. And if you'd like, I can recite that sportsmanship code and whatnot, which will shed some light on what it's all about.
Craig Mattick: I could use a good code, if you know what I mean.
Tim Jurgens: Okay. Well, here it is. It starts out, I will keep the rules, keep faith with my teammates, keep my temper, keep myself fit, keep a stout heart in defeat, keep my pride under in victory, keep a sound soul, a clean mind, and a healthy body.
Craig Mattick: And they say that before every game, don't they?
Tim Jurgens: Yes, it's supposed to be done before every game. I think sometimes it might be overlooked, but generally, especially when it's tournament time, it's done before every game, absolutely.
Craig Mattick: Well, Milbank probably got lucky in 1925 because we hear that Major John Griffith, who was the commissioner of the Western Athletic Conference, he had the idea and he happened to be invited to Milbank to speak at the Legion Convention. How neat was that?
Tim Jurgens: Well, it was July of 1925, and again, the department convention was held here in Milbank, and this Commander Rip McCormick had talked to his friend, this Major Griffith, to come and talk at the convention and speak about a role of athletes and what it can play in the development of youth. And if I can quote what Major Griffith said was, "The American Legion could well consider the advisability of assisting in the training of young Americans through our athletic games." End of his quote.
He went on to explain that athletic competition teaches courage and respect for others, fostering their growth into active citizens. And the South Dakota American Legion agreed with that and they passed a resolution to create an organized summer baseball league that started each June and that date was July 17th, 1925. The National Commander, he backed that resolution and it passed in that fall in the Legion's National Convention in Omaha, Nebraska. So henceforth was the birth of American Legion Baseball. And to begin with, there were 15 teams that started in 1926 and Milbank's first Legion team started in 1930. So that's kind of how things got to rolling.
Craig Mattick: I played Legion Ball in Minnesota when I was a kid and it was always in the summer right after you played high school ball, and there was something about wearing the American Legion uniform that just seemed a little more special than wearing the high school uniform back then. Do they still do that today?
Tim Jurgens: Oh, yes, absolutely. It means something to these kids. And there's pride in wearing that American Legion baseball uniform or a baseball uniform with an American Legion patch on it. And then that's the coaching they get with guys like Ron here that has been stable in our community for ever and ever and whatnot. So we would be lost without Ron.
But just to give you a little more background, Craig, there's over 3,500 teams that are playing American Legion Baseball, and that takes in about 55,000 youth participating in all 50 states, and I think maybe even Canada and Puerto Rico, that 65% of Major League baseball players played Legion Baseball and 75% of college baseball players played American Legion Baseball. And you've got guys like Yogi Berra, Ted Williams, Harmon Killebrew, Paul Molitor, and our own Mark Ellis from Rapid City who played in Post 22 that are in the Hall of Fame. So, yeah, it's made its mark. It's made its mark.
Craig Mattick: What does American Legion Baseball mean for the city of Milbank?
Tim Jurgens: Well, I think it means an awful lot because Milbank is a baseball community and they've taken pride in being the birthplace of American Legion Baseball, and I can back that up by the 25th anniversary that they had, they had a monument, a granite monument that was erected that used to stand where our old baseball field was and whatnot, commemorating the birthplace of American Legion baseball.
And then on the 50th celebration anniversary, they hosted the State A and B Baseball playoff tournament and so forth. And over the years, Milbank has hosted two Central Plains Division II baseball tournaments. We've hosted many, many other tournaments over the years. There's states that have come from Nevada, Kansas, of course North Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin, that have come here to play in the birthplace of American Legion Baseball. So we're very, very proud of the fact that Milbank is the birthplace of American Legion Baseball and take pride in having that name; birthplace of American Legion Baseball.
Craig Mattick: Tim, what's your greatest memory of playing Legion Baseball as a kid?
Tim Jurgens: Probably batting against a relative of my wife, Laurie Westfall. I believe he was drafted by the Dodgers back then and whatnot, and he was very tall, probably 6'2, 6'3, all arms and legs, and I know I never hit the ball when he pitched. He was very, very good, but he never did go on to play a big league ball, but I remember that very well.
Craig Mattick: 100th anniversary of American Legion Baseball. Where do you see it going in the future, Tim?
Tim Jurgens: Well, I'm hoping with our new project here of celebrating the 100th anniversary and with our new stadium that is being constructed and so forth, I see nothing but going forward. And when people come and see this new facility that we have and that it's a state of an art baseball diamond, that they're going to want to come and play on it. And I'm talking about not just Legion Baseball teams and amateur baseball teams, but maybe even some college teams and maybe even some semi-pro teams that would want to come and play baseball at the home or the birthplace of American Legion Baseball.
Craig Mattick: Ron Krause is the manager of Milbank American Legion Baseball. Ron, welcome to In Play. How long have you been involved with American Legion Baseball?
Ron Krause: Well, I've been with Legion Baseball for about 30 years, Craig. I've coached my own kids, I've coached my grandkids, I've been pretty fortunate to have good athletes from the Milbank community and the great support of the Post here in town. And it's been a wild ride and like I said, it's 30 years, it's been a lot of fun and I guess it's one of those things where you stay in it because of the joy of being with the kids and seeing kids do well. Milbank is a great community to have a baseball team in and support what we're really after.
Craig Mattick: How about your duties? When did the duties as Legion Baseball manager start and really get going in the city of Milbank?
Ron Krause: Well, I usually start, when I got started, I usually start scheduling in January 1. I've called coaches on January 1, that's New Year's Day, and a lot of them said, "You're getting started already?" And I said, "Hey," I said, "you want to get a jump on things, you get it done early and get after it."
I've done that every year. I've usually have my schedule done by either middle of February or right at the end or whatever, but I get it going and have a meeting with the kids and get a meeting with the parents and keep everybody abreast of what we're going to do, what we're going to play this year, and all the things that are coming. This year is a really unique situation for us because we're going to be hosting five tournaments here in town, and it's going to be, as Mr. Jurgens said, that the new field is going to definitely get a test to see how it'll stand up. And I have all aspects of thinking it'll be a fine year for baseball here in Milbank.
Craig Mattick: American Legion Baseball overall in South Dakota, there are a lot of teams, a lot of teams playing baseball. What's the health like statewide with American Legion Baseball?
Ron Krause: Well, I think the American Legion Baseball just has the name of Legion Baseball is synonymous of what... We look at how kids in sports are in high school. I think the Legion kind of takes it a step further because of the conduct code that we have. I think kids remember that code. From the first time they're on the field, most guys can recite that code that are been out of baseball for 20, 30 years. They can recite that code. And I think that's what just stays in and makes it such a synonymous thing for the American Legion and why kids are so positive towards Legion Baseball.
Craig Mattick: Pretty much with all the teams in American Legion Baseball, we certainly know there's Class A and Class B, teams from Sioux Falls and Rapid City, and of course the smaller towns all across the state, but there's got to be someone or a couple of folks that kind of watch over American Legion Baseball statewide, who does that?
Ron Krause: Lyle Feasall out of Rapid City. He's the new guy that kind of stays in charge of all the baseball things moving on through the summer and everything kind of goes through him. And the state office in Watertown are very, very helpful there with anything and everything that we need, and they send out all the information we need for everything. So that's kind of who oversees it, but he's kind of a new guy in it there, but I think he's doing a fabulous job so far.
Craig Mattick: I want to talk about some past players who played for Milbank, and I certainly know of one, and that is a guy, of course, pretty popular right now. In fact, he's only the head coach of Alabama in football, Kalen DeBoer, what kind of a baseball player was Kalen? I heard pretty good.
Ron Krause: Kalen was a fantastic baseball player. I mean I remember my son played with him back in the 90s when he played, and I'll tell you what, Kalen was a silent leader. I mean he wasn't your rah-rah guy, but when he stepped up to the plate, he was one of the toughest out in the state of South Dakota as far as I was concerned. And just a great team player, and his attributes have shown in Alabama. And I'll tell you what, he's just phenomenal. I mean I think you're going to see more great things. He's done some great things already at Alabama, but I think it's going to be more.
But I said those names of past players that have been here, we've had several players of the year. I've been fortunate to have my son be a player of the year in 2002, and I had a grandson that was a player of the year in 2016, the year we won the state tournament. So I've been blessed to have that aspect of having my own personal family involved in it. But one attribute with Kalen DeBoer is that my daughter-in-law, his sister, is married to my son. So we have a connection with Alabama and we are starting to get a lot of Alabama stuff.
Craig Mattick: With the new stadium, it is the fourth location of the American Legion baseball field there in Milbank. You guys are just getting it open, what? This year?
Ron Krause: Well, we played games on it last year. We didn't have the dugouts done and stuff like that, but we wanted to get to see how this field would react. It's a natural grass field. It sits on eight inches of sand. I think if you would look at Target Field, this field is almost a carbon copy of Target Field and how it's been built. I mean it plays fabulous, it really does. And it's state of the art and it's one of them that a lot of organizations and towns are going to turf and stuff like that. And we discussed that at one time, but this is kind of what the mayor and the city here got together and built this stadium and it's been great going.
And like I said, we're really excited to see how it's going to handle all these games this year. I think we've got over 90 ball games are to be played here this summer at some point in time with all the age groups, so it's going to definitely get a workout, but I have all the confidence in the world that it'll handle it.
Craig Mattick: Are you on the lawnmower? Are you cutting the grass every day up there?
Ron Krause: Well, yeah. I'm the park manager for the City of Milbank. It's kind on my shoulders how that field looks, and I'm kind of one of those guys where I'm never satisfied. So I'll be spending a lot of hours out there this summer, so I would say hi to my wife in the morning and then maybe see her at midnight when I get home. It's just one of those deals, but it's baseball season, that's what we do.
Craig Mattick: Well, and with hosting state tournaments, with the new field, is this something that Milbank really wants to get more tournaments there?
Ron Krause: Yeah, that's kind of what we're after. As Tim had said that we're looking at maybe getting college teams to come here and play, because we've had some interest like Northern State and Morris coming to play, and they can meet here and it's halfway, and it's one of those things where we get ourselves situated here where we can do all that. Hey, so they pay a little bit to play here and bring people in. Hey, that's what we're after, and I think we're going to see that. I'm hoping. I've talked to some coaches and they said, "You just got to get the word out and it won't be any problem. You'll have a lot of college teams that'll want to meet halfway," and that's kind of what the expenses today, if you can cut the cost and be in the middle, we can certainly abide by that and make it happen for them.
Craig Mattick: As far as when it comes to home games for Milbank with American Legion Baseball, name some of the other towns that come to Milbank for games during the summer.
Ron Krause: Well, we have teams like Castlewood come here. We have teams like Webster, we've had Groton comes here, Lake Norden, they're kind of in our region. Volga comes here, Dell Rapids is coming here for a tournament. Sisseton comes here to play, Big Stone City is another team that comes to play. We kind of play everything within our region, and then we kind of reach out and get a few other towns to come here and play.
We're hosting a Heritage tournament on June 19th through the 22nd, and we've got 12 teams coming, and we've got teams like Dell Rapids is coming here and Groton is coming here, Lake Norden, Volga is coming here. So we've got a good cross mix of teams coming here, and we're going to play four pools and play Round Robin and have some exciting games here on that particular weekend.
Craig Mattick: Last one for you, Ron. What does American Legion Baseball mean for the kids in Milbank?
Ron Krause: Well, I think we're seeing the way society is right now with kids. Kids have so much pulling at them in every direction possible. I mean there's all aspects of the world are at their beck and call and there's pulling them every direction from basketball to track to everything that's out there. And the good athletes and the good kids, I think want to come out. We're seeing our numbers increase quite a bit this year, and I think it's because of what we're hosting this year and kids want to be a part of it. And I think, like I said, I coach Legion Baseball for a reason, it's because I believe in what the code says and how kids need to act and how they need to present themselves. And I think overall, I think kids have really become accustomed to that. I think it's something they've attached themselves to.
Craig Mattick: In Play with Craig Mattick is made possible by Horton in Britton, where smiling at work happens all the time. Apply now at hortonww.com. If you like what you're hearing, please give us a five star review wherever you get your podcast. It helps us gain new listeners. This has been In Play with me, Craig Mattick. This is a production of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.
