California American Legion Baseball: ‘The Best Show on Dirt’

The American Legion, Department of California Baseball program has been partnering posts and local high school teams to play competitive baseball across the state for over the past 90 years. This partnership supports the values of the American Legion and promotes youth sports, family, community and patriotism.  Bringing together veterans and youth athletes and their families has proven to be extremely successful in educating the community at each game to what it truly means to be a veteran, and to respect and honor their sacrifice of military service.

The California State Championship Baseball Tournament has been held for four decades in a quiet, rural community in Napa Valley on a pastoral diamond located adjacent to a VA Veterans Home and Medical Center. The veterans from the Home and the Medical Center annually enjoyed in their own backyard “The Best Show on Dirt.”

This year brings great promise in the opportunity to host the State Championship Tournament at a major metropolitan city and raise the level of awareness across all aspects of the community as to the value, benefits, and the pure joy of the highest levels of youth baseball that the State Championship Tournament brings out of the dugout and onto the field.  The mandate of the Commander of the Department of California is to establish an annual rotation of tournament sites where an elite level diamond is co-located with VA facilities across California where the Championship visits and promotes and grows the bond between the community and veterans through youth sports.

Elite high school age teams, representing each of the six regional American Legion Areas across California, come together each year under the warm summer sun to compete for the State Championship title and represent the hundreds of Posts, thousands of Legionnaires, Auxiliary members, Sons and Legion Riders that comprise the Legion family. For the first time ever, they will compete under the bright lights of a modern stadium, on television, and their families will enjoy the complete support of the community in which the tournament is being hosted.  Each athlete who competes in the championship will be shown an opportunity in their athletic future, to play the game against the toughest opponent in the most pristine of conditions, in stadiums and on fields that could be realized in their collegiate or professional baseball careers.

• 75% of American Legion players went on to play collegiate baseball.
• 51% of Major League baseball players played American Legion baseball.
• Over 80 American Legion baseball players have been inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.

In 2021, the strong and vibrant veterans’ community of Clovis, California will be the championship host.  The thousands of veterans who live in Clovis, and the multitude of veterans’ service organizations that they are members of and support on a daily basis, have come together under the leadership of the Clovis Veterans Memorial District to host this years State Championship Baseball Tournament.

The opportunity to bring together the immense enthusiasm, commitment, and support from the veterans’ community and the multitude of Clovis civic organizations equals the highest level of community engagement the State Championship program has ever enjoyed. The excitement that is being generated within the Department is at an all time high and the community momentum and support is building to send for the first time over two decades a team representing California to the American legion World Series.

The importance of the contributions of the veterans to the community is brought onto the field and between the baselines as the athletes and their families become more aware of the patriotism, morals and ethics that the American Legion Baseball Program exemplifies.  Integrity, hard work, community engagement and respect for the flag of the United States of America that each and every veteran who has worn a uniform served proudly to protect needs to be recognized by todays youth.  Patriotism needs to be taught to our youth so as not to be lost with our senior veterans.  The timeless connection between the youth athletes of today and our veterans is America’s favorite pastime, the game of baseball.