World Series Team 2017

2017 World Series Team-Front Row: Riley Way, Nate Savolainen, Ryder Shoults, Jackson Fuller, Cooper Lund
Middle Row: Coach Brad Neumayer, Kolt Olson, Chase Adkison, Chris Powell, Alex Light, Coach Kevin Maurer
Back Row: Julian Washburn, Danny Robinson, Luke White, Kyle VanBoeyen, AJ Davis, Jaden Phillips, Wyatt Baldwin

World Series Team 2001


Lewiston's American Legion (Lewis-Clark Post 13) baseball team won its 39th Idaho state championship July 30 in Twin Falls by beating Idaho Falls 3-2 in 10 innings. That is more state titles than any other Idaho team.
Maybe it doesn't seem unusual that the Legion team has won so many titles because, after all, the small college national world series (NAIA) is played in Lewiston, and the local Lewis-Clark State College team has won it 19 times. Fifteen of the LCSC players have made it to the major leagues. After all, Lewiston had a minor league professional baseball team for more than 20 years (1937, 1939 and 1952-74); and after all, Lewiston has the lowest elevation (700 feet), and this is good summertime temperatures for baseball.
Based on those "after alls," Lewiston must have had American Legion baseball forever, maybe around 100 years. Well, not really, because the organization called the American Legion didn't start nationally, and in Lewiston, until after World War I in 1910.
Legion baseball started in the United States and in Idaho in 1926, but Lewiston didn't have its first team until 1939. Before tournament games, the players from each team line up and repeat these touching words:
American Legion
Code of Sportsmanship
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.
The idea of American Legion Baseball from the beginning was that local play in each state would lead to state champions and work its way up to a Legion World Series and a national champion.
Two significant events happened at Lewis-Clark Post 13 in the late 1930s. In 1938, it built a new home at 1121 Eighth Ave., a block from Lewiston High School, and in 1939, the post began sponsoring a local Legion baseball team. Over 70 years later, post members are still meeting at the same location and, as mentioned earlier, the baseball team is still going strong. Lewiston High's then-new coach, Dunc Branom, started baseball at the school in 1938, and a year later, he started and coached the first team in 1939, and he also coached the 1940 and 1941 teams.
Dwight Church was a 14-year-old on that 1939 team, but he played on the next three state championship teams (1940, '41 and '42), and went on to be the most well-known name in the history of Legion baseball in Lewiston. After graduating from Lewiston High in 1943, he served in the Navy. He attended North Idaho College of Education (now LCSC) after the war and played a couple of years of minor league baseball. In the 1950s, he began coaching the high school and Legion teams in Lewiston. He coached until his death in 1994, and by that time, he had an unbelievable 2,436 wins, including 23 state championships. He coached all four of his sons, was named to the Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame, and the Lewiston High baseball field in the Orchards is named Church Field in his honor.
Another top-notch athlete was a very good left-handed-hitting first baseman on that 1939 team, Bob "Gabby" (no one called him Bob) Williams. He was a good professional baseball player and later a top coach at his home high school in Lewiston and later in Oregon, before becoming a principal. Snag Moore was also a good young player on that first team who went on to play minor league baseball.
In 1940, the team not only had Church, Williams, Jim Lambert, Vearl "Snag" Moore, Jack Ulrich and Don White back, but it added two very good players from Clarkston: Rollie McNair and Howard "Nig" Kafer. McNair played first base, and Kafer was a pitcher.
McNair was a good college athlete at NICE after the war. In 1950, he was one of the leading small-college basketball scorers in the nation. He was a longtime coach in Lewiston-area schools.
It was Ozzie Kanikkeberg's second season, and he, like some others on the 1942 team, had at least one more year of eligibility, but Lewiston didn't have teams in 1943, '44 or '45 because of World War II. After Navy duty in the war, the little infielder from the small town of Kendrick played baseball four years at the University of Idaho. After graduation, he became one of the most popular and successful small school basketball coaches in Idaho history. His teams won more than 600 games, including three state champions at Genesee. He is a member of the Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame and the Idaho High School Activities Association Hall of Fame.
As you can see, Lewiston's very successful American Legion Baseball program got off to a great start just before and at the beginning of World War II. The boys on the first teams have all passed away after military service and long, productive civilian lives.
Riggs played for the Lewis-Clark American Legion Idaho State Champion teams of 1948, '49 and '50.
1941 American Legion team-members include, back row from left: Rollie McNair, Jim Lambert, John White,
Dwight Church, Emmet Callan and Coach Dunc Branom.  Middle row: batboy Orville Ryther, Oz Kanikkeberg,
Tom Arnold, Ron White, Ken McCormack and batboy Gordy White, Front Row: Ken Wylde, Jack Brannon,
Don Phillips, Snag Moore and Nig Kafer.
September 5, 1973. Over 4,400 people attended the final game of the American Legion World Series, held in Lewiston at Bengal Field. Puerto Rico defeated Memphis in 10 innings.

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