Rochester A's Legion baseball national championship ride of 2003 left an indelible mark

Jul. 28—ROCHESTER — Twenty years ago this summer, the Rochester A's

American Legion baseball team

went on an ultimate three-month winning ride that finished in the 100-degree heat of Bartlesville, Okla.

It was an unprecedented ride that hasn't been matched since by a Rochester team.

And it actually didn't end in Bartlesville. There was one last stop two months later for that bunch: A two-day stint at Yankee Stadium in Bronx, N.Y.

That was the prize for accomplishing what they did, winning the American Legion baseball World Series. The A's received a paid trip to watch Games 1 and 2 of the Major League Baseball World Series between the New York Yankees and Florida Marlins.

Two months after they'd beaten Cherryville, N.C., 5-2 on Aug. 26 in the Legion championship in Bartlesville — longtime A's taskmaster and beloved coach Keith Kangas finishing things off by telling his guys to "get their shirts tucked in" before shaking hands with the runner-up Cherryville players — the A's sat in the lower bowl of Yankee Stadium.

To the victor went the spoils and the A's collection of Dan Lyons, Ted Garry, Lee Anderson, Jay Kasner, Justin Grant, Cris Collins, Nate Bower, Ronnie Olson, Tom Lyons, Aaron Craig, Mike Badger, Alex Kangas, Drew Zafft, Jordan Kangas, Ben Olofson and Tom Sheehan could never have imagined being spoiled quite like this.

"We got to go onto the field before the first game (of the World Series) started," said A's pitcher/right fielder Kasner, who was by then two months into college at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn., but broke away to be with his A's teammates. "When the game started, we got to sit deep down in the stadium. It was one of the last World Series games ever at Yankee Stadium."

For the A's players, winning the American Legion state tournament in Rochester, then the Central Plains Regional tournament in New Ulm and finally the World Series in Bartlesville was not a hat trick any of them were predicting. At the same time, this was a group that bet on itself every step of the way.

And they had the perfect man directing them in Kangas — who died in 2019 at the age of 62 — a coach they revered for his ability to get every ounce out of them.

Their World Series championship was long in the making and one that became more plausible with every passing season. For the bulk of them, their time together started in the fifth grade when so many of them were already playing travel baseball together as a select group of Rochester north-siders.

"We had set out to play for that (World Series) moment not just in the 2003 season but long before that," said A's shortstop Lyons, who played a rare four years for the A's and would later star at the University of Minnesota before having a long minor-league career. "Starting in fifth grade, we had a great core of guys who were already playing together. This World Series was eight years in the making."

All but two of the A's were from Rochester Century, the other two — Kasner and Garry — from Rochester Lourdes.

There was a hint that something special might be brewing in 2002. That spring Kasner and Garry starred on a Lourdes team that won a high school baseball state title. Century followed that the next year by winning the 2003 big-school high school baseball state championship.

The bulk of those Century players immediately went from winning that state crown to within days rolling right into the A's season.

"After winning the state (high school) tournament, we kind of wanted to just bask in that," said Lyons, an All-State player for that Century team. "But because Legion started right away, we had to go back to work. But as far as focus, we were even more motivated to (win) again. We knew what we had and we knew what we were adding to the team."

Not only did the A's have a bunch of Century stars on that 2003 Legion club, including lights-out pitcher Craig who was throwing 90 mph, but they also had star Lourdes pitchers Garry and Kasner. Garry went on to pitch at Division I University of Connecticut, while Kasner played outfield at St. John's.

The A's pitching staff was an embarrassment of riches, likely the best Legion staff ever assembled in Rochester. Almost all of their top five guys hit the upper-80s with their pitches. That included Badger, who had one year of college under his belt when he rejoined the A's in 2003, the burly redhead having pitched at Madison Technical College but still met the age requirement to play Legion ball.

The A's were just as impressive at the plate. They began the 2003 state tournament with a cumulative batting average of .378, the top mark ever by a Kangas team, who was in his 23rd year of coaching the A's. Garry took a .486 batting average into the state tournament, Kasner .430, Grant .429, Lee Anderson .419 and Dan Lyons .383 with a team-leading eight home runs.

It wasn't just jaw-dropping statistics that the A's hauled with them to the state tournament, but also a jaw-dropping record, 39-3. That included having won the prestigious Gopher Classic tournament in the Twin Cities.

"I've been coaching and had played baseball for a long time," said Kangas' son, 40-year-old Blake Kangas, who assisted his father at times with that 2003 team and is now the baseball director of player development at Oklahoma State University. "That 2003 team may be one of the only teams I've ever been around that could turn things on and off like water. If they needed runs, they'd go, 'here we go,' and go get them. If they needed outs it was, 'here we go.' They were just really talented. It was just a special year."

One more crucial thing accompanied them to the state tournament and beyond. It was the wisdom of how to play and win. That had been drilled into them the previous few years by Keith Kangas, who was forever known for his direct nature when it came to playing baseball "the right way."

Effort and focus was his constant demand. When players fell short of delivering either, Kangas let them hear about it, sometimes even removing them from games in the middle of innings to make his point.

Lyons said that nearly all of the A's were confronted by Kangas at some point in their Legion careers, and because of it rarely made the same mistake twice.

But Lyons noted something different about that 2003 season when it came to their coach. Kangas' reprimanding — which Lyons said all of them respected and even appreciated when it was directed at them — all but went away. At least it did for that one championship season.

There was little reminding left for the coach to do. It seemed all of the A's had learned their lessons and learned them well. In his four years playing under Kangas, Lyons had never seen him more relaxed.

"Kangas understood what it took and he knew a lot of us wanted to play beyond high school," Lyons said. "When you weren't doing what you were supposed to, he let you know. I saw a lot of that early in my career under him. But when it came to my last year (2003), he pretty much just let us play. Most of us had already been with him for two to three years and we had a good group of leaders. He started to let his players enforce some things, so he was able to sort of sit back and manage the team. That was a big change for him. But he had great relationships with everyone on that team. We all had a great amount of mutual respect with him."

The A's played the state tournament at home, their games at Mayo Field. Feeling some pressure as the event's favorite and host, the A's struggled to hit at state. Still, those struggles weren't enough to prevent them from winning the title, the A's going a perfect 5-0 and stretching their win streak to 25 games.

"We didn't play as well as we are capable of," A's third baseman/pitcher Grant said at the time. "That's just because we didn't get the bats going as well as we had been all season. But there was a lot of pressure in the state tournament. I would say playing in front of our neighbors and friends affected us. We were all a little bit nervous. We felt like we had to win in the state tournament and we knew that everyone was shooting at us."

It marked the final time that season that the A's would claim anxiousness. They'd accomplished what they'd expected of themselves, winning the state title. After that, as Lyons put it, "we were kind of playing with house money."

The A's next headed 130 miles away to New Ulm, site of the Great Plains Regional. It was more of the same there. The A's snared that title, going 4-1. Those four wins included a spectacular end to a rained-delayed championship contest with New Ulm Gold.

Leading 6-4 and New Ulm down to its last out but with men on first and second base, the skies opened. For 2 1/2 hours the contest was delayed by what turned into a deluge. Finally, at midnight, the game was suspended and scheduled to resume 12 hours later, at noon.

What had figured to be a late dinner for the A's had now turned into whatever they could scrounge up for a literal midnight-snack. With no New Ulm restaurants open at that hour near their hotel, the A's players instead found a 24-hour grocery store to satisfy their hunger. Badger, who had been pitching when the game was suspended, went for what he called "one of those refrigerated lunches."

He ate it while thinking about something that he and Lyons had talked about in the dugout during that long rain delay. Shortstop and pitcher came up with the idea of trying to pick the New Ulm runner off of second base once the game resumed.

Turns out Kangas had the same notion, the coach presenting it to the team just before gametime. He instructed Badger to throw one strike to make the count full, hoping to then get baserunner Dusty Wilfahrt leaning off of second base on Badger's next offering. Wilfahrt obliged, Badger spun and threw to Lyons covering at second and Wilfahrt was then chased down for the final out.

Just like that, the game was over, and the A's were headed to the World Series, the first and only Rochester team to ever do it.

Five blisteringly hot days later in Bartlesville, Okla., after winning five games and losing one in the American Legion World Series, the A's had done it. Center fielder Garry drifted under a fly ball for the third and final out of the championship game with Cherryville, and the Rochester celebration was on.

Per coach Kangas' instructions, they tucked in their shirts, made their way to the handshake line, an appropriate way to cap an astounding 52-5 season and an American Legion World Series championship.

"We hit and pitched really well, and the cards fell just right," Kasner said. "And we had a lot of fun. Winning helps keep it fun, but I'd say we were all friends and had a great time together both on and off the field. If we saw each other today, I'm sure we'd pick up right where we left off."