Coaches are big key to Minnesota American Legion Baseball

By John Sherman
Craig Anderson is the executive director of the Minnesota High School Baseball Coaches Association and is an advocate of American Legion Baseball. Photo by John Sherman

MAPLE GROVE — Craig Anderson, executive director of the Minnesota High School Baseball Association, never gets enough baseball.

For the second year in a row he is serving as a site coordinator at the American Legion Division I State Tournament. The 2023 State Tournament was a lot closer to Anderson’s hometown of Pine Island with headquarters in Rochester. This year, he traveled all the way to Delano to work at Legion ballgames.

Anderson sees the synergy between high school and American Legion Baseball, based on how the programs mesh in Pine Island.

“Legion Baseball gives high school players twice the opportunity to have fun,” Coach Anderson said. “Some of the players I coached in high school had dads who are Legion members. They were great partners in the summer program.”

Pine Island won the State Division II American Legion title in 1995. It is always nice to win championships, but the experience of Legion ball offers more than that with its emphasis on sportsmanship, teamwork and Americanism.

“I have always had a lot of respect for the American Legion,” Coach Anderson said. “My dad was a Purple Heart recipient in World War II. He was wounded in France on the sixth day of the invasion. After he recovered, he returned home to the farm and raised six kids.”

As one of those kids, Craig Anderson was a star athlete at Mabel-Canton High School in Southern Minnesota. He took his baseball skills to Winona State University where he became captain and an All-Northern Intercollegiate Conference pitcher. He graduated from Winona in 1975. Anderson’s wife Sue was his “high school sweetheart.”

To be able to stay in coaching as long as I have, you need a great partner,” Anderson said. “Sue is fantastic.”

In addition to coaching baseball for 36 years at Pine Island, Anderson taught sixth grade and coached eighth-grade football.

He coached Legion ball all but two summers, when he took time off to spend more time with his two young children.

After retiring from education, Anderson became executive director of the high school baseball coaches group.