NEW ORLEANS — Danny Riehm enters his 6th season as head coach of the now-Gibbs Construction Cardinals.
Another talent-rich team, 23-4 on the legion season.
The full roster available, here.
“A lot of people think, oh they get to mix all of the seniors from the area together, but it’s not that simple. This is a group of kids that have never played together before as a team until this year. So, you’ve got to build chemistry and it’s not easy to do in a short period of time. Playing the district tournament here at the end of June, early July, we had about 4 weeks to figure this thing out,” says Gibbs Construction head baseball coach Danny Riehm.
The Cardinals clinched their spot in the Legion State Tournament last week with a walk-off win over Townsend Homes Blue.
Riehm and the Cardinals have won the state tournament in the 2016, 2017, and 2019 seasons.
The Cardinals capped off the 2019 season winning 22 of their last 24 games and a semi-final appearance in the American Legion Baseball World Series.
“I tell people all the time, when we made the run to the world series in 2019, it was divinely orchestrated. There are things that happened within that run to the world series that I can only look to the heavens above to understand,” says Riehm.
Riehm says the world series experience in Shelby, North Carolina is like no other.
“It’s the greatest thing I think an 18-year-old baseball player can do. You play in front of 6 and 7,000 people. The whole town of Shelby, North Carolina shuts down and it’s all about that tournament that week. The cars are parked down the road when you’re pulling up on the bus to go play your game. The games are on ESPN. The coolest thing for me is that you walk in the hotel and Gene Stephenson, a guy that went toe-to-toe with Skip Bertman in the College World Series is ready to talk to me about our Cardinals team when we got to Shelby. So, it’s just so special. The people up there are great, and I’d love to get back,” says Riehm.
An experience he’d like to share with the 2021 Cardinals.
The American Legion Baseball State Tournament begins Friday, July 9th.
The full schedule is available below:
