Kevin Leighton - Inducted 2021

Kevin Leighton logged numerous records during a 34-year South Dakota amateur baseball career with Madison and Canova. where he hit a state tournament record 24 home runs. His career stats include a .480 batting average and a state record 501 home runs. Each year he helped his teams to the state tournament, . He played on 10 state championship teams and five runners-up. In 1998, at age 40, he hit safely in all seven plate appearances, collecting five home runs, two doubles and two intentional walks to help Madison defeat Salem 30-29 in 11 innings.

He passed up his final two years of American Legion baseball to make his first amateur baseball appearance at age 17. He retired in 2009 at age 51, helping the Canova Gang to a state tournament crown.

Leighton earned MVP honors on South Dakota’s team that won the Men’s Senior Baseball World Series in Arizona in 1993. He also competed in the Roy Hobbs Senior Baseball World Series in Florida in 2008.

He won multiple state tournament MVP awards and was named South Dakota’s independent athlete of the year by the South Dakota Sportswriters Association in 1999.