Little League Baseball

Pitcher Tyler Pinkerton, 12, strides determinedly to the mound at Bruce Henry Park in Williamsport, Pa. His team has just taken a 6-4 lead in the bottom of the third, and his pre-inning warm-up pitches sizzle in to catcher Andy Engler, reflecting the team’s new spark. Pinkerton strikes out the side, and his TurnKey Construction team goes on to score eight more runs in the final innings on its way to a 14-4 victory over archrival Montoursville.

Last year’s Little League season opener in Williamsport (pop. 30,706) was typical of the millions of games played each year by more than 2.7 million boys and girls in 105 countries around the world, from Argentina to Saudi Arabia.

However, each Little League game in Williamsport is special too, because each pitch continues a legacy that began six decades ago: Williamsport is the birthplace of Little League and home of the Little League World Series since 1947.

Little League got its start in 1938 when Carl E. Stotz devised the rules and field dimensions of his boys’ baseball program. A year later, he established the first "little league" with a trio of Williamsport-area teams. Back then, Lycoming Diary, Lundy Lumber and Jumbo Pretzel each kicked in $30 for uniforms to help launch the inaugural season. In return, the teams honored their sponsors by adopting the businesses’ names. Those original sponsorships have burgeoned into a venerable staple of Little League play, with companies such as TurnKey Construction now carrying on the custom all over the globe.

Baseball has always provided a fertile ground for imitating heroes and nurturing future dreams. Engler, 12, proudly shows off the orange No. 9 on the back of his uniform, selected for his hero, an unlikely one for a child Engler’s age: legendary Hall of Famer Ted Williams.

"I’m a Red Sox fan," he says. "I like him because he went in the army and stuff and helped his country and then still played baseball."

Engler’s teammate, Pinkerton emulates his idol, Anaheim Angels outfielder Vladimir Guerrero, whenever he’s at bat, fueling a vision that reaches beyond Little League. "I have a dream to play major league baseball," he says.

It’s no idle reverie. Major League Hall of Famers Carl Yastrzemski, Mike Schmidt and Nolan Ryan, as well as former Williamsport-area star and current New York Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina, are all former Little Leaguers, as were President George W. Bush, singer Bruce Springsteen, and actors Kevin Costner and Tom Selleck.

Those notable Little League players and professional athletes are honored at the Peter J. McGovern Little League Baseball Museum in neighboring South Williamsport (pop. 6,412). Nearly 25,000 people annually trek through the museum to witness a collection of baseball artifacts and memorabilia and experience interactive displays, like batting and pitching cages.

Hallowed ground

The soul of Williamsport lies in its collective heartbeat for baseball. As you walk about the town, you tend to tread softly, because nearly everywhere you go you’re on hallowed ground. In the sense that Boston’s Fenway Park, Chicago’s Wrigley Field and New York’s Yankee Stadium embody sacredness, Williamsport is their near equal, boasting not one but two venerable fields of play—iconic venues that have shared the experience of hosting the youth sport’s crown jewel, the Little League World Series, scheduled Aug. 19-28.

"It’s like walking into Yankee Stadium, where you’re surrounded by history," says Lycoming County resident Bill Kelly, 55, of Memorial Park, the original site for Little League baseball from 1942 to 1958. "That’s where the World Series once was held. To play on the same field with the original kids from the ’30s and ’40s, from when it all began, it doesn’t get any better than that. Both my sons have certificates that say ‘I played on Original.’ And they’ve got them from Lamade, too."

Howard E. Lamade Stadium, Little League’s own Field of Dreams, is the 10,000-seat championship ballpark that has housed the World Series since 1959. The stadium, the mecca for Little League baseball, annually hosts the world’s 16 best teams, which vie for the Little League crown each August.

"When you walk into Lamade," says Ed Pinkerton, 43, a Little League manager and father of Tyler, "it’s the same kind of feeling you get when you go to the ocean. You kind of stand there for a bit. You look out at it. You say, ‘That’s a little bigger than life. That’s something I don’t see everyday.’"

Though the Little League World Series has produced its heroes over the years, like Angel Macias, the pitcher from Monterrey, Mexico, who hurled a perfect game in the 1957 championship final, it is rarely the team with one dominating player that reaches Williamsport.

"It’s not the best players in the world but the team that happens to put it all together that makes it here," says Lance Van Auken, senior communications executive for Little League Baseball Inc. "Out of the 6,500 or so kids who have played in the Little League World Series, 24 made it to the major leagues for a cup of coffee or more. It’s a pretty tiny number compared to the whole. That shows it’s much more of a team effort than an individual one."

A different game

Little League isn’t the same game that was played back in the 1950s, when wraparound "shells" were the only protective head gear a batter wore and 8- to 12-year-olds boys all played in one league. Today, players wear helmets, girls play alongside boys, and Little League is divided into nine separate divisions that encompass ages 5 through 18, including the Challenger Division, designed for special needs children.

"For kids growing up in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, and even into the ’70s, Little League was probably the only game in town," says Stephen Keener, Little League Baseball Inc. president and chief executive officer. "Today, there are many more choices for kids—everything from the Internet to video games to other youth sports programs and activities. We’re a grassroots, community-oriented program that’s available for any child who wants to participate. We’re not going to try to be like everybody else; we’re going to be what we’ve always been."

Across America

Twenty-three hundred miles southwest of Williamsport, in the old copper mining town of Bisbee, Ariz., Little Leaguers gather at Eddie King Field. The town was granted the state’s first Little League charter in 1953, and since then, Bisbee Little League has never been without the Hammett family, whose four generations of involvement include current District 8 commissioner Butch Hammett, and his brother, Todd, Bisbee Little League president.

In attendance is the Hammetts’ mother, Sue, 64, who has taken in Little League games at the park since the mid-1950s. She breaks down the generations: "Well, there was my dad," she says, "then Butch and Todd’s dad, Butch and Todd, and now we have their kids, another generation, playing."

Mrs. Hammett recalls the town’s one close brush with Little League immortality. "One year, when my dad was coaching, they won the state and went to California," she recollects of the 1956 Bisbee Little Leaguers. "If they had won there, they would have gone to Williamsport."

Over her shoulder, out on the mound of Eddie King Field, 9-year-old Anthony Edward Castellano strikes out one of the 14 batters he will fan that afternoon, en route to pacing his Cubs to a 5-1 victory over the Marlins.

Later, Castellano sums up the experience of Little League, giving the overriding reason why more than 2 million kids across America suit up each summer and pick up a bat or glove and throw a ball: "Just to have fun," he reminds us.

Alan Ross is a freelance writer in Bisbee, Ariz.

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