Little League World Series: Little League has grown sharply since 1939, along the road for Williamsport
Little League World Series: Welcome to Williamsport, the birthplace of Little League Baseball. The main highway transforms into a series of passing zones, as signs arise along the road for Williamsport and South Williamsport. Carl Stotz was playing baseball with his nephews out back in the yard or in the neighborhood, and the story goes, he tripped over a tree branch and wound up spraining his ankle, explained Adam Thompson, assistant director and a curator of the Little League Museum
The main highway transforms into a series of passing zones, as signs arise along the road for Williamsport and South Williamsport.
As the miles tick by, more billboards for fast food chains and beer manufacturers emerge like pop culture paintings from the cornfields and thickets on either side of the car.
The road suddenly opens up to a four-lane speedway, and soon, on the right, there’s a sign for the Peter J. McGovern Little League Museum. But with a deceiving hidden driveway, a wrong turn leads down a path where to the right looms Howard J. Lamade stadium, the site of the Little League World Series.
Welcome to Williamsport, the birthplace of Little League Baseball.
Small beginnings
This area in 1939 saw the beginnings of Carl Stotz’s dream: to create organized baseball for young boys, who otherwise would have taken to the street or the sandlot to play like the big guys.
“Carl Stotz was playing baseball with his nephews out back in the yard or in the neighborhood, and the story goes, he tripped over a tree branch and wound up spraining his ankle,” explained Adam Thompson, assistant director and a curator of the Little League Museum.
“He thought there may be an idea there of starting a better place for kids to play baseball.”
Story or not, Stotz, who had no sons, pitched the idea to his two nephews, Jimmy and Major Gehron. The Gehron boys fell in love with the idea of playing on an actual diamond, with real uniforms and equipment — which, thanks to a $30 “corporate” sponsorship, were easy to supply.
Stotz started the first baseball league for boys in his own neighborhood. The first three teams — Lycoming Dairy, Lundy Lumber and Jumbo Pretzels — played in a vacant lot near Bowman Field, home to the Williamsport Grays (now called the Williamsport Crosscutters), and were managed by Stotz and two brothers who also lived in the neighborhood, George and Bert Bebble.
Expanding the series
It would take another eight years until the board of eight directors for the original Little League — Stotz and his wife, Grayce, the Bebble brothers and their wives, Annabelle and Eloise, and neighborhood friends John and Peggy Lindemuth — decided to host the National Little League Tournament.
The group invited all known Little League programs — 17 in all, with only one team hailing from outside Pennsylvania: the Hammonton All Stars from New Jersey.
Of the 11 teams that participated in the series, another Pennsylvania team, the Maynard Midgets of Williamsport, snatched the first National Little League Tournament title by defeating the Lock Haven All Stars, 16-7.
Less than a decade after that first series, Howard J. Lamade Stadium was built, just in time for the 1959 Little League World Series. Originally called Howard J. Lamade Memorial Field, it now seats, in the stadium and on the hilly landscape surrounding the field, approximately 45,000 fans for the series of pool play and World Series games held every year in mid-August.
A popular organization
The first World Series tournament in 1947 was an eye-opener, not just for other youngsters who wanted to dream big — big league big, that is — but it was also a new venue for business advertising in the Williamsport area.
“After other businesses saw that first season — that kids were having fun and other kids wanted to join them — they saw it as a nice way to advertise and help out the players at the same time, to make sure the kids were off the streets,” Thompson said.
Sponsors’ names sprawled across uniform jerseys and in ballparks, and provided much of the equipment for Little League teams. The first major corporate sponsor was U.S. Rubber — now called Uniroyal.
And just as the sponsors came knocking on Little League’s door, the media responded in kind as well.
The Saturday Evening Post picked up on the growing excitement over the new organization in a feature run in 1949. The article reached more than 14 million people, and with additional newsreels broadcasting the results of the 1948 World Series, millions more viewed the tournament and the success of Little League Baseball.
The stories of Little League expanded from just the newspaper to television in 1960, with the first live televised World Series final on ABC.
Home viewers could finally see the World Series in color in 1966, once again on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. And 34 years later, regional games were aired on ESPN2 for the first time.
Today, viewers can watch all the Little League World Series games on ESPN and ESPN2.
By the numbers
The word spread from simply small town Pennsylvania to a more national stage, and Stotz traveled around the country to talk with other areas that wanted a Little League program of their own.
In 1946, 12 leagues existed solely in Pennsylvania. That number jumped to 94 leagues scattered throughout the nation just two years later.
By the beginning of the 1960s, the 11 teams in that first World Series gave way to more than 20,000 teams in 5,500 community leagues.
To accommodate the increase of the number of participants, the Little League World Series expanded in 2001 to allow 16 teams to compete. With the increase of participants, Little League officials also built Volunteer Stadium, a 5,000-seat facility, which opened in 2001.
By 1990, 39 countries were part of Little League, and by this year’s World Series, 2.6 million players participate in Little League Baseball. Stotz, who died in 1992 at the age of 82, could not have imagined how great the growth for Little League would be.
There are different categories split by age group. In baseball, for example, the divisions consist of tee ball, minor league, 9-10 year olds, little league (or major), junior league, senior league and big league. Also, in 1990, the Challenger Division was established for mentally and physically disabled children who wanted to play as well.
Hall of Excellence
If one visits the Peter J. McGovern Little League Museum, one of the last exhibits a visitor will see is the Hall of Excellence — a room with subdued lighting and red carpeting showcasing some of the major names of people who have played in Little League Baseball when they were young.
Children visiting the museum may not recognize some of the celebrities — like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Selleck, or Kevin Costner — but Cal Ripken Jr., Mark McGwire and even President George W. Bush can resonate with Little Leaguers.
“The Hall of Excellence is like a hall of fame for former Little League Baseball players,” Thompson said. “We wanted people that played Little League and took what they learned and used it in their careers, real role models for Little League players today.”
And there are even some names that haven’t reached “celebrity status,” per se, like Michael Cammarata, a firefighter from Staten Island, N.Y., who was last seen rushing into the chaos on Sept. 11, 2001.
Such faces adorning the walls in the museum may make a deeper impact on Little Leaguers who pay a visit.
“It’s a way of reminding kids that what you’re learning in Little League now — teamwork, character, courage, loyalty — these people have taken that into their adult lives,” Thompson said.
The story goes…
Little League began with a story about an uncle who wanted a safe playing environment for his nephews to play baseball.
Thousands more have participated in the sport and have their own stories to tell about their Little League experience. Many have even donated their stories — in the form of old rosters, uniforms, baseballs and bats — to the Little League Museum so that others may share in the history of Little League.
As the Little League World Series concludes this weekend at Howard J. Lamade Stadium, more stories will be told and created.
“(The World Series) is something you really need to experience,” Thompson said. “It’s like a carnival atmosphere. And everyone who comes in here, they have their own Little League stories. I mean, I remember my first hit in a Little League game. That was almost 23 years ago, but I can’t remember what I ate yesterday.
“It’s become one of those things that’s a part of growing up in the United States.”
Little League World Series: Welcome to Williamsport, the birthplace of Little League Baseball. The main highway transforms into a series of passing zones, as signs arise along the road for Williamsport and South Williamsport. Carl Stotz was playing baseball with his nephews out back in the yard or in the neighborhood, and the story goes, he tripped over a tree branch and wound up spraining his ankle, explained Adam Thompson, assistant director and a curator of the Little League Museum
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