Little League Baseball and Softball (officially, Little League Baseball Inc) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization"Little League Baseball Inc, EIN: 23-1688231". Tax Exempt Organization Search. Internal Revenue Service. Retrieved August 22, 2018."Form 990: Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax". Little League Baseball Incorporated. Guidestar. September 30, 2017. based in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, United States, which organizes local youth baseball and softball leagues throughout the United States and the rest of the world.
It was founded in 1939 by Carl Edwin Stotz as a three-team league in the adjacent larger town of Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The ensuing Little League organization was incorporated on October 10, 1950, with Stotz serving as the organization's first commissioner for 18 years until 1955."Little League Baseball Inc ". Corporation Search. Pennsylvania Department of State. Retrieved August 22, 2018. Little League Baseball encourages local volunteers to organize and operate Little League franchise programs that are annually chartered through Little League International. Each local league can structure itself to best serve the children in the area in which the league operates. Several specific divisions of Little League baseball and softball are available to children and adolescents ages 4 to 16. The organization holds a congressional charter authorized by the United States Congress under Title 36 of the United States Code.Section 130501(a) of Title 36 of the United States Code provides that Little League Baseball, Incorporated is a "federally chartered corporation".
The organization's administrative office is located in South Williamsport of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. The first Little League Baseball World Series was played in Williamsport in 1947. The Little League International Complex in South Williamsport hosts the annual tournament of the Little League Baseball World Series at Howard J. Lamade Stadium and adjacent Little League Volunteer Stadium, and is also the site of the Peter J. McGovern Little League Museum, which provides a history of Little League Baseball and Softball through interactive exhibits for children. Many Major League Baseball (MLB) players past and present in the National League and American League have started out playing in their local community / neighborhood Little Leagues.
History
Carl Edwin Stotz (1910–1992), a longtime resident of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, founded Little League Baseball in 1939. He began experimenting with his idea in the summer of 1938 when he gathered his nephews, Jimmy and Major Gehron, and their neighborhood friends. They tried different field dimensions over the course of the summer and played several informal games. The following summer, they felt that they were ready to establish what later became Little League Baseball. The first small league organized in Williamsport had just three teams, each sponsored by a different business. The first teams, Jumbo Pretzel, Lycoming Dairy, and Lundy Lumber Company were managed by Stotz and his friends, George and Bert Bebble. The men, joined by their wives and another couple, formed the first Little League board of directors.
The first league game took place on June 6, 1939, when Lundy Lumber defeated Lycoming Dairy, 23–8. Lycoming Dairy became the champions of the first half of the season and then defeated Lundy Lumber, the second-half champions, in a best-of-three championship series. The following year, a second league was formed in Williamsport, and Little League Baseball grew to become an international organization with nearly 200,000 teams in every U.S. state and more than 80 countries.
Kathryn "Tubby" Johnston Massar was the first woman to play in a Little League baseball game, in 1950. However, when that season ended, a Little League meeting was held, and it was decided that girls would be banned from Little League baseball. From 1951 through 1973, Little League baseball was restricted to boys only. In 1974, due to a lawsuit brought on behalf of Maria Pepe by the National Organization for Women, the New Jersey Superior Court decided that Little League baseball must allow girls to play. In the final week of December 1974, President Gerald Ford, signed a bill that opened Little League baseball to girls. p.26
According to the Little League Baseball and Softball participation statistics following the 2008 season, there were nearly 2.6 million boys and girls in Little League Baseball worldwide. Of these, approximately 400,000 are registered in softball leagues (including both boys and girls). Starting in 2022, for tournament purposes, Little League Baseball was divided into 20 geographic regions: ten national and ten international. Each summer, Little League operates seven World Series tournaments in various locations throughout the U.S. (Little League softball and Junior, Senior, and Big League baseball and softball).
Timeline
Early years 1939: Little League is established by Carl E. Stotz, George Bebble, and Bert Bebble. The first season is played in a lot close to Bowman Field. Lycoming Dairy is the first season champion.
1946: Little League expands to 12 leagues, all in Pennsylvania.
1947: The first league outside of Pennsylvania is founded in Hammonton, New Jersey. Maynard League of Williamsport defeats a team from Lock Haven, Pennsylvania to win the first Little League World Series. Allen Yearick is the first Little League graduate to play professional baseball when he is signed by the Boston Braves.
1948: Little League has grown to include 94 leagues. Lock Haven returns to the Little League World Series and defeats a team from St. Petersburg, Florida. The first corporate sponsor, U.S. Rubber, donates Pro-Keds shoes to teams at the series.
1949: After a decade, Little League is featured in the nationally famous weekly longtime magazine, the Saturday Evening Post and on newsreels shown in neighborhood movie. Commissioner Stotz receives hundreds of requests for information on forming local leagues from all over the country. Little League incorporates in the State of New York.
1950 Kay Johnston becomes the first girl to play Little League baseball. She cuts her hair, dresses as a boy and adopts the nickname "Tubby" to join the Kings Dairy Little League team in Corning, New York as a boy.Katie Reyes becomes first girl gamewinner at Little League WS – Big League Stew – MLB Blog. Sports.yahoo.com. Retrieved on 2013-07-23. After earning her way onto the team and being assigned first base, she tells her coach that she is a girl, but he keeps her on the team. She is forced to quit after just one season because a new rule, known as the Tubby Rule, is created to bar girls from participation. The rule remains in force until 1974.
1951: Leagues are formed in the western province on the Pacific Ocean coast of British Columbia, in the neighboring Dominion of Canada to the north and in the old U.S. territory of the Panama Canal Zone surrounding the Panama Canal, in Central America, making them the first youth baseball leagues outside the United States.
1953: The Little League World Series is televised for the first time. Jim McKay provided the play-by-play for the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), and Howard Cosell, does so for the American Broadcasting Company and ABC News Radio. Joey Jay, of Middletown, Connecticut, and the Milwaukee Braves is the first Little League graduate to play in Major League Baseball. In 1953, Robert Francis Morrison filed an official charter with Little League Baseball to admit the Cannon Street Y.M.C.A. as its first all-black team. The league consisted of four teams, sponsored by prominent black businesses in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1955, in the beginnings of the growing nation-wide Civil rights movement, when, Morrison entered his Cannon Street All-Stars into the city tournament, white leagues reacted by drafting a resolution requesting a whites-only tournament. All 55 white teams eventually withdrew from the city and state tournament. The Cannon Street All-Stars became the 1955 South Carolina state champions by forfeit. However, they were informed by then national Little League Baseball president Peter J. McGovern that they would not be permitted to represent the state at the regional championships in Williamsport. Little League executives invited the Cannon Street All-Stars as guests to attend the tournament in which they were barred from playing.
1954: Boog Powell, outfielder/first baseman later of the Baltimore Orioles and two other MLB teams, plays in the Little League World Series for Lakeland, Florida, and Ken Hubbs, later of the Chicago Cubs, plays for Colton, California. Little League had expanded to more than 3,300 leagues. Jim Barberi, later of the MLB National League pennant winner of the 1966 Los Angeles Dodgers, is a member a decade earlier of the Schenectady, New York, team that wins the 1954 L.L.B. World Series tournament championship.
1955: There is a Little League organization now in each of the 48 continental U.S. states. Young George W. Bush, (son of George H. W. Bush), begins playing Little League as a catcher for the Cubs of the Central Little League in Midland, Texas. He is the first Little League graduate to be elected President of the United States. After white teams in South Carolina refuse to play against the all-black Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars of Charleston, Little League issues an ultimatum that the team must be permitted to play, but many organizations in the Southern United States suspend and turn in their league charters and form their own league in response. No team from South Carolina would reach the World Series tournament until 2015.
1956: Stotz severs his ties with Little League Baseball, Inc. after 18 years in a dispute over the direction, policies and control of the league. Stotz believed that the league was becoming overly commercialized by then-president Peter J. McGovern. Stotz remains active in youth baseball with the "Original League" in Williamsport for the next 38 years until his death in June 1992. Little League records its first on-field death in Garland, Texas, when 12-year-old Richard Oden is hit in the head by a pitch, and the park where the incident occurred is renamed Rick Oden Field. With batting helmets yet to be developed, Garland League teams finish the season wearing youth football helmets over their baseball caps when batting. Later in the year, pitcher Fred Shapiro throws a perfect game in the Little League World Series.
International era
1957: Angel Macias throws a perfect game and Monterrey, Mexico, becomes the first team from outside the United States to win the Little League World Series. (Portrayed in the 2010 film The Perfect Game.)
1959: The Little League World Series moves from Williamsport to the newly built Little League headquarters in South Williamsport. The protective baseball helmet is developed by Dr. Creighton J. Hale.
1960: A team from West Berlin, West Germany, is the first from Europe to play in the Little League World Series. The series is broadcast live for the first time on ABC. Little League has grown to 27,400 teams in more than 5,500 leagues.
1961: Brian Sipe, future quarterback for the NFL's Cleveland Browns, plays for the series champions from El Cajon, California.
1962: Jackie Robinson attends the Little League World Series. President John F. Kennedy proclaims National Little League Week.
1967: A team from West Tokyo, Japan, is the first team from Asia to win the Little League World Series.
1969: Taiwan begins a dominant era that would see them win 17 Little League World Series titles.