Little League Baseball, Inc.

Causes: Amateur Sports Competitions, Baseball & Softball, Recreation & Sports, Sports

Mission: Little League Baseball began with Carl Stotz of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, who was watching his nephews playing baseball in his back yard in 1938. Mr. Stotz began to think about how worthwhile it might be to bring adult baseball down to child size.

He enlisted friends from within the community, and together they developed a plan. In 1939, they found enough youngsters and sponsors to create and outfit three teams representing a local dairy (Lycoming Dairy), a lumber company (Lundy Lumber), and pretzel manufacturer (Jumbo Pretzel). The teams met on a 60-foot diamond with scaled-down bats and uniforms. On June 6, 1939, the Lycoming Dairy and Lundy Lumber teams met in the first official Little League Baseball game.

The next day, the Williamsport Sun reported the game results with the same fanfare as its coverage of professional baseball. From there, the program blossomed. The three-team organization had grown to four by the next year, and the Little League concept began to spread to other towns. By the time the Baby Boom hit in the years following World War II, parents around the country were eager to involve their children in Little League Baseball.

In 1951 there were more than 150,000 Little League players across the nation, and Canada became the first non-U.S. nation to have a Little League program. By 1966, the program had grown to more than 1,600,000 players. In 1974, softball was added. By 1986 there were more than 2.5 million Little Leaguers worldwide. Today, millions of children on six continents are Little Leaguers.