Original Little League

In the 1930s, Williamsport resident Carl E. Stotz made good on a promise to his nephews: He designed a kid-sized baseball diamond.

In 1938, he gathered a group of local youngsters to help him map out field dimensions that would work with their size and ability level. He folded up newspapers to mark the bases, and studied the young players’ speed and throwing range. All of this helped him figure out that the field should have 60-foot-long base paths (instead of the major league’s 90 feet), and 46 feet between the pitcher and home base.

He also shortened the game itself, from nine to six innings. Here, little league was born, and by 1939, there were three local teams playing each other, thanks to local volunteers and community-sourced donations for equipment and uniforms. 

Thanks to Stotz, new leagues began to pop up across the country. In 1947, a Williamsport team won the first Little League World Series. Today, the field is still in use, with annual tournaments for local teams still held here. In 1995, it Carl E. Stotz got his own historical marker, which was placed at the field.

For more Little League history, you can head to downtown Williamsport, where a series of statues have been erected to commemorate this sporting legacy. At Market Street and West 3rd Street is “Bases Loaded,” a little league scene in bronze is constantly at play. It was designed in 2014 to celebrate the different decades of Little League’s history. The infielders are dressed in uniforms representing Williamsport’s first three teams, while the catcher—whose hat reads “CS”—represents the first all-Black team in South Carolina. Other players represent moments, like the second base runner who wears a 50th-anniversary jersey. And of course there’s Carl Stotz, the manager, watching from the sidelines.