LITTLE LEAGUE WORLD SERIES : The Game Remains the Same : For 40 Years, Williamsport Has Played the Genial Host to World Series

The kids aren’t wearing baggy flannel uniforms or high-top sneakers anymore, but the late-summer scene here remains essentially the same as it did 40 years ago.

Thousands of people are flocking to this little city, tucked in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and on the banks of the Susquehanna River in Northeast Pennsylvania, to watch the Little League World Series.

A few more thousand came this year than did in 1947, the year the first World Series was played, but they all came for the same reason--to watch 11- and 12-year-olds play a game that seems as if it were designed for kids.

Although some would argue that national television and media coverage have commercialized the series and stripped the kids of their innocence, the games still seem to retain the element that fascinates the people who watch.

“It’s the fact that they’re real,” said Pete Loedding, president of the Williamsport Chamber of Commerce. “In today’s plastic, TV, make-believe world, the opportunities to touch realness are limited.

“But you go out to the stadium, sit on the grass, soak up some sunshine, watch people having fun, people making mistakes, laughing, crying . . . there’s something real about watching kids in the process of growing up.”

The community works hard to retain this atmosphere. It doesn’t dilute the series with billboards or corporate advertising. Admission to the games is free.

Going to the World Series is just like going to any Little League game in your hometown--except the stadium is a little bigger and the teams are a little better.

“Little League reflects the community attitude here,” Loedding said. “Very laid-back, accepting and nice.”

This year, about 40,000 visitors are expected to attend. ABC will be televising the championship game between Northwood Irvine and Hua Lian, Taiwan, today (at 4 p.m. in the Los Angeles area on a tape-delayed basis) for the 25th consecutive year.

Williamsport, with a population of 37,000, has benefited immensely. Virtually all of the city’s 1,200 hotel rooms are booked for the week. The Chamber of Commerce estimates that the series will generate about $4 million to $7 million for city businesses.

Most important, the city, which is home for Little League’s international headquarters, has established an international reputation because of the tournament.

“The World Series put Williamsport on the map,” said John Finn, 25, who has lived here all his life.

Ray Keyes, the longtime sports editor of the Williamsport Sun-Gazette who has covered every World Series, remembers vacationing in Europe a few summers ago and checking into a hotel in Vienna.

“I wrote my address on the registration card and the clerk said, ‘Williamsport, home of Little League baseball,’ ” Keyes said. “Our name has become more identifiable than Cooperstown.”

Little League baseball began in Williamsport in 1939, when Carl Stotz, a local resident, formed a league with three teams: Jumbo Pretzel, Lundy Lumber and Lycoming Dairy.

In 1947, 11 local teams and one from New Jersey convened at Williamsport’s Memorial Park for the first World Series, which was won by Maynard Little League of Williamsport.

Little League baseball boomed in the post-World War II era, and, by 1951, was being played in every state. In 1959, wealthy newspaper publisher Howard J. Lamade donated the land on which the 25,000-seat stadium used today was built.

In addition to the stadium, the 43-acre complex includes four office buildings, the Little League museum, six practice fields and living quarters to house the series’ eight teams.

Williamsport would survive without Little League. It was once called the “Lumber Capital of the World” in the late 1800s, and its economy has diversified and now includes about 220 different industries.

But the city seems to derive its real identity from Little League and the World Series.

“Socially, it draws the town together so we’re not isolated from the rest of the world,” said Howard Baldwin, 79, chairman of the host committee for the past 25 years. “The whole world is looking at Williamsport through the media this week.”

The World Series is not just the biggest event of the year in Williamsport. It’s the event. Residents gear up for the week, decorating the street lights with banners and heaping their hospitality upon visitors.

“I saw a woman down the road here last week cleaning off the stop sign in front of her house,” Finn said. “People want the place to look nice.”

And, even though local teams usually aren’t in the series, the games attract thousands of fans from Williamsport and the outlying towns.

“I got married the day Cody Webster pitched Kirkland, Wash., to the championship (on Aug. 28, 1982),” Finn said. “People at the reception were all going out to their cars to get the score of the game on the radio.”

It’s also the one week of the year when locals can participate in that favorite Los Angeles pastime: celebrity-watching.

Baseball greats Cy Young, Connie Mack, Dizzy Dean, Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio have all made World Series appearances. Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth will be there today, as will Jim Palmer, Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan.

But Williamsport doesn’t make too big a fuss over it all. There are no parades or World Series queens, just a celebrity golf tournament and a banquet to honor the 1947 championship team this week.

As Marylou Weaver, a waitress at Franco’s Restaurant downtown said, “Williamsport never hops.”

The city has bounced back from adversity, though. After having one of the nation’s worst unemployment rates (14% in 1980), Williamsport recently won the Pennsylvania State Chamber of Commerce’s Outstanding Community award for 1987.

The downtown area is being revitalized, with several new developments springing up. Today, the town’s motto is “Williamsport: A Proud Past and a Promising Future.”

And Little League baseball and the World Series will always be an integral part of the city’s past and future.