"Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" Adventures: Triple D in Williamsport???

OK OK, I know, Guy has not visited any restaurants in the Williamsport, PA area for DDD, but I wanted to blog about one of my favorite places to go each year, the Little League World Series (LLWS) at the Peter McGovern Little League Headquarters in South Williamsport, PA. This trip has become an annual trip for me and I am lucky because my sister Sue and her husband Dale live just south of Williamsport in Allenwood, PA.

I looked at the schedule of the days and games for the LLWS and decided that the best time for me to go would be days 2 and 3. Both days had 4 games scheduled and I would be able to see almost all of the teams that had won the right to play in the Series. Leading up to the event ESPN televises all of the United States regional finals and this year a team from the Richmond area was in the Southeast Regional finals and I was really hoping that finally I would see a team from Virginia at the Series, but alas, they lost 5-3 to a tea from South Nashville, Tennessee. I drove up to my sisters after work on Day 1 of the series but decided not to go that night. The drive from Leesburg to the Williamsport area takes about 3 hours. Actually I tell people to leave Leesburg on Route 15 North and in just over 3 hours turn right and you'll be there!

The Little League World Series complex is made up of 2 stadiums, Howard J Lamade Stadium, which is the one that most people know. It seats about 10,000 and is built into a hill and that hill can seat up to 30,000. The hill plateaus in the middle and then rises again where the headquarters of Little League International is based. On the upper hill, very few sit and watch, it is used by kids to slide down on flattened cardboard boxes.

Sliding down the hill

The second stadium is smaller and seats just over 6,000 and is called Volunteer Stadium. the name is dedicated to all the volunteers that make the LLWS and Little League operate worldwide. It is pretty amazing that just about everyone working at the LLWS from the Ushers to the Grounds Crew to the Umpires all volunteer their time and pay their own way from all over the world! The umpires are selected from all over the world and get one chance to participate.

The field for the LLWS is made up of 16 teams 8 from the USA and 8 from the World. It is actually 2 tournaments being held at the same time, the USA teams play one double elimination set and the International teams play another and it culminates on the second weekend with Championship weekend where a USA team wins a championship and the World crowns there champion who them meet in the LLWS Championship game. This year a new region, Australia was added as well as the Europe-Africa region was represented with a team from Brno, Czech Republic (a first from that country).

LLWS Welcome Hedge

The first game of the day was scheduled for 1pm at Volunteer and featured Taiwan (or Chinese Taipei) vs. Ottawa Canada. I arrived at the complex 50 minutes before the game and the stadium was already full! I was able to find a standing area with good sight lines so I watched the game from there. I really enjoy seeing the international teams and hearing them recite the Little League pledge in their own language at the start of the games as well as the playing of their national anthems.

Canada in Blue and Taiwan in Green during introductions

Taiwan is a long time powerhouse team in the LLWS and they really used a few big hits to win this game early. Through it all the parents of both teams cheered on their kids throughout. I still don't know how the cheerleader-dad of the Taiwan team still has a voice after all the cheering he does! After the game both teams high five each other and bow to the cheering sections of their opponents

Taiwan and Canada congratulating each other after the game

I headed over to Lamade to see the 3pm game between Chula Vista, California and Grosse Point, Michigan which would start at 3p and I arrived at 205p and there wasn't a seat to be had! This year they refurbished the stadium removing the bleachers with seats. What was so disappointing was that people were hoarding and saving seats, I saw one woman saving 8 seats! To me that is the epitome of rude! This is a problem that the Little League needs to address, as both days went on I could see many of the ushers trying to help the situation, I hope it doesn't go to a ticket distribution system, but something needs to be done, that's for sure! I decided to go back over to Volunteer and get a good seat for the game I was really wanted to see, the first ever game for the Czech Republic in the LLWS vs. the always powerful team from Japan.

Brno, Czech Republic

Tokyo, Japan

Coaches and Umps in Pregame Conference

In the Little League they have a rule called "The Mercy Rule", if a tea is winning by 10 or more runs at the endo0 of the 4th Inning then the game is ended. I thought if there was ever a game in the tournament that would have this rule used it would be this game, but the Czech team played great and kept the game close. I planned to meet my sister and brother-in-law for the late game at 8p at Lamade, and they showed up early so they joined me in the stands for the end of the game. Japan won but I was really impressed with the Czech team.

Teams meet after a hard fought game

After the game ended we headed up to watch the 8pm game on the Lamade Hill. The stadiums are separated by a concourse that houses a huge gift shop, food vendors and concessions, a picnic area with TV screens to watch the ESPN televised games (all f the games are televised) and the ESPN studio. As we made our way past the studio there was Chris McKendry, the very attractive ESPN anchor, later on I saw Orel Hershiser, the Dodger great, Nomar Garciaparra from the Red Sox and Karl Ravech ESPNs baseball host in the studio.

ESPNs Chris McKendry and Kyle Petersen on the ESPN Studio on the LLWS Concourse

Chris McKendry from ESPN

ESPNs Karl Ravech and Nomar Garciaparra

We headed up the hill to find a good spot to put our chairs and found a good spot in Right Field for the game between Newark, Delaware and Urbandale, Iowa. Both teams looked good early on and then Newark just exploded and won pretty easily. The night was perfect weather wise and the hill gives you some really unique visuals. I would liken it to the Bleachers at Wrigley. One real neat thing is the people who go each year know the curvature of the hill and cut the legs of their chairs.

The Big Stadium

As seen from the hill!

We watched a really good game, the team from Newark was very impressive, a real powerful team. They ended up playing really good baseball, no home runs just real fundamentally sound ball.
Little League games are 6 innings, so the song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" is sung during the 4th Inning Stretch!

Sportsmanship after the game

After one full day we headed back to my sisters looking forward to seeing a few more games the second day, which would be Elimination Day. All the games on Day 3 (my second) would have the losers from the first two days and the winners move on in the tournament and the losers eliminated from winning the title but they would be playing at least one more game.

I arrived about an hour before the noon game and got a good seat in Volunteer for the Puerto Rico vs. Perth, Australia. This is the first time a team from Australia was in the LLWS and this was a great game! It was scoreless into the 4th when Puerto Rico broke through with 3 runs and ended up- winning 4-0. The fans from Perth were great, I heard a lot of their chant "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie Oy Oy Oy !" The Puerto Rican parents countered with the "Ole Ole" chant!

After that game I got over the Lamade almost 90 minutes prior and it was the same story! Little League needs to address the seat saving thing, it makes a great time very frustrating! I decoded to walk around the facilities and then take in some of the 3pm game from the hill.

On the concourse they have this very cool sign that has arrows of all the teams and how many miles their town is from Williamsport. It is sort of like the sign from the TV show "M*A*S*H"

Concourse between the two stadiums

Team Mileage signs

I watched a bit of the game from various points of the hill and then decided to call it a day. As I was walking out I noticed some kids playing something unusual on one of the practice fields so I ambled up to see what it was. It was the kids fro Perth, who has just been eliminated from contention playing Australian Rules Football! I guess I saw another LLWS first, I bet that Aussie Football has never been played at the LLWS before and it just reiterated why this is the best sporting event you can attend (in my opinion), it's all about kids playing games for the love of the game!