LITTLE LEAGUE

international baseball organization for children and youth, started in 1939 in Williamsport, Pa., U.S., by Carl E. Stotz. The league originally included boys aged 8 to 12; girls were admitted beginning in 1974. The Little League now includes a senior division for youth aged 13 to 15 and a big-league division for ages 16 to 18. Among teams of the junior division the game is played on a field two-thirds the size of a professional baseball diamond, and games are six innings rather than nine. Of a team's nine members, two must be under 11 years old; and no more than seven in the regular lineup may be 12. Leagues comprise 4 to 12 teams that play a season of about 15 games, the winners then engaging in local and regional play-offs to qualify for the World Series. The great period of expansion for Little League ball began following World War II; and in the 1990s there were more than 2.5 million players in the United States and some 30 other countries. In 1974 World Series teams from foreign countries were banned from the Little League World Series but were restored from 1976. Throughout the 1970s the World Series was dominated by Asian teams, notably Taiwan. A number of similar organizations have also been successful, including the Babe Ruth League (Little Bigger League, 195253), for boys and girls 13 through 18. The Babe Ruth leagues were founded in 1952 in Trenton, N.J., and have been established in most sections of the United States and Canada. Playing rules and infield dimensions are those of professional baseball. Also played under these conditions is American Legion Baseball for teenagers, founded in 1925.