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Buster Olney
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Once the team planes of the Seattle Mariners and New York Mets land in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on Sunday for this year’s Little League Classic, the Little Leaguers will surround the big leaguers. What happens after that is unscripted, unstructured and unpredictable. Because you never know what kids might say.
One of the kids is probably going to ask Cal Raleigh about his nickname, the Big Dumper — and they will ask if Raleigh’s mom still doesn’t like the nickname. Raleigh might show the kids the bat he’s using this weekend, which reads: “Big butt… even BIGGER BOMBS.”
Somebody is probably going to ask Pete Alonso about being called Polar Bear because, well, kids love animals. Somebody will ask Randy Arozarena about the arms-crossed pose he does after big moments. Juan Soto hasn’t done the Soto Shuffle in his first season with the Mets, but some of the kids might try to show off their impersonations of it for him.
The byplay of these ballplayers, old and young, is unscripted, unstructured and unpredictable, and yet, the outcome is inevitable.
“It is one of the funnest things I’ve been a part of,” said Cincinnati Reds manager Terry Francona, who was in Williamsport in 2021 as Cleveland’s manager when it played in the Little League Classic. “It was like a county fair, with baseball.”
Bowman Field, where the teams will play at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball,” will be filled almost entirely by the Little Leaguers, and every time somebody lifts a ball in the air — a high fly ball to shallow center field — the crowd response will be a collective oooooooooh, a reflection of awe at how high a big leaguer can hit the ball.
Adults might tend to view the MLB players through numeric prisms such as the wild-card standings, number of home runs, ERA or on-base percentage. But that’s not how the Little Leaguers see it. When big leaguers go to Williamsport, they are dropped into a world where all of that is temporarily secondary in the eyes of their younger baseball brethren, and what matters more is the fun.
Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor spends time before each Mets game lingering at the edge of the stands, signing autographs and chatting with kids — and he is looking forward to the same experience in his first game at Williamsport. He says that many of them are interested in the big league accoutrements. “A lot of kids want to trade stuff,” he said, laughing. Wrist bands. Batting gloves. A bat. A baseball. Some will ask him for gum.
“I love it,” Lindor said. “I remember being a kid, and I’m kind of a kid at heart, and it’s a reminder of why you fell in love with baseball in the first place.”
Some kids will ask Lindor what they should do to be a better hitter or a better defensive player. Some kids, in the presence of MLB stars, won’t say much of anything. When the 6-foot-7, 282-pound Aaron Judge sat among Little Leaguers in the stands in last year’s Little League Classic, cameras caught some of them just looking up at him, gawking — watching him watch a game. Another Little Leaguer doing an in-game interview with Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole bravely asked the pitcher for an autograph, and when Cole said yes, the kid ran over to where Cole was sitting.
This sort of thing is what Francona really loved about the visit to Williamsport: “Even though the games were televised, the kids were left to themselves to be kids.”
Detroit Tigers manager A.J. Hinch saw how special Williamsport can be when his team made the trip for the Little League Classic last year.
“I was blown away by the whole environment at the Little League World Series,” he wrote in a text, “and our game was a fun change to the schedule.
“The amount of pride from the kids and their love for our players was incredible. The Cuban team seeing Andy Ibanez coming off the plane was so cool. The kids really embraced the fun with our players. On the hill” — where kids slide on pieces of cardboard — “and in the ballpark, in the stands. I saw kids ask baseball questions and just hang with them like teammates.”
Hinch said that the Tigers’ day in Williamsport led to some of his players sharing stories and reminiscing about their own Little League days. That’s what the Little League Classic does — it can remind players where their passion and love for the game started all those years ago.
“Kinda brought everyone back to their roots,” Hinch wrote. “The experience inspired the team and reminded them why we love the game.”