I don’t always watch the Little League World Series on television, but did watch some games this year. Like many people I was captivated by the pitching of Gavin Weir of the Sioux Falls, S. D. team. Weir was amazing, pitching four nohitters in the tournament and striking out most of the batters he faced. No team had scored on South Dakota until the semifinals when Ohio picked up six runs to win. In the consolation game later Hawaii came out a 5-0 winner. Weir didn’t pitch either game because he had pitched the maximum number of innings allowed in Little League World Series rules.

Despite the fact that South Dakota fell short of winning the championship, Weir’s performance will be what’s remembered most about this year’s event. Already I’ve forgotten which team won the Series (I think it was Michigan).

Watching him pitch brought back memories of the Little League World Series of 1957 (I was between elementary school and high school that summer). That was the year that a rag-tag team from Monterey, Mexico won it all. In the championship game, Angel Macias pitched a perfect game. There have been movies made about that team, including “The Perfect Game,” a movie released in 2009. I would recommend the film if you haven’t seen it. Although I am not a big fan of watching movies over and over again, I would like to see this one once more.

The story involves Cesar Faz (played by Clifton Collins Jr. in the movie) who moves to Monterrey after being fired from his job as a clubhouse attendant for the St. Louis Cardinals. He encounters a group of youngsters who love to play baseball, but haven’t played on an organized level. He puts together a team which includes Macias. Macias is a gifted athlete, who can throw the ball equally well with either hand. The kids form the first Little League team ever assembled in Monterrey. They do pretty well and when it comes time for the postseason competition, they have to go to Texas to play, since Mexican teams weren’t part of a national organization. No Mexican team had ever gotten past the first game in Texas, and this group wasn’t expected to do so either. But in the end Faz’s team won 12 straight games which culminates in the championship win over a team from California in Williamsport, Pa. Along the way they battle all kinds of odds, including problems with their visas and extreme racism.

The ambidextrous Macias pitched only with his right hand in hurling the perfect game in the championship. It is the only perfect game thrown in a championship game.

Macias didn’t make it to the Major League Baseball level. He was signed by the Angels (given his first name, very fitting) and played for a couple of seasons at the Class A level. He did play for some Mexican teams after his stint in the United States. Faz died in 2017 at the age of 97. He was heavily involved in working with Mexican youngsters for many, many years. A team from Monterrey also won the World Series in 1958 and had future Major Leaguer Hector Torres on its roster.

Thinking about Macias and this year’s star Gavin Weir, got me wondering about what Little League players later became stars in the MLB. There have been many former Little Leaguers who made it to the top level, but the list of those who participated in a LL World Series is relatively shorter.

One of my favorite players ever was Boog Powell who was a huge, slow-footed first baseman for the Baltimore Orioles during their dynasty years in the 1960s. Powell played for the Lakeland, Fla., team in the 1954 World Series. He went on to hit 339 home runs in his MLB career that lasted to 1977. After he left the Orioles in 1974, he played for Cleveland for a couple of seasons and then finished as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1977. Powell’s legacy was one of having a voracious appetite for food. That legacy continues today as a Bar-B-Q establishment in the Orioles’ Camden Yards stadium is a favorite eating place for baseball fans.

The 1954 LLBWS also had Ken Hubbs, who was a member of the Colton, Calif., team. Hubbs later played for the Chicago Cubs and was one of the best fielding second basemen playing at the time. He won a Golden Glove as a rookie in 1962, the first rookie in MLB history to do so. He was developing as a hitter, but his career and his life was cut short. He died in a plane crash, in a private plane he was piloting at age 22.

That same year (1954) another future big leaguer, Jim Barbieri, was a member of the Series champion Schenectady, N. Y., team. He had also played in the 1953 series as a member of the same team. Barbieri’s major league career was short, lasting less than one season. He was called up by the Los Angeles Dodgers in July of 1966 and played in only a few games. He batted as a pinch hitter in Game 1 of the MLB World Series and was struck out by Baltimore Orioles pitcher Moe Drabowsky. Barbieri has been the only player to appear in both the Little League and Major League World Series. Playing for the Dodgers’ opponent in the 1966 World Series was Boog Powell, who like Barbieri was in the 1954 LLBWS. Powell had a better series than Barbieri.

Gary Shefflield, who had a remarkable career for several teams in the MLB, played for a Tampa, Fla., team in the 1980 LLBWS. In the majors he played for Milwaukee, San Diego, Florida, Los Angeles Dodgers, Atlanta, New York Yankees, Detroit and New York Mets. Playing from 1988 to 2009, he put together some impressive statistics, which includes 509 home runs, 1,676 runs batted in, 2,689 hits and a career batting average of .292. I wondered why he bounced from team to team, but couldn’t find any definitive answer except that he continued to negotiate for better contracts.

Another player I’ve liked over the years is Carney Lansford who played in the 1969 LLBWS as a member of a team from Santa Clara, Calif. Lansford won a batting championship in 1981 as a member of the Boston Red Sox, hitting .336 in a strike-shortened season. He broke in with the California Angels in 1978, moved to the Red Sox in 1981 and then to the Oakland Athletics in 1983. In Oakland he was a member of the teams that won three consecutive American League pennants. He retired in 1992 with a career batting average of .290, with 2,074 hits, 151 home runs and 874 runs batted in.

There have been two sets of brothers who participated in the LLBWS and went on to spend time in the Majors. One set was Jeff and Todd Frazier. Both played from the Toms River, N. J., team in the LLBWS, Jeff in 1995 and Todd in 1998. Jeff played for the Detroit Tigers in 2010 and Todd has played for Major League teams from 2011 to the present. Todd’s MLB teams have been the Cincinnati Reds, N. Y. Yankees, N. Y. Mets and Texas.

The other set of brothers were Colby and Cory Rasmus, who both played for the 1999 team from Phoenix City, Ala. Colby played in the majors from 2009 to 2018 for St. Louis, Toronto, Houston, Tampa Bay and Baltimore. Cory played for the Atlanta Braves and Anaheim Angels from 2013 to 2016.

By the way, former President George W. Bush was a Little Leaguer. He played for a team in Midland, Texas. He never made it to the LLBWS, but was an owner of a Major League team (the Texas Rangers).

I will include the entire list of players to appear in the LLBWS and also play in the MLB. They are in alphabetical order, Wilson Alvarez, Barbieri, Jason Bay, Cody Bellinger, Derek Bell, Christian Bethancourt, Larvell Blanks, Sean Burroughs, Kevin Cash, Gavin Cecchini, Chin-Feng Chen, Jeff Clement, Billy Connors, Michael Conforto, Brian Esposito, Stephen Fife, Jeff and Todd Frazier, Jace Fry, Randal Grichuk, Ben Hayes, Charlie Hayes, Ken Hubbs, Erik A. Johnson, Scott Kingery, Keith Lampar, Adam Loewen, Carney Lansford, Vance Lovelace, Lance Lynn, Jason Marquis, Lloyd McClendon, Lastings Milledge, Bobby Mitchell, Max Moroff, Jim Pankovits, Francisco Pena, Yusmeiro Petit, Marc Pisciotta, Boog Powell, Jurickson Profar, Guillermo Quiroz, Colby and Cory Rasmus, Brady Rodgers, Michael Saunders, Jonathan Schoop, Gary Sheffield, Andrew Stevenson, Carl Taylor, Ruben Tejada, Clete Thomas, Hector Torres, Devon Travis, George Tsamis, Jason Varitek, Dave Veres, Ed Vosberg, Dan Wilson and Rick Wise.