Commish: Little League vital to MLB

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — The first trip Rob Manfred made after being elected Major League Baseball’s 10th Commissioner two years ago was to the Little League World Series. It was an early signal that promoting the game to kids was going to be one of his top priorities.

Since then, MLB has dramatically increased its youth initiatives, and the results have been impressive. Last year, participation in baseball and softball increased an aggregate four percent.

• Manfred watches New York win in LLWS

“There are lots of great organizations in the youth space,” Manfred said Monday. “And we’ve tried to be good partners to many, if not all, of them.”

Still, the fact that he made that remark during a return visit to Howard J. Lamade Stadium helps drive home the fact that Manfred, the first Commissioner to have played Little League, feels a special affinity for the organization. He demonstrated that with his words and, more important, by making the effort to attend a game between Tennessee and New York.

“We’ve had no better partner in [youth baseball] than Little League, and I think it’s important that we show up at their biggest event,” he said.

Steve Keener, president and chief executive officer of Little League International, said Manfred told him when he first visited that promoting the game to future generations was going to be one of his cornerstone policies.

“And I can tell you in the two years that have passed since, there has not been a Commissioner that has been more enthused and energized about us here at the grass-roots level of this great game,” he said.

Signs of how that relationship is helping both sides are as obvious as the Play Ball initiative signs on the …

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