Los Angeles

THIS year’s Little League World Series, which began on Friday, is a lavish, nationally televised American sporting event. At the site of the series in South Williamsport, Pa., there is a tent for the tournament’s corporate sponsors to show off their products, an instant-replay system to decide close calls and a perfectly groomed, two-stadium baseball complex.

For all of the tournament’s seductive gloss, Little League was born in poverty. In 1938, Carl E. Stotz, a Williamsport oil company clerk, lost his job when the business shut down the plant where he worked. As Stotz explained in his 1992 autobiography, “A Promise Kept,” when he wasn’t working the odd job, he  at the urging of two baseball-crazy young nephews  devoted much of his time to planning the very first Little League.

And when he organized the first games in 1939, knowing firsthand how tough the times were, he refused to charge parents for the privilege of having their children in his league. He relied on donations from local businesses instead.

By the early 1950s, Stotz had turned Little League into an international organization, and he enshrined his no-fee policy as an official rule. Even though Stotz eventually broke with Little League after a bitter fight with the organization’s board, his rule remains. You can find it in on page 39 of this year’s 88-page Little League rule book.