I was born in ‘49. My G.I. dad had just graduated from UCLA. In ‘54 the Bruins won their only national championship in football, so he bought our first TV so he could watch their games. I was five, saw those little players running around, and looked around at the back of the set in order to see them. Later I graduated from USC, so every year we would watch the big game together.
I still have my 1959 Little League Directory, listing every boy with his address and parents. Between the majors and minors there were 16 teams of 15 players each, or 240 kids. There were plenty of brother-sets, but that still left nearly 200 families. Yet in that entire directory there is only one single-parent family.
When I was at the US Army base in Bad Kreuznach, Germany, there was both a major and a minor little league. One of the major teams had a pitcher who fanned just about every hitter he faced. I wish I had made a note of his name, because with his talent, he might have made it to the major leagues.