Manila holds biggest Little League Series

MANILA, Philippines - Manila will host the 2009 Philippine Little League Series slated April 13-19 in different sites with a record of 92 teams led by the host city’s girls Big Leaguers, runner-up in the World Series, seeing action.

Competition is spread over eight divisions, staking slots in the Asia-Pacific meets in Indonesia and Taiwan in boys’ baseball and Guam in girls’ softball.

“This is going to be the biggest Philippine Series ever in terms of the number of teams participating,” said Jolly Gomez, president of the organizing Little League Philippines, during yesterday’s ACCEL-backed SCOOP sa Kamayan-Padre Faura.

All Major League (11-12 years old) games are scheduled at the Luneta Park where Manila Mayor Fred Lim and Manila Sports Council chair Niño dela Cruz have put up four standard-sized diamond fields.

The rest – Junior League (13-14), Senior League (14-16) and Big League (16-18) – in both baseball and softball would be played in different venues including the Smokey Mountain, which was formerly a dumpsite.

Other venues to be tapped are the Rizal Memorial track oval and University of Santo Tomas, Polytechnic University of the Philippines and Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila.

The opening ceremony is set at the Quirino Grandstand.

“It goes to show that the Little League program, the largest mass-based, grassroot-oriented youth development program in the world, has come of age here,” said Gomez.