Little league plans new baseball division

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Little League plans to add a new baseball age division this year largely in hopes of keeping more children and teens involved in the game.

The pilot program for 12- and 13-year-old players is designed to ease the transition to playing on professional regulation-size fields with pitching distances of 60 feet, 6 inches, and base paths of 90 feet.

Currently, the Little League division mainly for 11- and 12-year-olds — the level which ends with the Little League World Series each August — is played on a field with a 46-foot pitching distance and 60-foot base paths.

The next level up, mainly for 13- and 14-year-olds and called Junior League, uses professional regulation fields.

But officials at Little League International headquarters in South Williamsport say they have had more requests from local leagues to use an intermediate-sized field between the two levels. Some players drop out of the organization — or baseball entirely — instead of making the jump.

So the new division unveiled Monday will use a 50-foot pitching distance and 70-foot base paths. Other changes in the “50-70” pilot program include allowing runners to lead off and steal at any time, and permitting headfirst sliding — rules not allowed in the Little League division.

A year or two on the intermediate field hopefully “keeps them in the game longer and keeps them interested longer,” Little League vice president Lance Van Auken said. “The idea of instituting 50-70 is a way to retain players in that age group.”

It’s the first new division in Little League baseball since 1989. Little League, the world’s largest youth baseball and softball organization, will gauge interest this season before determining the program’s future.

Participation in Little League baseball is down nearly 16 percent from about 2.6 million worldwide at its peak in 1997 to almost 2.2 million last year. Little League growing abroad, so most of the decline has been in the United States.

Organizers have cited cost concerns during the recession, teens growing more interested in video games instead of sports, and increased interest in soccer as some reasons for the decline.