Ranking the top moments in LLWS history
Cole Jacobson
@ColeJacobson32The Little League World Series has been among the summer¡¯s top annual sporting events for decades, bringing some of the world¡¯s best youth players together for an event filled with competition and camaraderie. With such a strong display of talent in Williamsport, Pa., every year, including a bevy of future pros, there are bound to be some memorable moments along the way.
Following this year¡¯s tournament, which marked 10 years since Mo¡¯ne Davis¡¯ remarkable run in Williamsport, we break down the top moments in LLWS history.
1. The ballad of Mo¡¯ne Davis, 2014
Though Davis¡¯ Taney Little League (Pa.) squad controversially came up just short of the LLWS championship -- falling in the U.S. loser¡¯s bracket finals to an Illinois team that was retroactively disqualified for falsifying addresses -- it¡¯s impossible to name an individual figure who has stolen the show like she did in 2014. Davis finished the tournament with 14 strikeouts and allowed only three earned runs in 8 1/3 innings pitched, and her impact went even further than those already impressive statistics.
Davis was far from the first girl to participate in the LLWS. But none of the previous ones dominated the competition, and seized the nation¡¯s attention, quite the way Davis did. Her signature moment was a shutout in a 4-0 win over a Tennessee team that featured 2020 MLB first-round pick Robert Hassell III, which was actually her second consecutive complete-game shutout, following another one in the championship of the Mid-Atlantic Regional. This remains the only time a female pitcher has won a game at the LLWS, let alone done it while throwing a complete game.
Davis¡¯ second and final pitching outing of the LLWS didn¡¯t go as smoothly. In the U.S. winner's bracket finals, she didn¡¯t make it out of the third inning in an 8-1 loss to a Nevada team led by future UNLV star Austin Kryszczuk. But nonetheless, the damage was done, as Davis had become a star the likes of which the event had never seen. Making it all even more memorable was that Davis¡¯ squad was the de facto ¡°home¡± team of the tournament, given that the LLWS is always held in Pennsylvania.
Davis went on to play softball at Hampton University, and she has since started a Master¡¯s program in Sports Management at Columbia University, along with having a video production internship with the Dodgers.
2. Angel Mac¨ªas' perfect game, 1957
Despite its name, the Little League World Series wasn¡¯t a worldwide affair in its infancy. The first tournament was held in 1947, and it wasn¡¯t until 1976 that the tournament was set up with separate U.S. and International brackets, therefore ensuring a championship game featuring an American team and an international team.
Throughout the 1950s, it was very rare for international teams to be in the tournament at all, and any of them would face an extremely difficult road to make it all the way to Williamsport. Macias¡¯ Monterrey Industrial Little League (Mexico) team was no exception. Because Mexico did not have an automatic entry into the LLWS the way it does today, the Monterrey team had to play through the Texas state championship, followed by the U.S. Southern Regional Championship, to reach the LLWS -- back when both rounds were single-elimination.
Expectations were low enough of the Mexican team that they were initially given only a three-day visa to visit the United States, but the ¡°little team that could¡± kept on winning games, gutting it out in a mixture of military barracks and motels the whole way. And in the tournament¡¯s climax, Mac¨ªas threw what¡¯s still the only perfect game in LLWS championship game history, carrying his squad to a 4-0 win over a heavily favored California team to become the LLWS¡¯ first international champions.
Monterrey ended up winning the LLWS again the following year, and the events of the 1957 tournament led to the aptly named 2009 film ¡°The Perfect Game.¡± As for Mac¨ªas, he ended up playing in the Angels¡¯ Minor League system as an outfielder, and he died in 2021.
3. Sean Burroughs¡¯ back-to-back no-hitters, 1993
In 1992, Sean Burroughs and Long Beach Little League (Calif.) retroactively were awarded the LLWS championship, losing to a team from the Philippines in the title game but later earning the trophy due to age and residency violations from the victors.
In 1993, Burroughs and company would leave no doubt.
Burroughs remarkably threw no-hitters both in the team¡¯s pool play opener against Ohio on Aug. 23, and in the U.S. championship against New Hampshire on Aug. 26. He is one of two players in LLWS history to finish a tournament with no hits allowed in at least 12 innings pitched, joining Chinese Taipei¡¯s Ching-Hui Huang in 1973 (and that came in a tournament where Chinese Taipei allowed no hits, and outscored its opponents 57-0, across its three LLWS games).
Though Burroughs¡¯ arm was burned for the title game, his team handled business against Panama to earn its second straight LLWS title. For Burroughs, the son of 1974 NL MVP Jeff Burroughs, this was only the beginning of his baseball success, as he was a 1998 first-round pick and 2000 Olympic gold medalist who played in the Majors from 2002-12. Tragically, he passed away in 2024 at age 43.
4. Todd Frazier takes Williamsport by storm, 1998
Before he was a two-time MLB All-Star and the 2015 Home Run Derby champion, Todd Frazier was the linchpin of the fourth, and most recent, New Jersey team to win an LLWS championship.
Sticking to the U.S.-Japan theme, his Toms River Little League squad faced off against Kashima Little League for the 1998 title. And it didn¡¯t take long for the future pro to show that he was the best player on the field. He led off the game with a home run, and he finished 4-for-4, along with pitching the final inning in a 12-9 victory.
Frazier later returned to Williamsport when he played in the MLB Little League Classic with the Mets in 2018, simultaneously celebrating the 20-year reunion of his own LLWS title. That Mets-Phillies game featured fellow LLWS alumni Michael Conforto and Scott Kingery.
5. Dalton Carriker¡¯s walk-off home run, 2007
The rivalry between the U.S. and Japan in recent editions of the LLWS has been well documented. To summarize just how far ahead of the field these two countries have been, here¡¯s the leaderboard of LLWS championships by country since 1998:
USA - 14
Japan - 8
Venezuela - 1
South Korea - 1
Cura?ao - 1
In the 25 tournaments held over that time span (no tournament in 2020), there have been 13 USA-Japan championship games, with Japan going 8-5 in such matchups. And while the games have often been close, it¡¯s fair to say that the peak level of intensity -- at least so far -- came during the title showdown in 2007.
It was the second straight year in which teams from Georgia and Japan faced off in the title game, with the latter edition including American Little League (in Columbus) and Kitasuna Little League (Tokyo). Strong pitching from both sides led to a 2-2 game at the end of six innings. But in the bottom of the second extra frame, Carriker provided the heroics, hitting a walk-off dinger to bring a second straight LLWS championship to Georgia.
6. Michael Memea¡¯s walk-off home run, 2005
One year after Pabao Little League (Cura?ao) won its country¡¯s first LLWS title -- more on them below -- they were half an inning away from a repeat, leading 6-3 entering the bottom of the sixth against West Oahu Little League (Hawaii) in the 2005 title game.
But West Oahu, seeking Hawaii¡¯s first LLWS championship, wasn¡¯t done yet, scoring three runs in the final regulation inning to send this game to extras. After his team held Cura?ao scoreless in the top of the seventh, Memea took the plate with an 0-for-3 line and two strikeouts on the day. But none of that mattered when he lined a full-count pitch just over the right-center field wall to clinch the game and tournament.
Hawaii has won four LLWS titles since 2005, the most by any U.S. state in that span. As for Memea, he played college baseball at Linn-Benton Community College in Oregon.
7. Florida's "bunt-off," 2024
Entering 2024, Chinese Taipei was a LLWS titan, with 17 championships to its name (more than any non-American country). In contrast, Florida was on the outside looking in, holding an 0-8 record in championship games, including two losses by Gary Sheffield-led teams to Chinese Taipei in the early 1980s.
But all it took was one magical bunt to flip the switch.
Lake Mary Little League (Fla.) had been knocking on the door all afternoon, leaving nine runners on base across the first five innings. But it still trailed 1-0 when it was down to its final out, before DJ Mieses poked a single into shallow left field to tie the game.
That set the stage for one of the wildest endings the LLWS has ever seen. In the bottom of the eighth inning -- the first LLWS title game to go to extras since Carriker's walk-off heroics in 2007 -- the first plate appearance was a "bunt heard around the world" from Hunter Alexander, knocking in the "ghost runner" on second base to clinch Florida's first-ever LLWS championship.
For good measure, all of this came one day after Lake Mary overcame a 4-0 deficit in the U.S. Championship against Texas, who had given Lake Mary its only prior loss of the LLWS.
8. Louis Lappe¡¯s walk-off home run, 2023
Lappe was ¡°The Guy¡± throughout the 2023 LLWS, plain and simple. Beyond being his team¡¯s ace on the mound, the 6-foot-1 superstar also finished as the LLWS¡¯ leader in home runs (five) and RBIs (10), notably including 5 1/3 IP and five RBIs against Texas in the U.S. championship.
But no moment compared to the way he finished the tournament. After Cura?ao hit a grand slam in the fifth inning to turn a 5-1 contest into a tie game, Lappe came up to lead off the bottom of the sixth in a 5-5 game with the opportunity to make history. On the first pitch after announcer Karl Ravech made a comment about Curacao not having allowed a home run in that year¡¯s LLWS, Lappe provided an ¡°announcer¡¯s jinx¡± for the ages, blasting a solo shot to left-center field to win it for El Segundo Little League (Calif.).
The homer sealed California¡¯s eighth LLWS title -- twice as many as any other U.S. state, and more than twice as many as any country outside of the U.S., Chinese Taipei and Japan.
9. Cura?ao makes Caribbean history, 2004
Both Memea¡¯s and Lappe¡¯s aforementioned walk-off home runs led to absolute heartbreak for Pabao Little League in Willemstad, Cura?ao. But over the course of one magical summer in 2004, the small island nation had its time to shine.
The talent was certainly there to do something special. After all, the roster featured both Jurickson Profar and Jonathan Schoop, along with eventual Triple-A outfielder Chris Garia. But still, given that its country¡¯s population has hovered around 150,000 to 160,000 people for most of the 21st century, and given that the baseball facilities in the area were far from pristine at the time, Pabao was not a conventional LLWS contender.
Someone forgot to tell the kids, though. Led by its future MLB stars, Pabao kept finding a way to win games, including an epic quarterfinal win over Chinese Taipei after it trailed 8-4 entering the bottom of the sixth. In the championship, Pabao faced a California team that had gone a combined 22-0 across the tournament¡¯s various stages up to that point, but Profar and Schoop led the way in a 5-2 win.
Because Pabao lost in the LLWS final in 2005, 2019, 2022 and 2023, this game stands as the only LLWS championship ever by a Caribbean team.
10. Cody Webster¡¯s shutout, 1982
In the initial decades of international teams being regular participants in the LLWS, Chinese Taipei was the unquestioned juggernaut. Entering 1982, it had won 10 of the most recent 13 championships, including five straight from 1977-81, which still stands as the longest streak by any non-American team.
Then Cody Webster came along.
Entering the championship game between his National Little League (Wash.) and Puzih Little League, teams from Chinese Taipei had won 31 consecutive LLWS games. But that streak emphatically came to an end thanks to a stunning 6-0 victory in which Webster both homered and threw a complete game shutout.
The major upset led to Webster becoming a national celebrity, though he was limited to one collegiate season as a pitcher due to injuries. The championship run also was chronicled in an ESPN 30 for 30 special called ¡°Little Big Men.¡±
11. Nick Pratto¡¯s walk-off single, 2011
As deep as the U.S.-Japan LLWS rivalry goes, what¡¯s almost as impressive is the California-Japan rivalry, given that the two entities have combined for 19 LLWS titles. A California team has faced a Japanese team in the championship three times, and this was the best of those three.
Current Blue Jays pitcher Hagen Danner cranked a game-tying home run to right field in the third inning for Ocean View Little League (Calif.), setting the stage for the scenario every kid dreams of: tie game, bases loaded, two outs, bottom of the last inning. And in that spot, current Royals first baseman Nick Pratto -- whose father, Jeff, was the California manager -- came up clutch with his third hit of the day to bring home the championship.
12. Legendary Lloyd, 1971
Is McClendon the Little League GOAT? Here is his stat line from the 1971 LLWS: 5-for-5, 5 HR, 5 IBB. That¡¯s a 5.000 OPS, for those counting at home. It sounds mythical, but it was reality for ¡°Legendary Lloyd.¡±
So how is he this low on the list? Though it¡¯s probably not fair to hold it against him, his Anderson Little League (Ind.) squad came up short in the championship game, after Chinese Taipei discovered his kryptonite by repeatedly intentionally walking him after he hit a three-run home run in the first inning. It worked, as McClendon¡¯s team did not score again in an extra-innings loss.
After his legendary Little League career, McClendon churned out eight MLB seasons as a utility man, before also serving as manager of the Pirates and Mariners.
13. Chris Drury does more than hockey, 1989
Sports fans born in the 21st century probably best know Drury for his current job. Drury has been the president and general manager of the NHL¡¯s New York Rangers since 2021, leading the team to the playoffs in all three of his seasons. But while the Rangers are still seeking their first Stanley Cup title since 1994, Drury had already established a winning pedigree long before he took over in New York.
Entering the 1989 LLWS, Chinese Taipei was still the tournament¡¯s powerhouse, having won three consecutive championships and 13 of the past 20. But, like Cody Webster a few years before him, Drury had other plans. Drury threw a complete game on the mound, and also had a two-RBI single, in a 5-2 win for Trumbull Little League (Conn.). This ended up being the only year in the span from 1986-91 that a team from Chinese Taipei did not win the championship.
14. Rich Cominski walk-off homer, 1955
Talk about a local rivalry. Back in the early days of the LLWS, Morrisville Little League (Pa.), which is just west of Trenton, N.J., faced off in the championship against Delaware Township Little League (N.J.), which is in the area now known as Cherry Hill, N.J. With none other than Cy Young himself throwing out the ceremonial first pitch, the stage was set for an instant classic, and that¡¯s what the fans in Williamsport got.
Much thanks to future NFL wide receiver Billy Hunter throwing six innings for Delaware Township, the game was tied 3-3 entering extra innings. Then Cominski came up to lead off the bottom of the seventh, and the rest was history. This was the first time in LLWS history that the title game was decided by a walk-off homer. It also provided the third of Pennsylvania¡¯s four all-time LLWS titles.
15. Nobuhisa Baba walk-off single, 2001
As if there weren¡¯t enough USA-Japan LLWS title games decided in walk-off fashion, the 2001 showdown added another one to the collection. Kitasuna Little League (Tokyo) has brought home four LLWS titles in the 21st century, more than any country besides Japan/USA in that span, and the same amount as the leading U.S. state in that span (Hawaii). The first of those four titles came in 2001, and it came by the skin of their teeth.
In front of a crowd that featured President George W. Bush, who threw out the ceremonial first pitch, a stellar pitchers¡¯ duel featured complete games from both starters. National Little League (Fla.) led 1-0 entering the bottom of the sixth, but after a couple of errors, Nobuhisa Baba lined a walk-off two-run single into left field to win the tournament.
16. Mo¡¯ne Davis returns to pass the torch, 2021
Though Davis¡¯ Little League playing eligibility was long gone by the 2020s, she has continued to be an ardent supporter of the event, with 2021 being a special example. Davis threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Ella Bruning, a catcher for Wylie Little League (Tex.) who became the 20th girl to play in LLWS history.
The first pitch set the tone for a successful outing, as Bruning went 2-for-2 with an RBI, stolen base, and a run scored in a 6-0 win to open the tournament. Wylie went on to finish 3-2 in the tournament, with both losses coming to eventual champion Michigan.