On this day in history, August 23, 1947, Williamsport team in Pa. wins first Little League World Series

Massapequa Coast head coach Roland Clark celebrates his team's success and talks about preparing for the Little League World Series

The Little League World Series, a youth sports spectacle in summertime America, crowned its first champion on this day in history, August 23, 1947. 

The Maynard Midgets, a team from Williamsport, Penn., the host city for each Little League World Series, beat Lock Haven, Penn., before an estimated 2,500 fans to capture the first crown.

"It took temerity to call this first event a World Series, since all but one of the teams were from Pennsylvania," Sports Illustrated reported on the 50th anniversary fo the Maynard title in 1997.

The lone outlier among the 12 teams in the first Little League World Series was a club from Atlantic City, N.J. 

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"But within 15 years teams from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe and Asia would come to Williamsport to vie for baseball glory," according to the same story. 

Little League baseball was founded in Williamsport by Carl Stotz, an oil company clerk, in 1939, according to LittleLeague.org. 

A general view of the stadium before the Little League Classic at Little League Headquarters Complex on Sunday, August 21, 2022, in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania.  (Mary DeCicco/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

The program exploded in popularity in the aftermath of World War II.

"Within a few years, word spread about Carl Stotz’s program, and Little League was being played in all 48 states," according to the Little League website. 

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The championship tournament proved a