If Memory Serves…

How And When Little League Came To Western United States

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Recently concluded, the Little League World Series Championship--with Taiwan victorious over a team from Nevada--brought back memories of a a young, fledgling automobile leasing executive I knew named Wayne Stevenson, who joined the San Bernardino Junior Chamber of Commerce (JC)  about 1946, at the behest of his employer, Roger Harmon, who at the time was the president of the San Bernardino Chamber of Commerce .  After all, Wayne’s membership dues were paid for, as Roger Harmon Motors was a corporate member of the Junior Chamber.

Of course, along with the free JC membership came the “expectation to perform,” I.e. do something (a JC project?) that would benefit the people of San Bernardino county which was (and still is) the largest county in the world; and since Wayne was aware of Little League, which had begun in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, in 1939, he thought “Since all of the Little League cities and towns are EAST of the Mississippi River, why not make San Bernardino the first city (or town) WEST of the Mississippi to have a Little League team!”

And so Wayne went about assembling a San Bernardino JC committee that would establish the first Little League team, in San Bernardino, in what’s basically the Western United States.  The upshot of Wayne’s Little League Projects was that the City of San Bernardino was selected to be Little League Western headquarters; and so an impressive Little League complex was built on San Bernardino’s northern city limits, complete with housing for the eleven western state champions that would compete for a spot to advance to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, for a chance to become the best Little League team….in the world.