Typically, when ESPN airs a baseball game from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, it features over-sized 12-year-olds and their over-bearing coaches.
But on Aug. 20, the network will broadcast from the home of the Little League World Series for another event: a Major-League game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals.
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The logistics of this arrangement promise to be interesting. Williamsport is home to BB&T Ballpark (formerly Bowman Field), a minor-league part that first opened in 1926. Though that sounds like a cool place to see a game, it seats only 4,500 fans, which may not be to the home-team Pirates’ liking.
The other option is for MLB to construct a temporary field, as it did when the Braves and Marlins played at Fort Bragg last summer. That park seated 12,500 fans.
For ESPN, this represents a chance to draw fans’ attention on an otherwise mundane Sunday in August and also a chance to cross-promote its Little League World Series coverage.
[DKPittsburghSports.com, St. Louis Post-Dispatch]