By BEN BRIGANDI
Sports Editor
Williamsport Sun-Gazette

Story posted on Aug. 6, 2009

Ben Brigandi

The Little League World Series is the biggest event we have each year, and for many papers with teams here, it's the biggest event for them, too.

Some of you may still have teams still alive in states and regionals and you're starting to think you may be coming to Williamsport – this year's World Series takes place Aug. 21 to 30 with every game televised by ESPN or ABC. Here are some pointers to help your coverage.

Air travel in and out of Williamsport is a chore. The local airport offers only a few daily U.S. Airways connector flights to and from Philadelphia. However, there are other airports within a short drive that offer a few more options.

State College, an hour away, serves multiple airlines and has connections to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington, Detroit and Cincinnati.

Airports in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Harrisburg, and Allentown are a two-hour drive with some other choices. Williamsport is a three-hour drive from Philly and about four from Pittsburgh, Washington and New York City.

Hotels fill up especially fast as the U.S. regionals finish the weekend before the series and people know they have to come. Many in the area also require a minimum stay.

My advice is book as soon as possible. Many of the teams' supporters often end up staying at least 20-30 minutes away. Smaller towns within an hour of Williamsport and providing couple hotel options are Lewisburg, Lock Haven, Danville, Sunbury and Bloomsburg.

Your local league's district president can probably tell you where the parents are staying, should you want to try and get in the same place. Players are housed in an on-site dormitory which is off-limits to the media and their parents.

We're planning another seven-page wrap running each day of the series. We sell it on the grounds and have done well with it each year. The advertisers love it and people buy it up.

Most visiting papers over the years tell me this is the biggest thing going back home during the few days the team is here. You should have good luck getting cooperation from the coaches and parents, who really are just happy to be there. Get as many cell numbers for parents and coaches as you can find.

Another valuable news source for your teams is their volunteer hosts, called "uncles." Each team gets two, and they shadow everyone and worry about logistics and other details so the players and coaches are free to worry about baseball. They can help you out as much as they help the teams and generally know their history. We rely on them extensively.

Teams can and will leave the grounds on days they don't play. Sometimes they'll go see an amusement park or just hang out with their parents or whatever. These can make for great off-day stories as long as you know where they are going.

One Seattle-area team went to see Penn State's football facility a few years ago (a player's parent played there) and Joe Paterno threw out the reporter tagging along. Some teams like to shy away from the media attention for a day if they can, but you're not ESPN sticking a video camera in their faces at every turn, either.

Winning managers and usually a few players are made available for postgame press conferences.

Little League does not, however, require losing coaches to appear and will not help you track them down if they skip out. It's long been a touchy subject, and we've always thought Little League should show more initiative here.

It's all about the kids having fun, until a coach can't take the losing and has to "be with his team" instead. I count on at least two or three of the 16 coaches to start doing that as the week wears on. It can make for some difficult game stories on deadline.

Speaking of press conferences, the international teams' ones are not always the best translated. This isn't the U.N. here. Little League uses volunteers, some of whom travel with the team and some who happen to speak a given language. Press conferences with multiple translations, such as Japanese into Spanish and English can take awhile, too. They can, however, be fascinating.

Little League's wireless service has been shaky, and it has hardly worked at all at Volunteer Stadium the last two years. Signals at Lamade Stadium and in the media room located below Lamade Stadium have been better, but I'd recommend considering a Sprint card or something similar if you plan Internet-heavy coverage. You shouldn't have major problems just using their wireless to just send stories and photos.

Little League says its service should be better this year after some headquarters expansion, but we'll see.

Little League does provide some good media services. The two main PR people there are Chris Downs and his boss, Lance Van Auken. Both have newspaper backgrounds, but are often too busy to be very accessible. Also, ESPN's needs are served first.

Little League's CEO, Steve Keener, is almost always around and is approachable and likes to talk. Box scores are available almost immediately after the games and are also posted on the Little League's Web site. We run full boxes for each game and it's nothing more than a cut-and-paste with a little text massaging. Stat sheets in the media room are also updated regularly.

Also, Little League puts press conference video on its Web site. They can also give you a hi-res CD of all the team portraits and headshots of kids in uniform by the first day of play.

Ben's story is based on a decade's worth of good and bad ideas, with all the trials and tribulations in between. Shoot him an e-mail at bbrigandi@sungazette.com if you have questions.

Sean Barker of the New Haven Register had some good tips on Little League World Series coverage last year, found here

Little League's Web site, www.littleleague.org, can be a little confusing, so here are a few links of note:

■ The 2009 LLWS homepage, which has most of the information you'll need. Links to boxes, stories, and press conferences are posted in each game window:
http://www.littleleague.org/series/2009divisions/llbb/series.htm

■ The credential request form (.pdf):
http://www.littleleague.org/Assets/forms_pubs/media/MediaRegFormWS09.pdf

■ A list of area hotels with phone numbers:
http://www.littleleague.org/media/Press_Media_Information/lodging.htm

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