By Phil Devlin
(August 24, 2024) — To baseball fans across the world, the end of August means it’s time to watch the Little League World Series championship tournament in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, the birthplace of Little League baseball. During the summer of 1965, 6,350 teams from across the world began a baseball journey. Playing in a single elimination format, fourteen youngsters representing the small blue-collar town of Windsor Locks, Connecticut, defeated thirteen of those teams to become the 1965 Little League World Champions. I was part of that team, and it was the thrill of a lifetime!
Run by run, inning by inning, game by game, the winning continued from District 8 Champions to being crowned state champions by defeating Stamford 1-0. A game-ending triple play in Staten Island, New York against Danvers, Massachusetts paved the way to Williamsport. In exciting tournament play, Windsor Locks proved themselves the best in the world by winning three more games, culminated by a terrific home run, outstanding pitching, and focused coaching in a 3-1 victory over Stony Creek, Canada.
There were a number of significant differences between then and now in Williamsport. First of all, there were only eight teams competing for the championship: four from the United States—North, South, East, and West. (We were the East.) Four international teams were there as well: Latin America represented by Maracaibo, Venezuela; Europe, represented by Rota, Spain; Canada, represented by Stoney Creek, Ontario; and Asia, represented by Tokyo, Japan. Now a total of ten American and ten international teams compete for the championship. These twenty teams stay in luxury condos with air conditioning and WiFi; we stayed in cinder block barracks, each equipped with eight bunk beds and no bathrooms. We used only wooden bats. Metal bats were introduced in 1971. Also, today Little League all-star teams play in double elimination tournaments. In our day, if you lost one game, you went home. The level of media coverage between then and now is enormously different. In 1965, the only game televised was our final game for the championship against Canada and that was on tape delay on ABC’s Wide World of Sports TV show.
A record crowd of 21,000 fans attended the championship game on the Howard J. Lamade Field—the same field used today for the championship. It is one of the most beautiful baseball fields in America! As they did so often, Mike Roche and Dale Misiek played key roles in the win. Mike struck out fourteen and did not allow even one ball out of the infield, while Dale smacked a two-run homer to seal the victory, 3-1. Windsor Locks had outscored their opponents 69-12 that year. Roche and Boardman had an amazing, combined ERA of 0.53 in the thirteen games. Dale hit six home runs and made an outstanding defensive play at first to seal the 1-0 win against a very tough Waco, Texas team in the semis at Williamsport.
The boys were welcomed home by cheering fans and signs that read “Who wants the Beatles, when we got you?” and “Thirteen Games-Thirteen Victories.” In the course of their march to the championship, the boys met with four Hall of Famers: Lefty Gomez and Jackie Robinson in Williamsport and Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle in New York City.
