Officials are taking precautionary measures for the participants and the fans for the solar eclipse during the Little League World Series.
The regional tournaments across the country that will determine the entrants for the Little League Baseball World Series commenced at the end of July. Once the international and United States teams are determined, the LLWS will begin with the first round on August 17 and conclude with the championship game scheduled for Sunday, August 27. Six days before the culmination of the LLWS, there will be a total solar eclipse that will cast a wide shadow (the path of totality) from Lincoln Beach, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina. The last time this happened in the contiguous U.S. was in 1979.
There are five elimination games scheduled for the LLWS on the 21st, so organizers will be busy educating fans, players, coaches and umpires about the dangers of looking directly into the sun without protection. They will also hand out 30,000 AAO-certified glasses that allow for safe-viewing of the solar eclipse.
The precaution is important. While it’s okay to look at the sun when it is fully eclipsed, if you time it poorly your eyes will be dilated because of the darkened sky and when the sun reappears your wide open eyes will be flooded with an incredibly bright light. That won’t be good for anyone.
The eclipse is expected to hit central Pennsylvania shortly after 1 pm and build toward the crucial moment over the next hour-and-a-half. Play will continue on the field during this time because the stadiums are equipped with lights. This is the first time a solar eclipse has come during the Little League World Series because the 1979 solar eclipse happened in February.
The August 21 solar eclipse is the first to cast a path of totality from coast-to-coast in the U.S. in 99 years. For many people, it will be a once-in-a-lifetime event. This, of course, is not unlike playing in the Little League World Series, which for most players who get there is a once-in-a-lifetime event. The vast majority of Little Leaguers never get the chance to play in the game’s biggest stage. Those who are playing during the eclipse on August 21 will be experiencing two once-in-a-lifetime events at once.
The day before the solar eclipse, the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates will play each other in BB&T Ballpark in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, which is the home of the Phillies’ short-season team in the New York-Penn League. Players from the Cardinals and Pirates will meet with Little Leaguers before their game as part of an outreach program for MLB to encourage young people to get involved with baseball.
The Cardinals—Pirates game will be the first game in what will be known as the MLB-Little League classic. It will be broadcast on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball. TwoCardinals players, Lance Lynn and Randal Grichuk, played in the Little League World Series when they were young, so this is their chance to talk to young players who might hope to follow in their footsteps.