SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. -- The toughest ticket in town is still free.

It's been that way since the Little League World Series began in 1947. Having just survived the Great Depression and World War II, Americans could not have fathomed paying to watch little boys play baseball. So the visionaries who created Little League simply opened up the ballpark and invited everybody in.

The tradition will continue when the 60th Little League series starts Friday. By the time the field of 16 is cut to two, more than 40,000 fans will fill Howard J. Lamade Stadium and the adjoining hillside to watch the championship game. Overall, some 200,000 people will attend the series. ABC and the ESPN networks will televise all 32 tournament games.

Almost nobody covered the first series, yet Lou Baity gets questioned about it every summer.

Mr. Baity, 71, played on the inaugural series champion team, the Maynard Midgets, of Williamsport, where Little League baseball was born.

"I liked Little League right away because I liked baseball. Plus, if you didn't have a father, you had a coach," said Mr. Baity, now of Inglewood, Calif.

He is especially proud that Little League's first world championship team was integrated. Maynard had two black players, Mr. Baity and Walter Dunston, now a Philadelphia dentist.

Years after the big game, when Dr. Dunston saw few black faces at Lycoming College, Temple University's dental school, or in the Navy, he thought of the Little League series. He said that boyhood triumph gave him confidence in a society that remained largely segregated.

In a way, he said, Little League's roots in Williamsport prevented racial separation on the playing field. Little League's first three teams were organized in Williamsport in 1939, and it was the first home of the world series. The event shifted a few miles in the 1950s to a complex in the suburb of South Williamsport.

"Williamsport was so small when Little League began that you couldn't have segregation the way you could in cities," Dr. Dunston said.

Still, the coaches could have picked an all-white team to send to the first series. They were fair enough to choose the strongest lineup.

That meant something, for even little boys were conscious of race in 1947. That was the year Jackie Robinson, the first black man of the century hired by a white big-league team, played first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Little League was small potatoes when the series was launched. There were 15 leagues in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, providing summer fun for 900 boys.

By the time girls sued in 1974 for the right to play Little League baseball, the organization had almost 7,000 leagues and 1.6 million players. Today, the number of Little League participants, boys and girls, numbers 2.66 million in more than 80 countries.

Krissy Wendell, who captained the U.S. women's Olympic hockey team this year, played in the Little League World Series in 1994. She started at catcher for a team from Brooklyn Park, Minn.

"At first, I played softball instead of baseball. But I didn't like playing with girls. I'm too competitive for that," she said.

Little League baseball proved to be a good fit.

"My teammates were great. I'd been playing hockey since I was 5, so I was pretty confident around guys," she said.

Only when she arrived in South Williamsport did she feel a bit unsettled. Media members awaited her, the fifth girl ever to play in the series. Shy and a bit unsure about why she was being questioned, 12-year-old Krissy did not want to talk.

Her father, Larry, the Brooklyn Park coach, settled matters, saying she should step in front of the cameras and tell her story. She did, the beginning of international sports coverage that has continued for most of her life.

So long are the odds of reaching South Williamsport that most kids do not waste precious summertime calculating their chances. An exception was the 1971 team from Gary, Ind. The manager, Jesse Lawson, told players halfway through the season that they would make it to the series.

"We said, 'Yeah, right. Whatever you say, Mr. Lawson.' But, after a while, we started believing him. All of us started saying, 'We're going to the Port,' " said Carl Weatherspoon, an outfielder on the team.

The kids from Gary knew nothing about the series, except that the championship game in those days was televised on ABC's "Wide World of Sports." Mr. Lawson realized the competition was formidable, but he had a special weapon in Lloyd McClendon.

Mr. McClendon, who, in adulthood, would manage the Pittsburgh Pirates, came to the public's attention as a 12-year-old prodigy. He stood 5 feet 8 inches tall and was so much better than any other Little Leaguer that he could win a game with his bat or his pitching arm.

Gary defeated teams from Lexington, Ky., and Spain to reach the series championship against Taiwan. Mr. McClendon started fast in the final, homering in the bottom of the first to put Gary ahead 3-0. It was his fifth home run in five at bats during the series, something no other player had ever done. Onlookers called him "Legendary Lloyd," a nickname that stuck.

Taiwan's pitcher intentionally walked him after that. Taiwan eventually tied the game when Mr. McClendon, himself an overpowering pitcher, threw one by catcher Ralph Basemore.

"In fairness to Ralph, he was hurting," said Marcus Hubbard, second baseman on the Gary team. "Lloyd was throwing so hard that Ralph's hand had swollen up. He had to wear an extra glove on it."

Little Leaguers normally play six innings. The Gary-Taiwan game went nine. By rule, Mr. McClendon could not pitch the extra innings. The Taiwanese broke the tie, winning 12-3.

"Afterward, Mr. Lawson told us it was all right to cry. So we all just broke down," Mr. Weatherspoon said.

The defeat does not seem important now. "What I remember is that being in the series was a phenomenal experience," Mr. Weatherspoon said.

After leaving South Williamsport, the team went to the White House to meet President Richard M. Nixon. A serious fan, Mr. Nixon was gracious with the players, he, too, knowing what it was like to lose a big one.

Mr. McClendon, now a coach with the Detroit Tigers, will be enshrined this month in the Little League Museum's Hall of Excellence. The ceremony will be shortly before the championship game Aug. 27. That moment will mark 35 years since he first performed on an international stage in South Williamsport.

At this series, hot dogs cost $1.25 and soft drinks go for 50 cents. The ballpark always is immaculate. Only perspectives seem to change.

"I didn't know the significance of hitting those home runs at the time," Mr. McClendon said. "Looking back now, I realize just how important that was."