The "Midget-Midget, Jr. Midget and Midget" Story

It was an ordinary day. And, I knew this was coming. It has been a summer staple since I was two years old. Generation after generation have participated in it. The event that I am writing about is the Lancaster New Era Tournament which is held in mid-summer every year since 1946. It is the "World Series" of baseball in Lancaster County for boys age 8-16. League champions from all over the county play against each other to see which team was the best for that summer. I have written about the tournament before, but there are certain aspects of the tournament that I didn't know about before. In the early 40s baseball was the most popular summer past-time for boys. Any field in the county probably had someone playing ball on it during most of the day. There were many county leagues and the New Era Tournament was started to determine the best team in the county at the different levels. Boys 8-12 years old played at the Midget-Midget level, boys from 13-14 played at the Jr. Midget level and those who were 15 or 16 were classified Midgets. The tournament was for all levels and was sponsored by the evening newspaper in Lancaster, The Lancaster New Era. Lancaster was so proud of it's baseball players and it's tournament that when the national Little League Baseball arrived in the county, it was looked upon as minor league stuff. It was every baseball player's supreme dream to play in The Lancaster New Era tournament. I know, because I played in it and it was my biggest thrill as a young boy playing midget-midget baseball. Then, when my boys played summer baseball, it was again one of my biggest thrills to coach teams in The New Era Tournament. Not only coach in the tournament, but win the Midget title in 1990 coaching the Manheim Township team which my youngest son was a member of. My teams had played in the tournament for 5 straight years, finally winning it one time. Tough to do in Lancaster County with all the great baseball players. The national Little League World Series will start soon with teams from all over the world, but the New Era Tournament pre-dates that tournament by one year and there were no Little League endorsed teams in Lancaster County until Solanco (Southern Lancaster County) established an entry in Little League Baseball in the late 80s. Ages are the same for both Little League and Lancaster County midget-midget league teams, but the quality of play and interest in Lancaster County leagues was so great, that Little League didn't seem necessary. I guess with the TV broadcasts of the Little League World Series, some felt the boys would get better coverage if we played in the Little League sponsored leagues. As of today, Solanco's entry into Little League baseball is still the only league in the county that is affiliated with Little League. The New Era Tournament is so popular with youth baseball that Lancaster still considers it the major league of baseball. My sons and grandson, who has just started his journey into my passion, will soon visit a few venues to take in a tournament game and talk about when .......... The memories never fade! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. PS - photo show LDub when he played for the midget-midget team sponsored by Schick.