Welcome to Williamsport, home of the Little League Baseball World Series.
Though, actually, South Williamsport is home of the Little League World Series. South Williamsport High School sits a few blocks away, there's a post office and the Associated Press datelines all LLWS stories South Williamsport.
Ask anyone from here and they know the geography from when the Little League World Series started at what now is the Original Field on West Fourth Street in Williamsport before eventually moving to its present location in South Williamsport.
ESPN announcer Karl Ravech knows all this, but still thinks it's funny whenever it's mentioned on the air that the games are in Williamsport.
"This area is sensitive about Williamsport and South Williamsport," Ravech said Thursday at the annual Ray Keyes/Wiliamsport Ki-wanis Salute to Little League luncheon at the Genetti Hotel. "I have the iPad with me in the booth, and we'll see the tweets show up whenever we read things and say both South Williamsport and Williamsport. We'll joke on the air about South and see if we get reactions to it and we get a kick out of the comments sent in."
All kidding aside, Ravech said he requested to cover the Series for ESPN, where he has worked since 1993. He has covered the LLWS for six years and hopes to do so for the foreseeable future, such as longtime Lamade Stadium voices Brent Musberger and Jim McKay.
Ravech is a regular on ESPN's baseball coverage that also includes Baseball Tonight and the College World Series. Ravech said the enthusiasm here is genuine, from the players and locals alike.
"There's a level of entitlement and whining with the pro athlete, as much as I enjoy them," said Ravech, who grew up in Needham, Mass.
Ravech said he's learned that even more from working with the last two managers of the Boston Red Sox, one of the most intense managerial jobs in the game. Bobby Valentine covered baseball with Ravech before replacing Terry Francona in Boston, who replaced Valentine at ESPN. Francona, as Valentine before him, is working the LLWS.
Ravech said he publicly lobbied for Valentine to get the job, but realized throughout the Red Sox continued struggles this year too many problems were beyond Valentine's control.
"I thought Bobby was as sharp as a baseball guy can be. In that situation with Boston last year I thought he was a guy who could fix it, and from learning with Terry there's so much more," Ravech said. "Bobby's had his sharp edges dulled a little, and that's why this event and the college kids are more enjoyable. I feel for him."
Ravech also recalled some sharp edges with former Williamsport Mayor Jessie Bloom, when he learned as a young reporter in Binghamton, N.Y., in the early 1990s that this city's Eastern League team was planning to relocate.
"The rumor was that we might be getting Williamsport," Ravech said. "It must have been a Saturday, she was pissed off, and so she told me what was going on (and) that the team was leaving. So, by virtue of her anger I got the scoop, but she wasn't happy that night."
Hearing how viewers appreciate the job he does, from the games to the ever-popular ESPN commercials to Baseball Tonight, which recaps games at the end of the day, is more pleasant.
Except when it isn't.
"It's disconcerting to hear guys say we go to bed together every night," Ravech said. "It's even worse when I hear a wife say 'You're in there with me and I don't like it.'"
