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When one goes to the Little League World Series now, it’s hard to imagine what it looked like way back in 1947, when the first Little League World Series was held in Williamsport across from Bowman Field. But, walk around the Little League World Series Complex enough this time of year and you’re likely to run into someone who can tell you all about it.

Richard “Dick” Horn, an original participant in the 1947 Little League World Series, made his annual pilgrimage to South Williamsport for the Little League World Series once again as one of the last surviving participants of the first Little League World Series.

“The crowd certainly wasn’t as big as it is now. However, there was a big crowd. It was the first, the first time that we actually had a chance to play other teams besides those in our own league, and so it was a big deal for us, and it was just a wonderful, wonderful opportunity.” Horn said. “A lot of dads had to leave the states to go to war, and so they weren’t available. We had to deal with teaching each other how to learn the game instead of coaches and so forth. But, after the war, when the dads began to come back, there seemed to be more dads available to coach.

Horn played for Hartman Coal in that first Little League World Series out of Brandon Little League in that first Little League World Series. Brandon went 1-1 at the tournament, beating Montgomery 14-2 before dropping a 10-4 contest to the Maynard League, the eventual champions of the first Little League World Series.

That almost never happened for Horn. He originally missed the sign-up date, as his dad heard about the tryouts but forgot to relay the message. He was allowed on the team, though, and the rest is history.

Still sharp as ever, Horn doesn’t so much remember the scores of the games from 78 years ago, but the memories of playing are crystal clear.

“I go back to the field, I always walk out to the shortstop area where I play, and just sort of walk around that a little bit. Then, I go to the pitcher’s mound I pitched in the game, and I like to kind of stand out there and imagine the batters and the crowd, and just sort of get back into that memory. I think a lot of it is about memories and remembering them and how much they affect us,” Horn said.

A Williamsport graduate, Horn has spent his adult life out of the Williamsport area. A former clergyman, he did the invocation at both the 1960 Little League World Series and 1972 Little League World Series and followed the growth and development of Little League Baseball from afar, living in New York, Florida, and in North Carolina, where he resides now in the Winston-Salem area. He always followed Little League, even if he wasn’t physically present in the Williamsport area.

“I was going to school and college, getting my life together. I was focused on that, but I kept an eye on what was happening with Little League. I read articles when they appeared in the paper, and I saw that it was getting larger. I realized that that was not always what everybody wanted, but it’s what seemed to fit the times. And I do like the idea that people from not only the United States but around the world can get to know each other (through Little League),” Horn said.

When his daughter, Sharon Wiltsey, heard that Little League was doing a 75th Anniversary Celebration, she planned a big family-wide trip to join in on the festivities, with eight family members making the trip. What was thought of at the time as perhaps a one-off trip has turned into annual trips for Richard, his wife Cheryl, and Sharon.

What inspired him to keep coming back? It’s the way that being here made him feel during the 2022 Little League World Series.

“I could feel the growth that had occurred and the attention that was being given to inclusion and opening, opening things up for anybody and everybody and that they were moving in a direction of embracing the world,” he said.

The Horns wear t-shirts with different pictures of Horn during his Little League days. The shirts serve as a conversation piece of sorts, and plenty of people walk up and want to talk to him about his experiences.

“Sharon had the idea of us going and making some T- shirts and just letting people know that there is somebody, and perhaps others that played in that first series that might want to meet you. We might want to meet them. It was more wanting to meet people that might like to know that. And so that’s what we did. And people began to walk up and say, ‘you played back then?’ and then pictures would be taken. Horn said. There were incidents of people actually talking out of gratitude that they could put their finger on someone that actually was there at the first World Series, that seemed to matter a lot to people. That made them see the Little League World Series as something more personal.”

The shirts have had their intended effect.

“We meet a lot of people and talk to the kids. The shirts are not about him. It’s about that first series, and everybody that was there,” Wiltsey said.

As for what happens on the field, Horn could not be more impressed. He gushed about how good the modern-day Little League World Series players are, especially with the pressure that they face.

“Everybody on this field right now knows exactly, if the ball is hit to them, what they’re going to do with it. They don’t have to think about it. The training over the years has taught boys and girls to let it be a part of you, so you don’t have to think. You know what you’re going to do,” he said. “I I don’t know how to say it. I sometimes say that somehow I feel there’s more pressure on players today than there was on us. And so, I wonder how that pressure is being mobilized, or how the kid is dealing with it. (Pressure increases) when something grows. I hope they’re trusting their feelings. I think that the way the game is played now, they’re taught to kind of taught to let the feelings be around, and enjoy themselves when the game is over. But, on the field, there’s something you need to get done.”

There’s one memory of attending the Little League World Series that sticks out above all the rest.

” I will never forget the game some years ago, when a pitcher hit the batter and the batter went down to first base, got on first base, and you could tell the pitchers was upset with himself. The guy who just got on 1st base walked off the base, didn’t ask for permission to do it, walked off the base and hugged the pitcher,” he said.

When asked what advice he would give to present-day Little League World Series participants, Horn had a simple message.

“What memories are you taking back home?”

Horn doesn’t know how many more years he will be able to make the nearly two-week long trip to the Little League World Series, but wants to keep doing it as long as he is physically able to. And, as long as he’s here, a piece of living history will be walking around the Little League World Series.