President Eisenhower takes a look in Washington D.C. at the Little League Championship Baseball trophy won by the Monterrey, Mexico, team. The young ball players were accompanied to the White House by Mexican Ambassador Manuel Tello, right, and other embassy officials after winning the 1957 Little League World Series championship. Holding the championship trophy is Angel Macias, who threw the only perfect game in Little League World Series championship history that year. (AP)

Pitcher Angel Macias stood on the mound surrounded by 10,000 spectators in a place he never knew existed, in a game he never imagined he would play, on the verge of doing something that had never been done.

A month earlier, Macias and his teammates with the Industrials had left their home in Monterrey, Mexico, to play in a Little League tournament in McAllen, Texas, thinking they would not be gone long.

But now they were winning 4-0 in the top of sixth and last inning of the Little League World Series championship game in Williamsport against La Mesa, California. The Monterrey team was an out away from becoming the first international team to win the Little League World Series.

Byron Haggard of La Mesa stood at the plate with a 3-0 count.

Macias, who was 12 years old, five feet tall and weighed 88 pounds, let go of his next pitch.

Strike one!

Macias retired the first 17 batters he faced. Ten of them by strikeout, not a single ball left the infield.

Monterrey declared the afternoon of August 23, 1957, a holiday so the town’s people could listen to the game by a long distance telephone broadcast that was transmitted on speakers throughout the city.

Located in Nuevo Leon, the city of Monterrey is adorned by the Santa Catarina River and protected by a chain of mountains, where the Cerro de la Silla stands out by its unique form of a horse saddle.

Strike two!

The Monterrey team was a foot shorter and 30 pounds lighter than the rest of the teams they played. But they kept winning, and with every win, they stayed longer, walking through the Jim Crow South and relying on the charity of strangers. Catcher Norberto Villarreal had never slept on a bed in his life before he left Monterrey in pursuit of the championship.

Strike three!

Sixty years have passed and there still hasn’t been a perfect game in the Little League World Series championship since Macias threw his.

And now, Macias is being honored by Little League this year with enshrinement in the Hall of Excellence.

Perhaps no more improbable team has won the Little League World Series than Mexico that year. A year later, the Industrials became the first team to win the Little League World Series in two consecutive years, having won it in both 1957 and 1958.

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Where Everything BEGAN

The Industrials began in 1956 with the foundation of the Little Industrial League in Monterrey, Mexico.

Four teams from different factories started the Little Industrial League: Botelleros, Mineros, Tubitos and Incas. The league was created for the employees of the factories with the exceptions of Incas, a cotton-trading firm who didn’t employ kids.

During 1956, Monterrey had try-outs for a youth team that would represent the city. The coach, Cesar Faz — who had a meticulous methodology for perfecting movement and an extraordinary way to motivate a youth baseball team — recruited the kids.

“I consider Cesar Faz a super instructor,” said Jose Pepe Maiz, a former pitcher and outfielder Industrial through a phone conversation. “He is the best instructor I’ve ever seen and had in my life.”

The next year, after two victories in two exhibition games in Salinas de Hidalgo, San Luis Potosi, Mexico, the team form Monterrey started its Little League journey to the United States.

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The Odyssey

Many of those kids were part of low-income families, and had the necessity to work to raise money for the team’s first abroad adventure. Crossing by foot over the Mexican northern border from Reynosa to McAllen, Texas, the entire team walked several miles trying to get to their destination, something that Jose Pepe Maiz remembered.

“We crossed the border walking and carrying the bats,” Maiz said. “We started to ask for a lift and they drove us to a motel that was called Rio Grande Courts.”

The Industrials defeated Mexico City, McAllen, Mission, Weslaco and Western Brownsville to advance to Corpus Christi, where they won two more games to represent Southern Texas in the state championship in Forth Worth.

But victories weren’t enough to feed a baseball team.

“During the games we passed out our caps through the crowd,” Maiz recalled. “Asking for a coin or some charity to buy food.”

The Industrials defeated Houston in extra innings in the semifinal game. Then they went on to beat Waco, 11-2, to claim the Texas championship.

The next stop was Louisville, Kentucky for the Southern Regionals, but this time the team couldn’t walk to its destitation.

“They sent us for the first time on airplane,” Maiz described. “We never traveled on airplane before.”

The Industrials won their two games in Louisville — each by shutout — to send the team to Williamsport for the Little League World Series.

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What Is A Perfect Game?

“Every new team who makes it to the World Series is always considered an underdog,” said Lance Van Auken, Vice President of Communications at Little League International and Executive Director of the Little League Museum.

The Industrials pitched and hit their way to Williamsport scoring more than 80 runs and only giving up 12.

“The teams that come here, that make it here is not by accident,” Van Auken described. “You have to win your way into the World Series.”

Monterrey defeated Bridgeport, Conn., to play against La Mesa, Calif., in the championship game for the Little League World Series.

The afternoon of August 23, 1957, Angel Macias retired 18 batters, 11 with strikeouts. No ball left the infield.

This was the most perfect of perfect games.

The players didn’t acknowledge that Macias threw a perfect game. They never talked about it in their lives.

“We didn’t even know what a perfect game was,” Maiz said.

The next morning, the front page of The Sun-Gazette described the feat of the Industrials with the headlines: “Perfect Game Gains title for Monterrey and Monterrey Champs Fly To New York City Today.”

It was a story that got national and international coverage.

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The Heroes of Monterrey

As part of the winning side, the team from Monterrey traveled to New York. A $40 coupon was awarded to them to explore Macy’s and a meeting with the Brooklyn Dodgers was scheduled.

They stopped in Washington, D.C. to meet President Dwight D. Eisenhower and future presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon before going back to Mexico City where they also met Mexican President Ruiz Cortinez.

A flight from Mexico City to Monterrey surprised the whole team before landing in their beloved hometown.

“When we were flying through Monterrey the pilot told us: ‘Look through the window,'” Maiz remembered. “We saw a lot of people and that’s when I asked myself ‘what did we really achieve?'”

A parade was organized in honor of the team, starting from the airport to the Government Palace. Tens of thousands occupied the streets waiting for their Industrials, their world champions.

During the parade, people tried to take part of their uniforms and keep it as memorabilia.

“They tried to take from us the hats, the belts, and take it as a souvenir,” Maiz recalled of people at the parade.

Fourteen scholarships for high school and college education were granted from the government of Nuevo Leon to every member of the Industrials. A bunch of kids that came from nowhere captured the attention of the baseball world after winning the mother of all youth baseball tournaments. Coincidentally, the Industrials went on to win the championship in 1958 as well.

One book has been written and two movies have been filmed in honor of what Van Auken calls “the most meaningful story of Little League Baseball.”

“Achieving that world championship, that perfect game was crucial in my life,” Maiz said. “It was the milestone for the rest of my life’s achievements.”