The 2023 Little League World Series is still a week away from wrapping up. But the state of Michigan already knows it’ll have a team playing in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, during the 2024 version of the event — the Detroit Tigers.
The Tigers announced via Twitter on Sunday that they’ll face the Yankees in MLB’s Little League Classic at Muncy Bank Ballpark on Aug. 18, 2024. The game will be played at 7 p.m. and broadcast on ESPN. The Tigers will be the home team, as they were set to host the Yankees for a three-game set Aug. 16-18 according to their schedule released last month. The Tigers and Yankees will also take in a Little League World Series game during the day ahead of the game.
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The Tigers/Yankees tilt in Pennsylvania will be the seventh iteration of the game. This year’s version features the Philadelphia Phillies facing the Washington Nationals on Sunday night in Williamsport. The Tigers will be the second AL Central team to play in the game, with Cleveland facing the Los Angeles Angels in 2021.
It will be the first neutral-site game for the Tigers since they took on the Kansas City Royals for a single game at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska, on June 13, 2019. The Royals beat the Tigers, 7-3, that day.
The Tigers won’t be the first team from Michigan to seek success in Williamsport, though: The Mitten State has had two LLWS champions, with Hamtramck winning the event in 1959 and Taylor North winning it all in 2021. The LLWS is played at two smaller stadiums in Williamsport, Howard J. Lamade Stadium and Little League Volunteer Stadium.
Contact Ryan Ford at rford@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @theford. Read more on the Detroit Tigers and sign up for our Tigers newsletter.