CNBNews

Finishing the three-team tournament with a 4-1 record, Arabian American Little League earned the right to represent the MEA Region in the 63rd World Series Tournament to be played in South Williamsport, Pa., Aug. 21-30. Dubai Little League defeated Arabian American Little League, 9-5, earlier in the tournament.

A team from Saudi Arabia has never won the Little League Baseball World Series. The first year a team from Saudi Arabia qualified for the Little League Baseball World Series was 1983. This year marks the 21st time that a team from Saudi Arabia has reached the World Series.

Arabian American Little League has represented Europe, then the Transatlantic Region, and now the Middle East and Africa Region at the Little League Baseball World Series.

        Arabian American Little League joins Caribbean Region Champion, Pabao Little League from Curacao in the Netherlands Antilles; Japan’s National Champion, Chiba City Little League from Tokyo; Asia-Pacific Champion, Kuei-Shan Little League from Chinese Taipei; and Latin America Region Champion, Coquivacoa Little League of Maracaibo, Venezuela, as participants in the 2009 Little League Baseball World Series.

The 2009 Little League Baseball World Series will welcome 11-12-year-olds from around the world. Sixteen teams will compete for the World Series championship.

The World Series championship game can be seen live on ABC at 3:30 p.m., on Sunday, Aug. 30. ABC also will televise the International Championship Game on Saturday, Aug. 29 at noon, followed by the United States championship at 3 p.m.

The 2009 World Series will be the third operated under the eight-year television contract agreement with ESPN/ABC. Five games will be televised on ABC. This will be the fourth year that all of the World Series games will be televised in high definition. For the eighth year since the tournament expanded from eight to 16 teams in 2001, every team will have games on national television.

All 32 games of the World Series will be televised again this year. Thirteen World Series games will be televised on ESPN and 14 will be televised on ESPN2. In addition, the ESPN family of networks will carry all eight of the U.S. Regional Championship finals in the Little League Baseball division. The U.S. regional finals have been televised by ESPN and ESPN2 every year since 1997.

For the second consecutive year, the New England Sports Network (NESN) is scheduled to televise four early-round games in the New England Region Tournament. The Madison Square Garden Network (MSG) is scheduled to televise four early-round games in the Mid-Atlantic Region Tournament. Each tournament is to be played at Little League’s A. Bartlett Giamatti Leadership Training Center in Bristol, Conn.

The next berth in the Little League Baseball World Series is expected to be decided on July 30, when Mexico’s National Championship is to be decided.

The U.S. region finals, which will be televised live, are: Thursday, Aug. 13 - Southwest (Waco, Texas, 8 p.m., ESPN2); Friday, Aug. 14 - Southeast (Ceredo-Kenova, W. Va., 8 p.m., ESPN); Saturday, Aug. 15 - Midwest (Indianapolis, noon, ESPN); New England (Bristol, Conn., 2 p.m., ESPN); Great Lakes (Indianapolis, 7 p.m., ESPN); Northwest (San Bernardino, Calif., 9 p.m., ESPN); Sunday, Aug. 16 - West (San Bernardino, Calif., 8 p.m., ESPN2); Monday, Aug. 17 - Mid-Atlantic (Bristol, Conn., 8 p.m., ESPN2).

Little League Baseball and Softball is the largest organized youth sports program in the world, with 2.6 million participants in all 50 states and scores of other countries.