The Little League World Series’ Only Perfect Game

In 1957, Mexico’s scrawny players overcame the odds to become the first foreign team to win the Little League World Series

  • By Jim Morrison
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Monterrey Mexico Little League baseball team The little league baseball team from Monterrey, Mexico became the first team from outside the United States to win the Little League World Series.

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    Angel Macias perfect game Little League World Series

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    The Perfect Game Heard 'Round the World

    Watch newsreel footage of Angel Macias' astonishing performance at the Little League World Series


    They came to be known as “Los pequeños gigantes,” the little giants.

    In baseball, a game full of real and imagined fairy tales from Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ’Round the World” to Bernard Malamud’s fable The Natural, no story may be more inspiring or surprising than the story of the 1957 Little League team from Monterrey, Mexico.

    The team was composed of mostly poor kids from an industrial city who’d started playing baseball only a few years earlier, clearing rocks and glass from a dirt field and playing barefoot with a homemade ball and gloves. They’d only imagined Major League games, gathering around a radio for Sunday rebroadcasts in Spanish of Brooklyn Dodgers contests (Roy Campanella, the Dodgers’ catcher had played in Monterrey in 1942 and 1943, enchanting their parents). Even when they reached the Little League World Series, most of their opponents outweighed them by 35 or 40 pounds. But over four weeks and 13 games beginning in July, they were magical.

    On August 23, 1957, behind the pitching wizardry of Angel Macias, they defeated La Mesa, California, 4-0, before 10,000 people in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to become the first team from outside the United States to win the Little League World Series. That day, Macias pitched what remains the only perfect game in a Little League World Series final, setting down all 18 batters in order – Little League games are only six innings, striking out 11 with pinpoint control, nasty breaking balls and sheer guile. La Mesa didn’t hit a ball to the outfield.

    “I think the magnitude of the upset, to me, rivals, if not exceeds, when our U.S. hockey amateurs in 1980 beat the Red Army team at the Olympics,” says W. William Winokur, who penned a book and screenplay based on the team’s story. The movie, “The Perfect Game,” stars Jake T. Austin, Ryan Ochoa and Cheech Marin and opens in theaters this month.

    The Monterrey team arrived in Williamsport after an unlikely road trip that started when the players crossed the border on foot, taking a bridge over the Rio Grande from Reynosa towards McAllen, Texas, hoping for rides to a small hotel before their first game of the championship tournament. Monterrey had been granted a Little League franchise with four teams only the year before. They expected to lose and return home.

    “We didn’t even know Williamsport existed,” remembers Jose “Pepe” Maiz, a pitcher and outfielder on the team who now runs a Monterrey construction company and owns the Sultanes, a Mexican League baseball team. “We were just [supposed] to play a game in McAllen.”

    They won their first game in McAllen 9-2 against a team from Mexico City filled with players who were the sons of Americans working south of the border. They swept through the rest of the regional and state tournaments, winning by at least five runs, until they reached the state semifinal game in Fort Worth against Houston. There, Maiz came on as a relief pitcher in extra innings to lead them to a 6-4 comeback win.


    They came to be known as “Los pequeños gigantes,” the little giants.

    In baseball, a game full of real and imagined fairy tales from Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ’Round the World” to Bernard Malamud’s fable The Natural, no story may be more inspiring or surprising than the story of the 1957 Little League team from Monterrey, Mexico.

    The team was composed of mostly poor kids from an industrial city who’d started playing baseball only a few years earlier, clearing rocks and glass from a dirt field and playing barefoot with a homemade ball and gloves. They’d only imagined Major League games, gathering around a radio for Sunday rebroadcasts in Spanish of Brooklyn Dodgers contests (Roy Campanella, the Dodgers’ catcher had played in Monterrey in 1942 and 1943, enchanting their parents). Even when they reached the Little League World Series, most of their opponents outweighed them by 35 or 40 pounds. But over four weeks and 13 games beginning in July, they were magical.

    On August 23, 1957, behind the pitching wizardry of Angel Macias, they defeated La Mesa, California, 4-0, before 10,000 people in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to become the first team from outside the United States to win the Little League World Series. That day, Macias pitched what remains the only perfect game in a Little League World Series final, setting down all 18 batters in order – Little League games are only six innings, striking out 11 with pinpoint control, nasty breaking balls and sheer guile. La Mesa didn’t hit a ball to the outfield.

    “I think the magnitude of the upset, to me, rivals, if not exceeds, when our U.S. hockey amateurs in 1980 beat the Red Army team at the Olympics,” says W. William Winokur, who penned a book and screenplay based on the team’s story. The movie, “The Perfect Game,” stars Jake T. Austin, Ryan Ochoa and Cheech Marin and opens in theaters this month.

    The Monterrey team arrived in Williamsport after an unlikely road trip that started when the players crossed the border on foot, taking a bridge over the Rio Grande from Reynosa towards McAllen, Texas, hoping for rides to a small hotel before their first game of the championship tournament. Monterrey had been granted a Little League franchise with four teams only the year before. They expected to lose and return home.

    “We didn’t even know Williamsport existed,” remembers Jose “Pepe” Maiz, a pitcher and outfielder on the team who now runs a Monterrey construction company and owns the Sultanes, a Mexican League baseball team. “We were just [supposed] to play a game in McAllen.”

    They won their first game in McAllen 9-2 against a team from Mexico City filled with players who were the sons of Americans working south of the border. They swept through the rest of the regional and state tournaments, winning by at least five runs, until they reached the state semifinal game in Fort Worth against Houston. There, Maiz came on as a relief pitcher in extra innings to lead them to a 6-4 comeback win.

    Along the way, their visas expired. Only intervention by the U.S. ambassador to Mexico kept them in the country. They were homesick; only Maiz had ever left Monterrey. They often didn’t have money for food, settling for two meals a day. They ate through the kindness of strangers and new friends, who offered them meals in a restaurant or gave them a few dollars after a victory, Maiz says.

    Despite the challenges, they kept winning, 11-2 in the Texas state championship, and then 13-0 over Biloxi, Mississippi, and 3-0 over Owensboro, Kentucky, in the Southern Regional Championship, earning the 14 players a bus ride to Williamsport.

    Teams from Canada and Mexico had made it to the Little League World Series before, but they’d never won. International competition was still so new that the Monterrey team played in the Texas state tournament and advanced through the U.S. South region.

    Little League officials in Williamsport gave them new uniforms with “South” across the chest, emblematic of their regional championship. None of them fit; the Monterrey boys were too small. They averaged 4 feet 11 inches and 92 pounds while the La Mesa team averaged 5 feet 4 inches,and 127 pounds. After he watched La Mesa handily defeat Escanaba, Michigan, in the semifinal, Maiz was worried. Joe McKirahan, La Mesa’s star southpaw pitched a one-hitter and socked two homers, one a towering drive to right field.

    “I say to myself, ‘Wow, what will happen to us tomorrow?’ “ he recalls.

    Angel Macias, number 8, was 5 feet and 88 pounds, a rare ambidextrous player. This day, he decided to throw only right-handed. Lew Riley, his opponent on the mound, led off for La Mesa, drilling the first pitch down the first base line. “It was just foul by an inch,” recalls Riley, who now lives in Yorba Linda, California. “That was as close as we’d come to a hit.”

    McKirahan, who batted cleanup for La Mesa and was later signed by the Boston Red Sox, struck out both times against Macias. “My recollection of Angel during the game was he was sneaky fast,” he says. “He was the first pitcher we saw who clearly had pinpoint control. Even at 12 [years old], you sensed this kid knew exactly where the ball was going. He just dominated us like no one else had come even close to.”

    Richard Gowins, an outfielder, didn’t get in the game for La Mesa, but he watched Macias plow down one batter after another from his spot as first base coach. As the game went on, the crowd shifted, backing the boys from south of the border. “They were fast. They were upbeat. They just had a spirit about them,” he says.

    Riley was cruising along himself until the fifth inning. The first Monterrey batter walked on four pitches. The second bunted perfectly between Riley and the third baseman, putting runners on first and second with no outs. Maiz came to bat. He saw a fastball from Riley, drilling it into centerfield for a double that scored the game’s first run. In the inning, Monterrey sent nine batters to the plate and scored four times, leaving La Mesa one last chance.

    With two outs in the sixth and final inning, Macias threw three balls, then came back with two strikes to La Mesa’s Byron Haggard. For the next pitch, he reached back for a curveball. Haggard swung and missed. The crowd in Williamsport exploded. So did those listening to the radio broadcast in Monterrey.

    Fifty-two years later, their victory remains the only perfect game in a Little League World Series Championship. After the celebration, Maiz says the team’s first thoughts were to go home. That would take nearly a month. The Monterrey players traveled by bus to New York to see a Dodgers game and go shopping with $40 each (given to them by Macy’s). Then, they made stops in Washington, D.C. to meet President Dwight Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon before going on to celebrations in Mexico City. When they finally returned to Monterrey, they were met by hundreds of thousands in the streets.

    Each earned a high school and college scholarship from the Mexican government although Maiz says only he and one other went to college. Angel Macias was signed by the Los Angeles Angels and invited to their first spring training in 1961 as a 16-year-old. He played briefly for the Angels in the minor leagues before going on to a career in the Mexican League.

    “All the doors opened and everywhere we went somebody would point us out or want an autograph,” Macias told an interviewer a few years ago. “People knew our names, and my name was Angel Macias, champion child.”

    EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the 1952 and 1953 Canadian teams were composed of sons of American expatriates. They were composed of native Canadians. The incorrect statement has been deleted.


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    Comments (41)

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    i love the movie. im waching it right now

    Posted by luke on January 31,2012 | 12:18 PM

    I had a hard time finding this movie, and finally got to see it. It is a feel good movie. No matter how big or small you are, the only thing that matters is how big your heart is. For me, the best part of the movie was the actually footage and pictures of the actuall team. Love the movie, and it doesn't matter if it's "based on a true story", we all know the end result and I really like this movie

    Posted by Roger S. Torres on January 21,2012 | 03:24 AM

    I watched this movie with my father in Houston TX in Jul of 2011. It was special to me because we shared the love of baseball. He shared all his memories of listening to the games on the radio and what it was like for him during that time. My father had cancer and we were in Houston for treatment. My Father passed away in Oct 2011 and I will forever hold this wonderful memory of watching this movie and reliving his youth with him. I also got to give him his wish of going to a major league baseball game!! Thank you for Baseball and the Little League Team from Monterrey!

    Posted by Valentina Aguilar-Garcia on January 20,2012 | 09:26 AM

    I'm 68 years old. I remember very much when all this this was going on. eventhour I was born in calif- ornia I was routing for the team of mexico. I never forgot angel macias name When my brother told me about the movie " the perfect game" I knew it was about angel macias. It took me over a year to fine the movie "brain book store" in Riverside calif.

    Posted by lucio a camacho on November 25,2011 | 05:35 PM

    great movie

    Posted by stephen capps on November 8,2011 | 12:06 PM

    I saw the new movie about "The Perfect Game" and loved it but I remember the TV movie and it was alot different.The pitcher Mancias was throwing rocks to kill chickens for his family for dinner. He was asked by the person forming the team at his house to show him how he killed the chickens. He responed "right of left handed". That's when he found out that he could throw from both hands. That TV movie showed how the kids had no gloves and yes did play in the street with a rag ball and stick. I have been looking for that TV movie and can't find it anywhere. I was wondering if someone can direct me with a way to find it or obtain it. Thank You Big Gil

    Posted by Gil Sotelo on August 30,2011 | 06:29 AM

    when faith,talent,heart and desire is in your life,miracles will happen.to pitch a perfect game against other very talented batters is such a miracle.the movie was great but the theme is what made it great.

    Posted by raymond perez on August 28,2011 | 04:10 PM

    i loved this movie---i was not even born yet but its the hearts of these players that i love about Little League Baseball----I got to own it----

    Posted by ruby millspaugh on August 27,2011 | 10:45 PM

    The best movie i've seen in a long long time. (I found the movie at walmart)I recommend to take time to see this powerful true story of what we can achieve in our lives.

    Posted by esperanza on August 24,2011 | 12:24 PM

    My wife and I saw this move at the theater when it first was released in '08, I love this move and for what it showed me and open my eyes to all the different prejudice's that was going on, I remember telling my mother that at this time I was on my way into this world, I was born Dec. 7th 1957, I am going to go out and buy this move and share it with everyone that I know, since I was a League President in my home Little League it hit a home run in my heart.

    Posted by Nacho Gonzales on August 23,2011 | 04:49 PM

    My husband and I have been waiting to see this film. We saw previews about it quite a while back. I checked online yesterday and Walmart had it. We watched it last night and LOVED it! Great movie that I will be recommending to my friends and family.

    Posted by nancy v on August 22,2011 | 12:38 PM

    My Grandfather Harold Lucky Haskins had 14 children and 3 wifes and was never devoriced. He finally found himself as an responsible adult with family in Montteray. I feel his being left out of the film has to do with the hard line chistian feel good view that somebody who walks out on 2 wifes deserves no repentance in his life. I never meet the man but he seems to have made somthing of a reversal of his bad luck and depression era living on shoe string and walking away from 2 previous families. I will not judge the man the way the movie did; he is family; and hopefully I will someday meet the rest of the relatives.

    Posted by Cecil Coulter on August 14,2011 | 11:08 PM

    wonderful movie .... definitely shows the true power of DETERMINATION !!!

    Posted by IGNACIO A. LLANOS JR. on August 10,2011 | 03:34 PM

    I just saw the film "The Perfect Game". I have been waiting for this film for well over a year and I was not disappointed. Although it was "based on a true story" it keeps the same spirit from the book and it is well done by telling the story. I am so proud to be originally from Monterrey now living in Chicago.

    Posted by Jose L Saldana on August 5,2011 | 10:41 PM

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