Devlin decided to start a Little League in Rutherford, as a way to give his future players a head start in learning the game. He prevailed upon his friend Ed Morse, treasurer of the borough YMCA, to round up sponsors for a four-team league.
On June 30, sixty boys started the League’s first season, wearing the uniforms of the Kiwanis and Rotary clubs, the Junior Chamber of Commerce (Jaycees), and Pastori’s Country Home Builders. With help from coaches like Dave Chadwick, volunteers like 13-year-old scorer Paul Shepherd, and copious coverage in The Rutherford Republican, the fledgling loop was a smashing success.
The League was reconstituted in 1952, with 120 players taking part on eight teams. The original sponsors formed the National League, while the Elks and Lions clubs, the borough’s American Legion post, and Pasquin Motors, a Ford dealer, sponsored American League clubs. Elks and Lions remain sponsors to this day.
For the first two seasons, the League played on softball diamonds at Rutherford (now Tamblyn) Field and Rutherford High School. In the summer of 1952, ground was cleared for a new Little League field as part of a tract in the borough’s west end that had just been dedicated Memorial Park. A veterans’ prefab house was moved to the site, and it became the League’s clubhouse.
Lyndhurst won the toss and elected to bat last. The visitors scored two unearned runs in the bottom of the first inning, but Rutherford tied the score in the third. The clubs played until darkness descended, and the score remained 2-2 after ten innings.
The next day, they resumed play and battled for six more innings without a run crossing the plate. Finally, Rutherford catcher Eugene Cole homered to straightaway center field with two out in the top of the 17th inning. When Cole tagged a Lyndhurst runner out at the plate in the bottom of the frame, Rutherford National had a 3-2 victory in what remains one of the longest games in the 61-year history of the Little League tournament.
From 1952 to 1956, each team played 18 games. The schedule expanded to 20 games in 1957, but shrank to 16 in 1960. In 1963, two more expansion teams were added, Keller Engineering in the American League and Justin Realty in the National, and the League went to a 15-game schedule.
In 1974, inter-league play was introduced. A 16th game was added to the schedule in 1977, and that format has been used in every season since, with the exception of 1986.
For playoff purposes, each league split into two three-team divisions from 1986 to 1993. The divisional format was abandoned in 1994 and replaced by a system in which three clubs from each league qualified for the playoffs.
The Minor League system was revamped for 2000. That season, non-Major players aged 9-12 began play in a Triple-A league, while 7- and 8-year-olds participated in a new Double-A level. Players as young as league age 5 were now eligible for Tee Ball. The structure was revised in 2004, so that first-year players aged 5 and 6 played Tee Ball; returning 6-year-olds and all 7-year-olds played in a coach-pitch Double-A league; and 8-year-olds moved into the player-pitch Triple-A league.
With USA Baseball adjusting the league age determination date for 2006, the League made provisions that no player would spend more than one season in Tee Ball or two seasons in Double-A unless requested by the parent.
The League hosted the New Jersey state finals in 1993. Nottingham Little League of Hamilton Square (Mercer County) defended its 1992 crown by defeating Toms River (Ocean County), 5-1, in the championship game. The field also included Sparta (Sussex County) and Kenilworth (Union County). Toms River is a different league from Toms River East American, who won the East Region in 1995 and the Little League World Series in 1998.
In addition, Rutherford has hosted the Section 2 tournament in 1991, 1995, and 2005, as well as numerous district tournament games.