Phillies to face Nationals in 2023 MLB Little League Classic in Williamsport

The Phillies will return to Williamsport for the 2023 MLB Little League Classic.

As the Philadelphia Phillies finished off a lengthy, back-and-forth game against their division-rival New York Mets on Sunday, Major League Baseball announced some pretty cool news concerning one of their games next season — the Phillies will face the Washington Nationals in the MLB Little League Classic in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, August 20, 2023.

The 2023 MLB Little League Classic will be the sixth since the series’ 2017 inception at the historic Bowman Field.

The Phillies played in the second year of the popular annual event in 2018 — falling 8-2 to the New York Mets before the 2,429 fans in attendance. Nick Pivetta tosses just 3 2/3 innings, allowing six runs on eight hits and a walk while striking out five batters. Five different Phillies relievers were also used in the six-run defeat: Adam Morgan, Yaxksel Rios, Tommy Hunter, Luis Garcia, and Edubray Ramos. The Phillies’ lone runs came via a two-run blast from Carlos Santana.

For the Nationals, the 2023 MLB Little League Classic will be the first time the club has been selected to play in a neutral-site regular-season game, notes MASN’s Mark Zuckerman.

Zuckerman details more of what to expect in next summer’s event, which will count as a Nationals home game:

"Created in 2017, the Little League Classic is a “Sunday Night Baseball” game televised by ESPN. It will count as the finale of a weekend series hosted by the Nats, with the two teams playing in D.C. the previous two nights before heading to Williamsport only for the day, visiting the actual Little League World Series in the afternoon. Players from the participating Little League World Series will then attend the Nats-Phillies game in person that evening."

Bowman Field is home to the Williamsport Crosscutters — a collegiate summer baseball team of the MLB Draft League. The Crosscutters previously served as the Phillies’ Short-Season A affiliate from 2007 to 2020.

While the MLB Little League Classic is not nearly as cool as the Field of Dreams game in Iowa — which will reportedly be taking a hiatus in 2023 — it will still be cool to see the Phils and Nats promote baseball to the next generation of fans and players.