Joplin Sports Authority

“Sunny Jim” Walters is considered to be the father of Little League baseball in Joplin because he provided young boys an opportunity to play the national pastime. His influence and love for the game greatly impacted almost everyone associated with youth baseball during the 1940’s and 1950’s. 

A native of Parker, Kansas, Sunny Jim moved to Joplin in 1933.

In 1950, with the assistance of friends Ferrell and Blanche Anderson, Walters and his wife, Edna, purchased land on East 20th Street as the site of the city’s first Little League baseball park. He initially organized two four-team leagues (National and American) with league play starting in 1951. 

Later he would become Little League director for this area of Missouri and organized a pee wee baseball school for boys six, seven, and eight years of age so that they could learn the fundamentals of hitting, fielding, throwing, sliding, and running the bases.