OBSERVER File Photo Diethrick Park in Jamestown will host the Babe Ruth 13-year-old World Series this August.

After a one-year pause because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Babe Ruth 13-year-old World Series will be returning to Diethrick Park Aug. 14-21.

The official announcement was made late last week by the local committee, making it the 18th World Series the city has hosted, beginning with the first 13-year-old event in 1980.

“Knowing the people of Jamestown and their sincere dedication to the Babe Ruth League program, we are confident in their commitment to provide the perfect setting for the managers, coaches, players, as well as their families and fans, to enjoy another big-league experience in 2021,” Robert Faherty, Babe Ruth League Inc. vice president, said last year.

The history is certainly there for that to happen.

“The hits, runs and errors are the least important thing about the World Series,” host president Russell E. Diethrick Jr. told The Post-Journal in the days leading up to the 13-year-old World Series in 2015, “unless you’re the one involved in the hits, runs and errors.”

In other words, it’s about the relationships — forged in less than two weeks, but somehow last a lifetime — that endure.

“It’s sort of a Jamestown and Chautauqua County thing,” Diethrick said back then. “When Babe Ruth Baseball looks for a place that is a meaningful experience, they have found that in Jamestown. They have found it year after year after year.”

And while the city has embraced players who have gone on to the Major Leagues, including Richie Sexson, Derek Lilliquist, Ben McDonald, David Howard and Kris Benson, it’s the story within the story that keeps the local committee as fired up today as they were when their committee agreed to bring the first World Series to Jamestown decades ago.

Diethrick admitted in 2015 to not remembering “any of the plays on the field,” during that 1980 tournament, but he did recall meeting Babe Ruth’s daughter, Dorothy Pirone, and her husband, Dominick, and having a chance to see a car once belonging to the Babe himself tooling through downtown, driven by owner and area native Les Ostrander. Diethrick also remembered Jamestown resident Bob Benson dressing up as the Bambino for that first series.

But Diethrick’s fondest memory from that first series wasn’t a home run by Kirk Dulom of tournament champion Miami, or the huge crowds that filled the former College Stadium. Rather, it came courtesy of George Mathews, another local committee member.

“Like so many people, Dominick Pirone was suffering with a heart problem during that time and he was concerned about what was next for him,” Diethrick said in 2015. “In conversation, he discovered that George Mathews had gone through the same thing. George had been to Cleveland and Erie and he shared that with Dominick and then took him by the hand and led him (figuratively) to Cleveland. Through that … George Mathews saved Dominick’s life.

“Where else can that happen? There are things that do not happen on a baseball field, but they happen because of a baseball field.”