The Little League World Series gets under way today in Williamsport, Pa., with the first of a 32-game slate leading up to the championship contest on Aug. 23. All of the games will be televised nationally as eager advertisers take advantage of an expanding viewing audience that can exceed that drawn by professional athletes.

But while Little League’s big wigs and corporate sponsors bask in that glow, a terrifying specter once again looms. Hence the question: Will this be the year that a Little Leaguer is killed trying to be king of the world?

It’s an entirely fair query because the Little League World Series presents a confluence of circumstances that elevates that risk to an unacceptably high level.

There are, of course, dangers inherent to playing the game of baseball. To the extent that they are established and well-recognized, players will be deemed to have accepted them as a condition of their participation. Legal liability may arise, however, when injuries are sustained as a result of a risk that has been concealed, disguised or unreasonably minimized.

A lawsuit recently initiated on behalf of a Wayne, N.J., child alleges that Little League Baseball has done precisely that by its stubborn insistence that metal bats do not increase the danger of being struck and seriously injured by a batted ball.

According to the complaint, on June 6, 2006, at about 7 p.m., Steven Domalewski, then 12 years old, took the mound and delivered a pitch to a hitter who was using a Louisville Slugger aluminum alloy bat embossed with the words “Approved for Play in Little League.” The batter lined the pitch back at Steven at such a high speed that he had no time to react.

Steven was struck in the chest and went into cardiac arrest. Although resuscitated, he remains profoundly handicapped.

Little League Baseball was included as a defendant in the suit because of its “licensing, approval and endorsement of baseball equipment, including aluminum baseball bats, for use in youth league play.”

Among other allegations, the complaint asserts that Little League Baseball made “untrue,” “deceptive” and “misleading” representations of material facts and “omitted and/or concealed” other material facts about the safety of the aluminum bat in question.

Last year, the New York City Council passed the so-called “Bat Ordinance” which bans the use of metal bats in competitive high school baseball games sponsored by public or private schools in New York City. The legislation was the culmination of a long, arduous and, at times, lonely campaign by Republican Staten Island Councilman James Oddo, who is as passionate an advocate for children’s safety as you are going to find in any sector.

Rejecting a subsequent legal challenge by industry interests to the ordinance, U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl cited the more than 3,500 pages of testimony and various other documents that the council considered in passing the legislation. These, the court found, established a rational basis for the council’s action.

Oddo recently appeared on “The Game 365,” a program hosted by former major league catcher Fran Healy on the MSG Network. He argued persuasively that the campaign for aluminum bats is really driven by money, with corporate greed trumping children’s safety.

One high school coach interviewed for the program argued that the city’s ban on metal bats puts local athletes at a disadvantage for college scholarships because their batting statistics will be considerably less impressive than those of their suburban counterparts. But, as Oddo argued in rebuttal, that very contention supports the council’s position that metal bats are, indeed, inherently more potent.

Ask disinterested people who have been around the sandlots about metal bats and they will tell you that of course metal bats drive the ball faster and farther than wood bats. It is, to use a hackneyed phrase, a no-brainer.

All of which brings us back to that disconcerting question previously posed. The Little League World Series features the most talented young players in the world, performing on a diamond where the bases are 60 feet apart and the pitcher’s mound is a mere 46 feet from home plate.

At 9 to 12 years of age, some of the kids are very well-developed while others are still mired in very young bodies. It is, therefore, inevitable that a strapping 6-footer, armed with an aluminum bat, will face a pitcher who is very much a little boy, standing about 43 feet away and essentially defenseless when he completes his delivery.

So, too, will infielders charge the plate in anticipation of a bunt while that same hitter crosses them up with a mighty swing.

It’s more than just scary; it’s tempting fate. That is something that one can do only so often, and something nobody should ever do with other people’s children.