Thirteen-year-old pitching sensation Mo'ne Davis has started a new trend in Little League baseball. And it is of the commercial kind, worrying little league officials and parents about what this could do to the kids.

It now appears some enterprising fans - and business people - are cashing in on Davis's popularity, after she became the first girl to pitch a shutout at the Little League World Series and got on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

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USA Today reports that online seller eBay has just listed a baseball advertised as being autographed by Mo'ne, and on Wednesday, the price has gone up to US$500. A hand-signed Sports Illustrated magazine cover, which eBay said was obtained after a game at the 2014 Little League World Series in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania was listed at US$499.99 .

The site listed 40 other items featuring the young pitcher, many alleged to have been autographed by her.

Steve Keener, CEO of Little League, Inc., said, "I think it's ridiculous. That's absurd. (But) I don't know how you would ever control it."

"We supervise the teams while they're here, but we're not with them every minute. So if any player in the Little League World Series signs a baseball for somebody, we have no idea what they're going to do with that baseball after they get it," Keener said.

Brandon Steiner, who owns New York-based Steiner Sports, said he would pay Mo'ne at least $25,000 to autograph between 500 to 1,000 items and estimated she could make up to $100,000 on the deal. But he doesn't want to make the offer. Steiner said it could jeopardize Mo'ne's eligibility to play college athletics.

Mo'ne has said she wants to play college basketball, where current athletes are banned from making money off their likenesses by endorsing commercial products while they are in school.

It's not that Little League has not had stars in the past as popular as Mo'ne Davis, but it was not that easy for dealers to sell memorabilia.

Nick Lantz, manager at Legends of the Field, a Winconsin-based sports memorabilia company, says, "This is a whole new thing. You can take a picture on your phone (of an autographed item) and have it loaded on eBay in 30 seconds."

"But it's too bad that somebody's taking something from a 13-year-old and selling it,'' Lantz said, referring to Mo'ne Davis-related memorabilia.

With the young players' growing popularity drawing large crowds of fans, Little League and the parents have agreed not to hold autograph signing sessions, not for fear of commercial exploitation but just to "let them kids be kids."

Steve Keener says they go to great lengths "to try to minimize the amount of access to the kids while they're here,''

"It's very difficult. They're kids, 12 and 13 years old, and they want to be kids. And they want to be out having fun that all the other kids are having and there are a lot of people around," Keener said.

Other entrepreneurs are capitalizing on Mo'ne's celebrity. On the Facebook page run by the Little League association in Philadelphia, two companies advertised Davis's jerseys, until Ellen Siegel, one of the league founders, saw the posts and promptly took them down.

"No one has the authority to do that," Siegel said. "There's a lot going on here. I don't know how to deal with it. It's really upsetting.''

But Davis just seems unbothered by the attention. When told about the autographed ball and the eBay auction just underway, Mo'ne just said, "I'm gonna get that."

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