Little League title taken away

[daughtersrus]

Rules are rules but a caller to the radio station made a good point. Some of the teams are made up with players from the entire county or even an entire country.

http://wgntv.com/2015/02/11/little-league-strips-chicagos-jackie-robinson-west-of-u-s-title/

 

[Deb in IA]

The kids are the ones I feel most sorry for. The coaches are adults and should have known the rules. They let them down.

 

[havaneselover]

The coaches cheated and recruited from outside the boundary. Everyone knew it. It's a lesson for the children IMO that the consequences of unethical behavior sometimes affect the innocent.

 

[Kingdome8]

And let down kids that couldn't play on their own districts team due to cheating. Or taking away the experience the runner up,team should have had.

 

[soccerdad72]

Are the international teams made up from players from the whole country? I thought they still had boundaries and specific cities - i.e. the "Europe" team if often made up of players specifically from one city, like an Army base in Germany or something like that.

It is a shame for the kids who's accomplishments are now taken away from them, but I will say this is far from shocking news.

 

[JanaDee]

I don't think anyone is surprised.

 

[SirDuff]

Are the international teams made up from players from the whole country? I thought they still had boundaries and specific cities - i.e. the "Europe" team if often made up of players specifically from one city, like an Army base in Germany or something like that.

Team Canada is not a team from all of Canada - it is the team that won the Canadian Little League Championship (might not be the real title of the tournament). But, they play as "Team Canada". I assume that it is the same for the other international teams. Looking at the Little League Website, it does appear that that is the case.
http://www.littleleague.org/worldseries_2013/teams/canada.htm


Even if it isn't, it doesn't have any baring on what happened here. The size of the boundaries in other areas doesn't mean it is okay to lie about the boundaries for your areas.

 

[bcla]

Rules are rules but a caller to the radio station made a good point. Some of the teams are made up with players from the entire county or even an entire country.

http://wgntv.com/2015/02/11/little-league-strips-chicagos-jackie-robinson-west-of-u-s-title/

Rules are actually pretty straightforward. A league's boundaries must included under 20,000 population unless a waiver is granted for a population with a high proportion of elderly, or a high proportion of college students.

http://www.littleleague.org/assets/forms_pubs/howtostartleague.pdf

The first step is to determine if a Little League program already exists in your area. Sometimes, people THINK they are in Little League, but that is not always the case. If you’re not sure, just call your nearest Regional Center. Remember, the boundaries from which your Little League intends to draw its players cannot encroach on another chartered Little League’s boundaries.

You’ll also need to limit your boundaries to a population of 20,000 or less. This Little League Regulation helps to ensure that leagues around the world are given an opportunity to be competitive. It also helps retain the notion that Little League is, in most cases, a “neighborhood” program.

If your area’s population is over 20,000, and if there are factors such as a large population of elderly people, a large number of college students in the boundaries or other factors, your organization may request a waiver of the population limit in the forming of a league. For some leagues, a temporary waiver is granted until the number of participants is too large for a single league to operate.


From my reading of what happened, this group actively recruited out of the league boundaries, tried to get other leagues to give up their territory to fashion a new map, and finally falsified a league map that did encroach on other chartered leagues. Also - Little League teams aren't supposed to be all-star teams from an entire large region, large city, or even an entire country. That Philippines team that lost its title had a combination of older kids using younger relatives' documentation as well as recruitment from outside a league boundary.

 

[kamik86]

I'm not even sure I really do feel that bad for the kids. The kids got all this recognition, were able to see the world series and meet the president, all of this was only because of this cheating.

The second place team probably didn't get any of this. Those are the kids I feel bad for.

 

[soccerdad72]

Even if it isn't, it doesn't have any baring on what happened here. The size of the boundaries in other areas doesn't mean it is okay to lie about the boundaries for your areas.

I agree. I was just curious on how it worked for the international teams, since the OP claimed that other countries can pull from the entire country for their teams. I didn't think that was the case, but I was too lazy to look it up for myself.

 

[tvguy]

I feel bad for the kids.
It has been 11 years since I was a Little League President, and it was tough then for some folks to prove where they lived. We had a lot of renters, and many of them had a PO Box on their Driver's License. Some utility companies, because of security concerns, not longer put the service locations on a bill. Schools are open enrollment, so that is no help. Some people just don't have 3 pieces of acceptable proof of residence.
And in one case, I had 2 kids, whose parents were divorced. They had NEVER lived in league, and neither of their parents lived, or had ever lived in our league. The family law judge decided to order that the kids play in our league, because it was halfway between where both parents lived. Little League didn't want to issue a waiver until the Judge called and asked them for the name of the person to put on the arrest warrant for contempt of court. Poof, suddenly I got a waiver.

 

[bcla]

I agree. I was just curious on how it worked for the international teams, since the OP claimed that other countries can pull from the entire country for their teams. I didn't think that was the case, but I was too lazy to look it up for myself.

They're not supposed to do that. Titles have been rescinded for that. I mentioned the Philippines (Zamboanaga City) team. They found 8 kids from outside the district as well as indications of using older players and falsified birth certificates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Little_League_World_Series

 

[kamik86]

I feel bad for the kids.
It has been 11 years since I was a Little League President, and it was tough then for some folks to prove where they lived. We had a lot of renters, and many of them had a PO Box on their Driver's License. Some utility companies, because of security concerns, not longer put the service locations on a bill. Schools are open enrollment, so that is no help. Some people just don't have 3 pieces of acceptable proof of residence.
And in one case, I had 2 kids, whose parents were divorced. They had NEVER lived in league, and neither of their parents lived, or had ever lived in our league. The family law judge decided to order that the kids play in our league, because it was halfway between where both parents lived. Little League didn't want to issue a waiver until the Judge called and asked them for the name of the person to put on the arrest warrant for contempt of court. Poof, suddenly I got a waiver.

In this case since the other leagues nearby are complaining that they were taking players from their areas it doesn't sound like this is an issue where someone thought they were in the right area and ended up in the wrong one when they had trouble with proof of residence.

You said the case of the court ordered playing in the wrong league was given a waiver so that would have fit the rules. It was slow but you got it.
(I actually feel more bad for the kids in this case, now they are playing in a nearby area but not the ones there friends from school play in)

 

[Geoff_M]

They're not supposed to do that. Titles have been rescinded for that. I mentioned the Philippines (Zamboanaga City) team. They found 8 kids from outside the district as well as indications of using older players and falsified birth certificates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Little_League_World_Series

I recall that LL moved to change the rules to ensure that a country's team wasn't a "national all-star team" after the long stretch that Taiwan's team was the perennial winner.

 

[nugov2]

Gotta love the city of Chicago where the mayor believes they did nothing wrong and everyone is up in arms because this is now a racism issue. Honestly, this isn't a team IMO who had good sportsmanship to begin with. They beat a team in the playoffs something like 45-2. That is unnecessary. Even the coaches are being supported as doing nothing wrong. I feel bad for the teams they beat and the team who took second all because a team cheated. I feel bad for the kids on this team who were pawns of the coaches and parents who thought cheating was ok. The whole situation is just a disgrace that adults care about winning a kids little league tournament that much.

 

[bcla]

Team Canada is not a team from all of Canada - it is the team that won the Canadian Little League Championship (might not be the real title of the tournament). But, they play as "Team Canada". I assume that it is the same for the other international teams. Looking at the Little League Website, it does appear that that is the case.
http://www.littleleague.org/worldseries_2013/teams/canada.htm


Even if it isn't, it doesn't have any baring on what happened here. The size of the boundaries in other areas doesn't mean it is okay to lie about the boundaries for your areas.

Certainly they represent a country or region of the world, but in the end every team is supposed to be made up of kids from a small district. I know there are all sorts of waivers, including many that are issued for legitimate reasons where there's no particular competitive advantage to increasing the population. These are typically for places where there's less of an eligible age population, but I understand it can be for countries where youth baseball participation is low.

I looked up the team you brought up - East Nepean. It's in Ontario District 2 (4 leagues) with 8 districts in Ontario.

Now I suppose there are areas that aren't in a Little League league boundary. I'm wondering is players in such an area can somehow be eligible. I found one district with 7 leagues. Another had 5. So apparently they take it seriously that the leagues are arranged according to Little League rules.

I don't know if these areas strictly correspond to the 20,000 population limit I found, but I'm guessing they at least strive for that and get a waiver if they have extenuating circumstances.

 

[bcla]

I recall that LL moved to change the rules to ensure that a country's team wasn't a "national all-star team" after the long stretch that Taiwan's team was the perennial winner.

I don't believe that was ever the case. If you look up the list of winners, it's always described as a team representing a specific city or even neighborhood. I say that because the two winning teams from Oahu are technically in the city and county of Honolulu, although most people think of different parts of Oahu as distinct towns.

http://www.littleleague.org/series/history/divisions/llbbhistory.htm

When I was a kid I thought that maybe these Asian winners were stacking their teams, but I remember talking to an adult from Taiwan who said that they always followed the same rules as American LLB teams in terms of districts. They actually list 14 different cities from Taiwan that have won the LLWS, and I suspect the teams representing Taipei or Tainan were probably from different districts.

 

[lillygator]

cheaters!!

 

[SirDuff]

Certainly they represent a country or region of the world, but in the end every team is supposed to be made up of kids from a small district.

Which is exactly my point. I was pointing out that the OP's claim that some teams represented an entire country, was false (despite the team playing at "Team Canada").

 

[penn19]

I love how Jesse Jackson is now getting involved. Can Al be far behind? Way to turn it into a race issue. Hands up. Don't cheat.

Gotta love the city of Chicago where the mayor believes they did nothing wrong and everyone is up in arms because this is now a racism issue. Honestly, this isn't a team IMO who had good sportsmanship to begin with. They beat a team in the playoffs something like 45-2. That is unnecessary. Even the coaches are being supported as doing nothing wrong. I feel bad for the teams they beat and the team who took second all because a team cheated. I feel bad for the kids on this team who were pawns of the coaches and parents who thought cheating was ok. The whole situation is just a disgrace that adults care about winning a kids little league tournament that much.