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What happened is that the coach of a team that got ANNIHILATED when they played Jackie Robinson West began snooping around and throwing out allegations.
IMO, it won't matter in the eyes of the public and shouldn't matter to the players. They BEAT Las Vegas solely based on how well they played. In the end, they were the ones who got to play South Korea. That still make them national champions in my mind and possibly a lot of other people's as well.
I wish another action had been taken b/c this form of cheating doesn't affect how the kids play on the field (unlike using drugs or recruiting older kids). Something like this invalidates the hard works the kids put in just because of some boundary issues.
They cheated, no matter what way you slice is.
As an aside, the Las Vegas team was a better team that happened to lose a game to a worse team. It happens all the time.
All those teams cheat, it's just a matter of who gets caught.
Yep. Eligibility rules are pretty much unenforced by anyone at the national level, and enforcement at the local level varies widely.
In general Little League is run as an organization to get kids involved with baseball, and loads of kids play outside their designated areas. The vast majority of the time it's done for reasons like letting a kid keep playing with a team he's been with for a few years, or play with classmates when he attends a private or charter school outside his residence's district. The eligibility and residency requirements are intentionally convoluted for these reasons.
LL also has local groups define all of the boundaries, and that's where problem arose in this case. All of the kids lived in the boundaries as claimed by JRW and a couple other local teams, but there were other local teams that didn't sign off on the boundaries, so they were in dispute. It wasn't that the team claimed kids that lived outside of the area, they declared the area to be invalid and smaller than had been claimed at the beginning of the season.
The top teams frequently use the lax enforcement and unclear eligibility rules to build a killer team. If they apply the same standards they used to disqualify JRW to all the regional champs, most will be disqualified.
Yep. Eligibility rules are pretty much unenforced by anyone at the national level, and enforcement at the local level varies widely.
In general Little League is run as an organization to get kids involved with baseball, and loads of kids play outside their designated areas. The vast majority of the time it's done for reasons like letting a kid keep playing with a team he's been with for a few years, or play with classmates when he attends a private or charter school outside his residence's district. The eligibility and residency requirements are intentionally convoluted for these reasons.
LL also has local groups define all of the boundaries, and that's where problem arose in this case. All of the kids lived in the boundaries as claimed by JRW and a couple other local teams, but there were other local teams that didn't sign off on the boundaries, so they were in dispute. It wasn't that the team claimed kids that lived outside of the area, they declared the area to be invalid and smaller than had been claimed at the beginning of the season.
The top teams frequently use the lax enforcement and unclear eligibility rules to build a killer team. If they apply the same standards they used to disqualify JRW to all the regional champs, most will be disqualified.
Then most teams should be disqualified until they conform to the set rules. Or they should just get rid of the rules altogether. Or enforce them to the letter. You can't enforce the rules as you see fit when you see fit.
I'm sorry those kids were punished in the way they were. I know they worked very hard at it. But no matter what (if what you say is true) the adults are sending the message it's ok to "cheat" as long as you don't get caught.
ESPN is reporting that the Chicago Little League team that won the U.S. title last year knowingly falsified boundaries to include players that would otherwise be ineligible.
Sad that there is cheating even in little league.
Oh, Chicago. What a shock. Is there anyone in that city that isn't corrupt?
What happened is that the coach of a team that got ANNIHILATED when they played Jackie Robinson West began snooping around and throwing out allegations.
IMO, it won't matter in the eyes of the public and shouldn't matter to the players. They BEAT Las Vegas solely based on how well they played. In the end, they were the ones who got to play South Korea. That still make them national champions in my mind and possibly a lot of other people's as well.
I wish another action had been taken b/c this form of cheating doesn't affect how the kids play on the field (unlike using drugs or recruiting older kids). Something like this invalidates the hard works the kids put in just because of some boundary issues.
But it does affect WHAT kids play on the field. Cheating is cheating. And they took the opportunity to play in South Korea from the team that didn't cheat.
Seriously, you're defending cheating? "This form of cheating"? Please tell us which rules are meant to be followed and which broken?
Yep. Eligibility rules are pretty much unenforced by anyone at the national level, and enforcement at the local level varies widely.
In general Little League is run as an organization to get kids involved with baseball, and loads of kids play outside their designated areas. The vast majority of the time it's done for reasons like letting a kid keep playing with a team he's been with for a few years, or play with classmates when he attends a private or charter school outside his residence's district. The eligibility and residency requirements are intentionally convoluted for these reasons.
LL also has local groups define all of the boundaries, and that's where problem arose in this case. All of the kids lived in the boundaries as claimed by JRW and a couple other local teams, but there were other local teams that didn't sign off on the boundaries, so they were in dispute. It wasn't that the team claimed kids that lived outside of the area, they declared the area to be invalid and smaller than had been claimed at the beginning of the season.
The top teams frequently use the lax enforcement and unclear eligibility rules to build a killer team. If they apply the same standards they used to disqualify JRW to all the regional champs, most will be disqualified.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Electrician4you
Then most teams should be disqualified until they conform to the set rules. Or they should just get rid of the rules altogether. Or enforce them to the letter. You can't enforce the rules as you see fit when you see fit.
I'm sorry those kids were punished in the way they were. I know they worked very hard at it. But no matter what (if what you say is true) the adults are sending the message it's ok to "cheat" as long as you don't get caught.
It is true that little league is rife with this sort of stuff, it's been going on for ages, the league officials don't want to deal with it unless they are forced to, which is why they looked into this incident twice and found nothing until another team gave them the evidence of cheating. In other words, officials didn't look very hard at it because they were hoping that it would just quietly go away. I also agree that all of the teams should get looked with the same scrutiny.
Any parent who has had children in any sort of organized sport can attest to the ugliness that happens because of the adults. I've seen everything from parents and coaches yelling at their own kids, at other people's kids, at coaches, at refs, getting into fist fights, nepotism, cheating, I personally know a teacher who was pressured into changing a grade for an all star athelete so that he would be eligible to play in a state tournament for a high school basketball team-- by school administrators. Birth days get fudged so older players can play for a younger team, addresses get falsified, schools and leagues recruiting outside of their boundaries happens a lot. Parents see athletics as a way for their kid to get a free ride to college (one of the JRW parents said that this is interfering with the "college money pipeline") or even have grandiose dreams of their kid getting to the majors and having a meal ticket. It's a shame, because it's the kids who end up paying. It also detracts from the hard work that many adults do, because we were lucky to have some very good coaches.
I don't know that race played an issue here, it's disturbing to see a press conference with Jesse and Father Pfleger, both of whom, when pressed, basically said that they didn't know anything about it, but that they were sure that it did. It's disturbing to see these kids used like this. It's a damn shame for these kids, all of them involved, whatever team they are on.
There is an article in today's Chicago Tribune by Michelle Manchir and Paul Skrbina stating that (And I'm quoting this from the paper) "Officials with the neighborhood Little League organizations knew the JRW officials had gerrymandered a map to cover up for ineligible players but kept it quite ." "Officials from JRW met with officials from 3 nearby leagues asking them to give JRW territory so they could "legitimize" the map but those officials refused." The matter came to a head on Jan 31st when JRW was found to have annexed areas from the other leagues without their permission. The map had been "redrawn" and backdated and signed to make it appear it had been the map used during the entire tournament"
You can read the whole article in the Tribune page 8 titled "Officials knew JRW used bogus map"
This is the story that should be circulating and on the front page instead of what we're hearing from the race baiters!
Was watching Pardon The Interruption last night on ESPN and Michael Wilbon (Chicago native) defended the action and basically said they are still champions and that is what matters. Yet on Deflategate he pretty much scolded NE Patriots and called them outright cheaters.
All those teams cheat, it's just a matter of who gets caught.
Making that claim really burns me up, as it insults my father, and his 26 years of managing Little League teams. He made damn sure that his league did not violate any player eligibility rules, ever.
I'd really appreciate an apology to him, and I think he deserves it.
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