Any sports fan rememebrs the juggernaut that was the Jackie Robinson West Little League team that represented the Great Lakes Region in the Little League World Series. They were fast, hard hitting, and exciting to watch. There was a time that it seemed all they had to do was make contact with the ball and it would scream out of the stadium. These were the manliest 12 year olds I have ever laid eyes on. Needless to say the strutted through the tournament, dominating teams on a daily basis. They won the American Chanmpionship easily with a victory over Las Vegas, but lost to Japan in the International Championship. But alas, the team from Chicago had already won the biggest prize- the first all black little league team to win it all. They were instant super stars. The munchkins made appearances on Sports Center, gain tens of thousands of twitter followers and singed autographs whenever the felt like it. Unfortunately, yesterday the dream team was stripped of their title and all of their victories for violating Little League rules. It wasn't the typical violation- over aged players with beards who hand the ump a piece of paper that says "I am 12" written in crayon and paired with a 20$ bill. No. This issue was much more sophisticated. Apparently, the league commissioner redistricted the geographical boundaries of the league so that they could gain two more good players. The changing of the boundaries was illegal, so the team had 2 illegal players and in turn, an illegal team. Technically Las Vegas is the American Championship team, but no one will recognize them as such. I beleive these kids had no real advantage and deserved everything they won. They are the real Champions and they know it.
http://espn.go.com/chicago/story/_/id/12308988/little-league-strips-chicago-team-us-championship-suspends-coachg
Who is to say whether or not they would have won if they hadn't had those two players, but I think that doesn't really matter. Becssue the district was able to be redrawn to include them tells me that they were pretty dang close to bring able to play for the team anyways. Its not like they pulled them from hours away. The kids probably knew they weren't supposed to be on the team but they thought it was OK if their coach and parents said it was. Sucks they have to lose their titel.
ReplyDelete