Little League World Series won’t give us same thrills this year, regardless

Even without the stink that lingers over the Jackie Robinson West youth baseball league, there wouldn’t have been as much interest in the Little League World Series that begins later this week.

Back when it was a sports story, and NOT a court story

For there won’t be any kind of local angle to the event this year. For 2015, the best team from Illinois was one from the Little League program in Olney – an out-of-the-way community in the far southeastern portion of the state.

AS IT TURNS out, the Olney team managed to get knocked out during the qualifying rounds. They won’t even be close to Williamsport, Pa., when the 10-day tourney begins Thursday.

There won’t be anyone local for us to cheer for.

The champs from the Roseland/Morgan Park neighborhoods who also had players from scattered south suburban communities definitely won’t be anywhere to be seen.

Not even in any way to be remembered as the defending U.S. champions (who could have been “world” champs if they could have beat that ball club from Seoul, South Korea in the final game).

FOR LET’S NOT forget that 2014 is going to be the tourney that goes into the books with re-written history – less concerned with what actually took place on the ball field. Which makes it go against the very nature of sports – where on-field activity is usually all that matters.

There will be that team from the Las Vegas, Nev., area that couldn’t beat the boys of the Far South Side on the field, but will be regarded as the U.S. champions regardless.

Even though anyone who actually watched last year’s Little League World Series remembers that the big stories were the outstanding play of the boys from the Far South Side and surrounding suburbs and that girl who pitched outstandingly for the team from the suburbs of Philadelphia.
 

Another story not likely to be matched this year

In fact, a whole chain of teams that didn’t win, but are now regarded as “winners” because of the efforts to pretend that what wasn’t really was.

NOW I KNOW some people are determined to think that a major deceit took place last year. There have been recent reports indicating that only six of the dozen ballplayers on that Jackie Robinson West team that represented the Great Lakes region were legitimately from the neighborhoods that the league covers.

Although I also remember that no one ever tried to cover up the fact that many of the kids were from nearby suburbs – in many cases with one parent living in the suburb and another living within the Chicago neighborhood.

Or in some cases where they had moved to a new neighborhood, but preferred to stay in the Jackie Robinson West program that has been an elite amongst city-based youth baseball leagues.

I suspect that the Little League programs in those suburbs are jealous that they couldn’t attract those kids to want to play ball in their new home communities. That jealousy has enough of a stink that I have a hard time getting too worked up over the Jackie Robinson West program.

THERE WAS TALK of having the Jackie Robinson West program break away from Little League proper; perhaps joining the Cal Ripken Baseball program or some other league that would accept them on the terms they operate under.

A part of me does wonder if what really bothers some people is that the public attention last year went to Mo’ne Davis (the pre-teen pitcher) and the Jackie Robinson West kids – who happened to be the few African-American ballplayers in what was largely a lily-white tourney.

I’m sure some think the fact that some praised those kids was somehow detracting attention from other kids they would have preferred to get the publicity. As far as I can tell, this year’s Little League World Series might well be closer to their liking.

Which might also make it less worthwhile to watch!

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Is Robinson, Ripken, Ruth youth baseball trifecta the best solution?

Perhaps it only makes sense that if the entity known as Little League Baseball wants to treat its 2014 U.S. champions as a pariah, that program will search for someone who won’t view them as something shameful.

That’s probably the most sensible way to view the reports Wednesday of how the Jackie Robinson West baseball program on Chicago’s far southern edge is now negotiating with the entities known as Cal Ripken Baseball and Babe Ruth Baseball (which is for older children through age 18) to be affiliated with them.

FOR IT SEEMS that if the Jackie Robinson baseball program that was created in the early 1970s to try to bolster baseball interest in inner-city neighborhoods is to continue, it no longer wants to be part of the Little League entity that many people probably think is a generic label that applies to all youth baseball programs.

The Jackie Robinson West team that won the U.S. Little League championship last year had ballplayers who lived in assorted southern suburbs, which means theoretically they should have played in suburban-based Little League programs.

But the reality is that the Jackie Robinson West program was more attractive to many of those kids because it is a city-based program with leadership focusing attention on African-American interests and concerns.

Many of the suburban players had dual addresses that theoretically made them eligible to play in the Jackie Robinson program, which is why Little League International officials initially said there was nothing wrong with the Jackie Robinson program.

PERHAPS IF IT had only been one or two players on that team last year, it wouldn’t have been much of a concern.

But when six of the 12 players on the Chicago-based squad that captured national glory came from places like South Holland (two), Dolton, Lansing, Lynwood and Homewood, it gave that bit of ammunition to the people from other Little League programs who were still bitter that they had lost to the Jackie Robinson team on the path to the Little League World Series and who started up the complaints that the DNAinfo.com website originally reported on.

Both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times reported Wednesday that Jackie Robinson league officials are talking with the officials overseeing the Cal Ripken and Babe Ruth programs that exist in Chicago and the south suburbs. Nothing is definite yet.

For it seems possible that local league boundaries could be drawn in a way that all the territory where the Robinson league team came from would be included. Or that some territory might be shared in a way that the local kids would get to pick which program they’d rather play baseball in.

NOBODY OUGHT TO have an objection to that concept!

The alleged act of “cheating” that supposedly occurred (which strikes me as being more a matter of other leagues being jealous that some kids chose to play in the Chicago-based league rather than their home leagues) would be legitimized.

Perhaps it would be best in that the Jackie Robinson program would be able to operate the way it does without someone trying to claim it is violating the all-sacred “rules” that govern this matter.

As someone who always had a hard time thinking of the league’s actions as being foul because they were being so open about what they were doing, this really does come to be the best solution.

PERHAPS IT REALIZES that the south suburbs have truly become an extension of Chicago’s South Side and that there is a certain back-and-forth of people and activities – rather than being the place certain people fled to because their “new” neighbors had the “wrong” complexion.

And if Jackie Robinson ball ultimately makes for a trifecta of baseball names honored with youth leagues, the real loser might well be Little League Baseball.

It would have the knowledge that it chased away an interesting championship ball club while trying to pretend that teams from Las Vegas, Nev. (national champions) and St. Charles (state champs) somehow won something of significance on the playing field.

Which ought to be the place where all sports disputes get resolved!

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Lewis’ ‘scholarship’ talk the kind of feisty rhetoric mayoral campaign needs

When you come right down to it, this year’s electoral cycle for mayor has become deadly dull. There are people who get all worked up about wanting to depose Rahm Emanuel, but no one opponent seems capable of uniting those people into a viable opposition.

We’re likely to get Rahm II (along with III, IV, V and however many other terms Emanuel wants to seek) at the rate we’re going. There just isn’t any of the feistiness required to truly get the public all worked up enough to care about who wins on Election Day.

WHICH IS WHY I personally got my kick out of the statement issued by Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis. She, of course, is the woman who wanted an Emanuel opponent, but developed enough health concerns to prevent her from running a campaign.

Lewis didn’t issue any kind of Emanuel criticism on Wednesday. In fact, she didn’t even address the mayoral campaign.

Her issue of concern was the fact that Little League International said it was giving in to the concerns of those people who want to view as a fraud the Chicago-based Jackie Robinson West team that became U.S. champions in last year’s Little League World Series.

That team is no longer recognized as national champions. Instead, the record books that are supposed to preserve what really happened will say that a team from Las Vegas, Nev., was the best in the U.S.

A TEAM FROM West Dundee will now be recognized as the Illinois state champions, while a team from suburban Lansing will be recognized as a regional champ instead of the kids who represented the Roseland and Morgan Park neighborhoods – even though some of them openly admitted they were from suburban places such as South Holland, Dolton, Lansing and Lynwood.

If it comes across that I think this is a stupid action by Little League officials being done on behalf of sore losers who couldn’t beat the Jackie Robinson kids on the playing field, you’d be correct.

It also seems that Lewis has a similar sentiment. She said she “do(es) not respect” the decision, and she said she will continue to think of the Chicago-area kids as the real champions of 2014.

She went so far as to say she thinks the team ought to retain its championship, ber issued an apology and that the dozen kids who played baseball and captured the hearts and minds of some of our society (perhaps others couldn’t get past the notion of an all-black team being the best) ought to be compensated with college scholarships.

“EVERY PLAYER SHOULD receive full-ride scholarships for college sponsored by the people who have humiliated these boys, their families and their community,” Lewis wrote.

Which is a concept that I’m sure would infuriate those people who brought about the investigation, even though Little League International officials initially said they did not have concerns about the residency requirements for the Jackie Robinson West kids.

Yet I can’t help but think that’s exactly the kind of in-your-face rhetoric the Chicago mayoral campaign needs in order to give a jolt of excitement, some interest so to speak, into this election cycle. Maybe require Emanuel to build new schools to replace the 50 facilities that were closed in primarily black neighborhoods?

Something that would make people care enough to want to vote and feel like there is a legitimate reason to care about who has the leadership of our municipal government.

IF KAREN LEWIS could get so worked up over the Jackie Robinson West kids, just think how hard she’d be hammering away at Emanuel. Certainly more than Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, the politico who has Lewis’ endorsement and is trying to fill the organized labor niche in this election cycle.

Certainly enough to help us avoid the possibility of so many Emanuel sequels!

Just a pair of thoughts to trigger your minds for the day – would Rahm IV and V be as incredibly bloated, pompous and vapid as Rocky IV and V?

And who is the political opponent of actor Carl Wethers' Apollo Creed character in the Rahm series of stories?

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EXTRA: Jackie Robinson baseball now far bigger than Defender sports pages

It was earlier this past week that I happened to be in the Pullman neighborhood when 9^th Ward Alderman Anthony Beale got a crowd of 400-plus people all excited by merely uttering three initials.

“J-R-W.”

AS IN THE Jackie Robinson West baseball league that consists of a couple dozen teams from predominantly-black neighborhoods such as Roseland, Pullman and Morgan Park on the far Sout’ Side (and a few surrounding suburbs that have developed sizable African-American communities).

It’s a league that usually only gets public attention from the Chicago Defender, which often uses pictures of young African-Americans in action on their sports pages.

But now, that league is something far much bigger. They’ve been partaking in the Little League World Series tournament this past week, and became the best youth team in the United States when they defeated a Las Vegas, Nev.-area team Saturday by 7-5.

Which was particularly pleasurable because the one negative for the Jackie Robinson West all-star ball club during the past week was a 13-2 loss to that same Las Vegas team.

IT WAS PAYBACK of the finest kind for those of us with a Chicago interest and enjoy seeing one of our youth teams show it can compete with the best of the rest of the nation.

And considering how in recent years baseball has become so overwhelmingly pale in complexion while lacking in much interest amongst more urban communities, the sight of an all-black ball club takes on a certain other significance.

Particularly since they’re now going to represent this country when they take on the winner of the Japan/South Korea game played Saturday night.

I can’t think of a better ball club to represent what this country is about than the kids from the South Side. Particularly since way too many people tend to think the only things of significance in Chicago come from select neighborhoods on the north lakefront.

IT’S THE ENTIRETY of Chicago that makes it amongst the most interesting places in this country (and quite possibly on Planet Earth) to be. A small piece of that South Side existence is now getting national attention.

It’s a good thing that Mayor Rahm Emanuel has already committed city officials to having some sort of city-wide celebration when the team returns to Chicago in coming days.

Memories of that 2005 post-World Series parade the White Sox made through Bridgeport and Chinatown on their way to downtown come to mind. Although is a Grant Park-type rally also possible.

Let’s only hope that these kids go on to be inspired to achieve greater success in life (and not necessarily just in the world of athletics). Because the sad thing would be if this moment at age 12 became the highlight of their lives.

IT OUGHT TO be a moment that inspires all people to want to strive for greater things and higher levels than we already have achieved. That could be the real-life lesson we all learn.

So as we relish this moment of a Chicago-area ball club (even one of 12- and 13-year-olds) actually winning something (as opposed to seeing the White Sox blow a couple of ballgames to the New York Yankees in recent days or watching the Cubs’ ground crew show its ineptitude at laying down a tarp to avoid a rainy day), keep this thought in mind.

The next time Beale rattles off “J-R-W,” it won’t be just a room full of Pullman people cheering.

It ought to be the nearly 9-million of the metropolitan area  expressing its joy.

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Davis vs. Jones could be the sporting matchup of the year for Chicago fans

It has become the matchup I’m hoping becomes reality in coming days – pitcher Mo’Ne Davis going up against slugger Pierce Jones.

He of the three home runs and a triple who led the Jackie Robinson West team from the Roseland neighborhood to a victory to kick off the Little League World Series. She of the Philadelphia-area team that also is playing in Williamsport, Pa., who pitched a complete-game shutout and only gave up a couple of hits.

BIG SLUGGER AGAINST top pitcher – a key matchup that will occur if the Little League tourney plays out in such a fashion that the Chicago and Philadelphia ball clubs wind up facing off against each other.

Much has been made of the fact that Davis is a 12-year-old girl. Although all it really proves is that girls can be athletic, and most likely many of the boys she is facing have yet to go through that teenage growth spurt that turns them into adults and will erase whatever physical advantage she now possesses.

Although as one who enjoys watching baseball and often hears of the decline in the number of African-American ballplayers in the professional ranks (largely because of the upshot in recent years of ballplayers from Latin American and Asian nations coming to the United States to play ball), I would find this story to be a bit encouraging.

For Davis is black. As is Jones, and his entire Chicago-area ball club. That’s what happens when a Little League program representing an African-American portion of Chicago winds up getting good and winning the qualifying tournaments to represent the Great Lakes states in the Little League World Series – which has eight U.S. ball clubs and eight international teams.

YES, I’M FOLLOWING the activity of the team from Nuevo Leon, a northernmost Mexican state along the U.S./Mexico border – which kicked off its play by beating Canada 4-3, then losing Sunday 9-5 against a team from Japan.

But the big games that caught attention early on were that 12-2 victory by the Sout’ Side club against a team from Lynnwood, Wash. (I'm going out of my way to erase Sunday's 13-2 defeat from my memory); along with Davis’ shutout against a team from South Nashville, Tenn.

It was unique to see black ballplayers being such a dominant presence on the ball field. Not that I mean that in any bad way.

The degree to which some people with racial hang-ups were probably getting annoyed at the sight (or thought) of such activity was pleasing to me.

IT WAS ENCOURAGING to see some of the nonsense-talk that some people spew get rejected while watching these particular kids excel at something that some people would want to think they’re not supposed to have any interest in.

Plus, there’s the fact that they were kids – not quite at the stage in life yet where such an experience would lead them jaded.

I don’t know if any of these kids is destined for professional athletics in any form. It may well be that these few days in Pennsylvania will be a highlight moment that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

I’m also not convinced this is some seminal moment that will help shift black people back to an interest in baseball away from certain other sports. It would take several consecutive years of this – along with a certain shift in the baseball mentality itself – for that to happen.

BUT WATCHING THESE kids does create some intriguing moments on the ball field.

Particularly the thought of a Jones/Davis matchup.

Will Jones and his Jackie Robinson West teammates be the ones who can handle Davis and smack her pitches around the ballpark as easily as they did the kids from Lynnwood, Wash., last week?

Or will Mo’Ne be the one who schools Jones and company – giving them a lesson in humility that our city’s professional ball clubs give Chicago fans every time they lose another game on the field?

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Sout’ Side (but not the White Sox) make it to a ‘World Series’ of sorts

Baseball fans oriented to the South Side have something to cheer about this season – and not just the fact that Cuban sensation Jose Abreu is in the running to lead the American League in both home runs and runs batted in.

It’s not enough to pull the Chicago White Sox into contention for a division title.

BUT THERE WILL be talk of “World Series” bandied about on Thursday, and hopefully in coming days.

For we’re at that tournament in which youth league teams from around the world converge in Williamsport, Pa. – the annual home of the Little League World Series.

There are some “international” ball clubs present, but most are from the United States. And this year, the team representing the Great Lakes Region is from right here in Chicago – the predominantly-African-American Roseland neighborhood to be exact.

For the Jackie Robinson West Little League champion team this year advanced through the rounds of qualifying games to beat an Indiana team to make the trip to Williamsport.

ON THURSDAY, THEY will play their first game in the World Series against a team from Lynnwood, Wash. ESPN will carry the game live at 2 p.m.\

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has talked of having a viewing party so Chicagoans can watch the game, while Gov. Pat Quinn declared a “day” across Illinois for this year’s Jackie Robinson championship team.

That’s pretty heady stuff, particularly since the Jackie Robinson League baseball program is usually something only the Chicago Defender newspaper bothers to pay any attention to – and even then only to get a picture of a kid looking cute while trying to do something athletic.

So chances are most of us Chicago baseball fans had no clue what was happening in Roseland that a baseball team good enough to make it to the international tournament was in our midst.

REMEMBER THE CONTROVERSY from a year ago when the baseball program at Walter Payton College Prep tried cancelling out a game against Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep out of fear of the neighborhood?

That was Roseland as well, and in fact the Brooks high school uses Jackie Robinson League facilities for its program.

It will be intriguing to see a group of inner-city kids taking on the more heavily-experienced (when it comes to travel) teams that usually wind up playing in these youth tournaments.

And if some baseball fans get a jolt to see that black kids don’t just dunk basketballs, that may be a plus as well.

NOW I’M NOT about to predict a Chicago victory in the Little League World Series. The Jackie Robinson West champions (Jackie Robinson East baseball is played out in Newark and Jersey City, N.J.) may well be among the first teams knocked out this year.

Although let’s be honest.

If they were to accomplish something, it would be the sporting highlight of the year for Chicago – particularly since neither professional baseball club is going to win anything of significance this season.

So go Jackie Robinson West. Beat Lynnwood. And do the city proud as you work your way through the ranks of the top youth league baseball players the world has to offer. Show them you belong!

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