Posted on 08/27/2011 5:41:35 PM PDT by SoCal Pubbie
On the strength of a two-run home run by third baseman Dylan Palmer, three hits from catcher Hagen Danner and a sterling pitching performance by Nick Pratto, the Ocean View Little League team, from Huntington Beach and representing the West region, beat the Northwest team from Billings, Mont., 11-2 Saturday...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
I grew up in Billings, MT. It was evident early in the game today that the pitcher for Billings was overmatched. Still, a great run for my former home, and it was the Little League next to the one I played in, so congrats to Huntington Beach. I’ll be cheering for them tomorrow morning against Japan.
Billings has about 9 Little Leagues in a city of ~100k, so it’s fairly remarkable that one of those leagues was able to put a team in the US title game.
I’m all for them! But they better play better defense tomorrow against Japan or they will get clobbered.
CONGRATS OCEAN VIEW..its nice to have something to cheer for here in LA..hope they win it all tomorrow!!
“It appears their pitcher has an unfair advantage- a giant, neanderthal arm. In fact, that kid looks about 30.”
There are some kids that are just cheating on the age...but there are some who just develop much, much faster. We had a kid on our little league team that I had to catch and it was just brutal. It wasn’t just fast, it was heavy...he just through hard on every pitch. Got us to quarterfinals. Nobody could hit him. I used to put a small sponge in my palm when I had to catch him. Didn’t want it in the web, it would sometimes bend my wrist back and I’d drop it. Damn, it was a sight to see some of the poor kids who didn’t even get into the box. Wanted no part of it. Didn’t blame ‘em, but the umps used to have to tell them to move up or they’d be out of the box. Funny, haven’t thought of that for years. He was one of those guys who had a beard in hs soph year in HS.
Ha! I bet there are some kids who are really intimidating. This pitcher is one of them. I realize the angle of the photo gives his arm an optical illusion of being above normal in size, but he still looks like he’d take your head off. I was watching replays of the series and the white kids seemed slower and more interested in power offense and pitching, while the Japanese kids seemed quicker and very good on fielding skills.
Yeah the Japanese kids have the whole discipline and concentration advantage going for them too. They do the game by the book and will not deviate. Watching them drill is like looking at a drill team. Which at that level, is a huge advantage. I think that’s one of the reasons they are seemingly always there at the end.
And at school they have practice all year long after school and on weekends . JHS/HS probably 330 days a year . I know ; I teach at a JHS in Japan . During summer vacation practice is normally from 8:30 to 5 every day .
I was hoping for a MT win.
Does Cali have their #1 pitcher available for tomorrow? (I hope).
While I agree with the “saving the youngster’s arms” thing, I think they have taken it a little too far. In the Southeast regional finals the #1 pitcher from FLA pitched a gem of a game against Georgia for 5 and 1/3 innings. Then he hit the 85 pitch count and had to be replaced (FLA up 2-0). Since FLA had used their #2 and #3 pitchers getting to the finals they had to bring in a kid who was obviously overwhelmed by the situation. He totally mucked it up and GA won 4-2. I see no reason that a pitcher should not be able to pitch a full 6 inning game. The kid who mucked up the game ended up crying and he will likely never forget it.
(and I’m from GA)
You called it a week ago. Let’s hope for a win tomorrow.
Paramus, NJ got the shaft because of the rain...
WINNING!!!!
Congrats to the Ocean View All Stars! Woo hoo!
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