It wasn’t racist; rules are rules. When my kids were in Little League 20 or so years ago, each year at registration I had to produce a birth certificate and a current utility bill for our address. There was virtually no chance of a team from our small area going to the national or even state tournaments, but the rules were were enforced locally, and teams were disqualified from local tournaments over kids playing who didn’t live within district boundaries.
That said, I feel sorry for the kids; they probably didn’t know any shenanigans were going on. The parents and coaches who did this should be ashamed of themselves - but instead they’re trying to make it all about race.
The rule with teams of this caliber (JRW) is that they don’t play TOGETHER as a team before the tournament.
The league brings in the best kids they can from all of the teams available in the local geographic area, the definition of local is gray.
A lot of the kids in question on JRW may have been from the suburbs but they played travel ball in the Chicago area.
They also didn’t play as a team TOGETHER before the tournament, JRW put together a team from their best available to go.
A team that BROKE that rule and played TOGETHER as a team for a whole season before entering the tournament (they all moved to the area from all over the country and Central and South America specifically to be on this team) was Team Miami in 2008.
LL disqualified them because they broke that rule:
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2008-08-14/news/kendall-little-league-cheaters/
“Ricky Rivera tells the story like a fisherman recalling the time he battled the big catch and lost, chuckling without shame at the doomed mismatch.
His is the tale of the bionic 12-year-old baseball players.
Last month, local Little League All-Star teams began competing in the worldwide, two-month tournament that would determine the teams to play in the national Little League World Series, which begins August 15. For their playoff opener, Rivera’s Homestead All-Stars faced the Kendall-Hammocks Optimist (KHO) league All-Stars.
Whatever hopes Rivera’s 12-year-old players harbored for making it all the way to the nationally televised tournament in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, were dashed by the first inning.
The first six Kendall batters deposited the Homestead pitcher’s offerings cleanly beyond the 200-foot home-run fence. The next inning, those same hitters switched to left-handed and smashed six more home runs. Kendall coach Nestor Miranda was using Rivera’s ace pitcher for batting practice.
But hitting, it turns out, wasn’t KHO’s specialty — pitching was. At an age when most pitchers clock 40-mile-per-hour fastballs, Miranda had six starters who could easily throw 70.
Rivera’s players couldn’t manage a foul tip. By the third inning, with Kendall winning 20-0, the scoreboard operator mercifully took the rest of the night off.”.........................
This Team Miami made JRW look like beginners.
These were the best kids from all over the USA, South America, and the Caribbean, all flown in for the express purpose of winning the LLWS and they would have done so, hands down.
They were disqualified for playing together as a team for a season before the tournament, the team that goes is supposed to be assembled from the best of the kids on each team in a league.
JRW is accused of bringing in some kids from outside the league, but not from outside the state, or country.
They also did not play together as a team before the tournament.
Furthermore, FOREIGN TEAMS are allowed to bring in kids from a wide geographical area and ARE NOT held to the same standards as American teams.
LLWS has screwed the pooch this time.