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I'd like to set everyone straight. I coach in the CW league that the "Stars" were kicked out of. The reason that they were asked to leave is because they lied and got into the league under false pretense. The Canal Rec league is community based. In the Canal league, in this division we have 3 teams from our village (4500 residents). There are two teams from Sugar Grove, three teams from Carroll/Lithopolis and one team from World Harvest church (all very small towns). In the Spring, the "Stars" asked to join the league and told the Commissioner that they were from the small village of Obetz. After the 1st 3 games when it was obvious that this was not a "rec" team, an investigation was done to determine if the addresses of the team members were from Obetz. They were not! In the Columbus Dispatch article, the author states that only one player does not live in the 43207 zip code. So what!!!!...that zip code contains almost 50,000 residents and stretches from north of I70 down to the Franklin/Pickaway county line! So much for community based. After this information was discovered, the "Stars" were asked to leave. One of their parents cried to the Dispatch and this whole mess started. Even though the author of the article was given these facts he chose to ignore them....never let the truth get in the way of a good story! After all this hubub hit about the "Stars", it was discovered that the team was kicked out of their travel league last year for abusive behavior. Don't you think it is odd that a team so good would choose to beat up on a bunch of "rec" teams by 20 runs every game? How does that help you improve? The answer is that the "Stars" were not welcome anywhere else. The league since has determined that the "Stars" were also kicked out of their 2003 league. The Canal Rec Dept. has issued press releases to tell the real truth, but as of yet no one is interested in telling that side of the story....why ruin a good story? Now this story has gone National as all the wire services have picked up this story. I had to chase TV cameras from FOX Sports (Chicago) out of my dugout last week!! Our community has chosen to take the high road in all this, but enough is enough. The teams in our league are preparing a response. When enough parents get involved, hopefully someone at the Dispatch will give us a voice and end this nightmare. I'm sorry for this long post, but I just had to get if off my chest after watching our community get dragged through the mud for the past few weeks. Thank you.