Roth: Fair play lost on Jackie Robinson West

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At the Oval Office, President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama welcome the Jackie Robinson West All Stars Little League team from Chicago.(Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP)

Raise a hand if you're tired of these adults-screw-up-a-kid's-good-time stories?

Little League Baseball Wednesday stripped Jackie Robinson West of its 2014 regional and United States championships after confirming the manager and league administrator "knowingly violated'' residency rules to build a super team, even using players from the Chicago suburbs.

Sigh.

The story lines are always the same aren't they? Adults on rival teams point fingers, the accused scramble for an excuse, league officials step in and make rulings after the trophies are handed out, and in the end, the kids suffer.

Jackie Robinson West was one of the feel-good stories of the summer. Not only were they a very good team, their sportsmanship was exemplary and they lifted the spirits of not just Chicago's struggling South Side, but the entire nation.

They were a symbol of baseball's urban initiative working. Major League players were inspired to help the team's parents with expenses. In November, the team visited the White House and President Barack Obama.

And now we've been told Jackie Robinson West Little League cheated. The team was a sham. Not the 13 kids, the adults.

"This is a heartbreaking decision,'' said Stephen Keener, Little League Baseball, Inc., president and CEO. "What these players accomplished on the field and the memories and lessons they have learned during the Little League World Series tournament is something the kids can be proud of, but it is unfortunate that the actions of adults have led to this outcome."

I dont believe fair play is that difficult a concept to grasp. Above everything, the adults of Jackie Robinson West owe their players an apology.

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If this were travel youth sports, where teams are assembled regardless of geography, this wouldn't be such a disheartening international story of deceit. But Little League Baseball's core philosophy is an old-fashioned one: Community-based rosters where neighboring chums play together. What a concept.

The adult leaders of Jackie Robinson West who knew they just needed a few more players to be really good went to Illinois District 4 and asked that their boundaries be extended, which there is a process for if OK'd by other districts. But they were told no. Instead of accepting that decision in the name of fair play, Jackie Robinson West falsified a boundary map to stack its roster, which other people signed off on all the way to Williamsport.

With Little League, Inc.'s 100 full-time employees, a $7.5 million payroll and thousands of volunteers, one might wonder how a team could get this far using ineligible players. A better question is how many other teams are caught during the vetting process? This is almost a self-policing thing because neighbors know neighbors. If an unfamiliar 13-year-old who stands 5-11 and shaves and can throw 75 mph shows up one day, red flags go up.

This is just the third time in 75 years a team has been stripped of a U.S. or world Little League title, so it appears most wrongdoing is nipped at the local level.

There will be many who feel that the rival teams that lost to Jackie Robinson West, including one in Chicago that lost 43-2 and a Las Vegas club that fell 7-5 in the national title game, should not have questioned their roster. They say its sour grapes. But silence equals complicity.

As for Little League Baseball, Inc., allowing Jackie Robinson West to keep its titles would make its rulebook as hollow as a corked bat. There are thousands of teams in 80 countries looking to the governing body to do the right thing. It had no choice but to follow precedent, set forth in cases like overage Bronx pitcher Danny Almonte in 2001.

I don't believe fair play is that difficult a concept to grasp. Above everything, the adults of Jackie Robinson West owe their players an apology.

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Source: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/sports/columnist/roth/2015/02/11/little-league-jackie-robinson-west-youth-sports/23231859/