This story shows the type of nonsense that goes on behind the scenes before you get to see what you see on ESPN as far as the LLWS goes. It perfectly illustrates the type of 'weed in the garden' type of environment that can creep in when the focus is on:
a) year-round baseball specialization vs. well-rounded, multi-sport athletics,
b) travel ball environment instead of neighborhood play,
c) trophy collecting vs. player development.
PLAY BALL!!!!
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http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2008-08-14/news/kendall-little-league-cheaters/1
Kendall Little League Cheaters
They outscored opponents 140-3 in baseball.
By Gus Garcia-Roberts
Published on August 14, 2008
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.
And when they weren't bashing Little League
competition, these same kids played as Team Miami —
also coached by Miranda — an elite squad in the
expensive and high-pressure "travel ball" circuit.
But the stink of scandal followed. Kendall was a
prepubescent version of the Yankees, its dominance
breeding hate in tinny bleachers across the county.
Parents don't like seeing their children trampled.
And they filled the e-mail inboxes of Little League
officials with complaints.
Then, three weeks after Rivera's protest, Little
League's Pennsylvania offices finally grinded to life.
The night before Kendall was slated to begin a state
championship tournament, Miranda received a terse
e-mail from the tournament committee, addressing the
team's connection to travel ball, and the fact that
the league played by different rules during the
regular season.
The committee claimed KHO had skirted Little League's
rules in handpicking an All-Star team that already
existed elsewhere — as Team Miami. The matter-of-fact
memo concluded by barring KHO from the state
tournament and revoking its Little League charter.
Coral Springs, a team that KHO had beaten by 18 runs
three days earlier, would take its place in the next
day's game.
Miranda and parents led their banned players on a sort
of sit-in at the game they were no longer allowed to
play. They wore team jerseys and hats as they wandered
the pregame field, trailing local news cameras.
"All those violations added up to give Kendall-Hammocks an
advantage that none of the 7,500 teams around the
world had," explains Lance Van Auken, media relations
director for the league. "These are not obscure rules.
These are just the basic rules of Little League play
that have been on the books since the 1940s."
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