Little League: Jackie Robinson West cheated?

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UOK
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http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150209 ... e-stripped" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Claims that the Chicago-based program altered its boundaries to soak up a team full of ringers.
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Boris13c
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they were cheating in Little League eons ago when I was in Little League so this does not surprise me

I like how this group used the time honored Chicago political tradition of gerrymandering, but for players in this case instead of voters
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Got stripped of their title today.
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UOK
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The political, racial, and controversial figureheads have emerged to surround themselves with these poor kids and use them to further their own agendas. Chicago's gonna Chicago.
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wab
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Reading all these stories. Jesus. When did blatant cheating become racism?
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biggridironbear
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wab wrote:Reading all these stories. Jesus. When did blatant cheating become racism?
You or anyone else that don't see the racism that lies within this entire situation are in extreme denial.
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biggridironbear wrote:
wab wrote:Reading all these stories. Jesus. When did blatant cheating become racism?
You or anyone else that don't see the racism that lies within this entire situation are in extreme denial.
The racism angle is that the team was initially investigated and subsequently stripped because the Powers That Be don't want to reward a team of predominantly black children.

This WASN'T about racism, but it IS now because Jesse Jackson showed up and MADE it one. It makes this situation needlessly toxic and requires a much more careful touch, and it's really shitty. It could've been about the actual issue - gerrymandering boundaries to recruit SuperTeams - but no, now it's about race.

Thanks for ruining a logical argument with an illogical smear campaign.

Parents have been ruining Little League for years, and now it's no different. Here we are again. These kids are 12 and yet it's the adults trying to grease their fingers within the honeypot that surrounds this $100 million+ industry. It's not even about the kids but hey, let's take them out of school, throw them in their uniforms, and parade them around like the adults genuinely give a shit.

I feel like ESPN's coverage of little league/children's sports disgusting, too, but that's just me.
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biggridironbear wrote:
wab wrote:Reading all these stories. Jesus. When did blatant cheating become racism?
You or anyone else that don't see the racism that lies within this entire situation are in extreme denial.
You are kidding right? What about the minority kids that were passed over because they weren't deemed "good enough" by a bunch of shitty adults. Where is the racial outcry for them?

They cheated. They got caught. Rather than own up to it and use it as a life lesson for these kids, they default to racism. Why? Because it's easy.

It's chickenshit advocacy like this that diminishes the REAL racism problem. It sends the wrong message to the kids. It says "this happened because we are black" not "this happened because we made a poor choice".

This exact same thing happened in august to a predominantly white team in georgia. They fudged the paperwork and got expelled. There were no press conferences or groups formed. The head of the district stood up, took the hit, admitted what happened, and that was that.
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It really blows, too. Because this has now apparently become a microcosm of racial prejudice, it takes attention away from the lesson people (especially the kids) should learn from this - that cheating is wrong. Instead the lesson learned is Change The Conversation By Threatening Lawsuits & Claiming Discrimination.
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I don't fault the Little League governing body for the decision to strip the title. Their decision was not about race and and their hands were tied. Once it came to light that JRW violated the residency rule, they had no choice but to vacate. They actually tried to sweep it under the rug because it's not really a big deal. The age restriction is seen as way more serious because age offers an actual physical advantage.

This is no different than how the HS and NCAA operates. Hell, even professional leagues. There are certain rules in all of sports that are usually manipulated. Most NCAA coaches and programs violate recruiting laws. However, it's so common and widespread that it's usually swept under the rug. Of course if someone gets ratted on, the NCAA has to come down hard, but it's usually a "see no evil, hear no evil" type of deal.

Manipulating the residency boundaries has been a practice for DECADES. However, no one raised a stink about it because the fact was that all-black teams could still not compete with their usually predominantly white-well-funded counterparts.

Basically, this comes down to ONE man' s quest to ruin JRW. And for what? At best, these boundaries just provided an equal playing field. You think this guy aggressively pursued this decision purely because of integrity? I hope certain people aren't so naive. The fact is that black Communities have been at a competitive disadvantage for years. Finally a competitive all-black team beats these "super teams" from these affluent communities and there's a problem. Where was the problem with residency laws when they were losing?
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I understand the outcry, I absolutely do, but it feels like this became a racial issue out of convenience rather than merit.
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It's wrong to say that the Little League Associ. was racist in their verdict. They weren't. JRW did break a rule and the consequences were the consequences. As soon as they found out, they had no choice. So I'm against people who are calling them racists. However, this guy from Evergreen Park. What was his motivations? Why was he so driven to rip these kids world apart because of a technicality that has been overlooked for decades? This whole story blew up because of one fucking guy. Do you truly believe that this guy aggressively pursued this story without racist motivations?
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UOK wrote:
biggridironbear wrote: You or anyone else that don't see the racism that lies within this entire situation are in extreme denial.
The racism angle is that the team was initially investigated and subsequently stripped because the Powers That Be don't want to reward a team of predominantly black children.

This WASN'T about racism, but it IS now because Jesse Jackson showed up and MADE it one. It makes this situation needlessly toxic and requires a much more careful touch, and it's really shitty. It could've been about the actual issue - gerrymandering boundaries to recruit SuperTeams - but no, now it's about race.

Thanks for ruining a logical argument with an illogical smear campaign.

Parents have been ruining Little League for years, and now it's no different. Here we are again. These kids are 12 and yet it's the adults trying to grease their fingers within the honeypot that surrounds this $100 million+ industry. It's not even about the kids but hey, let's take them out of school, throw them in their uniforms, and parade them around like the adults genuinely give a shit.

I feel like ESPN's coverage of little league/children's sports disgusting, too, but that's just me.
I agree with you 100% UOK

and any time Jesse Jackson or any other politically motivated "reverend" gets involved, the actual issue will always get ignored so they can turn it into some hateful off the wall bullshit that more fits the narrow confines of their pea-like brains

the adults who ruined this for the kids are despicable and should have known better, and would have known better, had they actually cared about the kids
"Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things."
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BlackEngineer wrote:I don't fault the Little League governing body for the decision to strip the title. Their decision was not about race and and their hands were tied. Once it came to light that JRW violated the residency rule, they had no choice but to vacate. They actually tried to sweep it under the rug because it's not really a big deal. The age restriction is seen as way more serious because age offers an actual physical advantage.

This is no different than how the HS and NCAA operates. Hell, even professional leagues. There are certain rules in all of sports that are usually manipulated. Most NCAA coaches and programs violate recruiting laws. However, it's so common and widespread that it's usually swept under the rug. Of course if someone gets ratted on, the NCAA has to come down hard, but it's usually a "see no evil, hear no evil" type of deal.

Manipulating the residency boundaries has been a practice for DECADES. However, no one raised a stink about it because the fact was that all-black teams could still not compete with their usually predominantly white-well-funded counterparts.

Basically, this comes down to ONE man' s quest to ruin JRW. And for what? At best, these boundaries just provided an equal playing field. You think this guy aggressively pursued this decision purely because of integrity? I hope certain people aren't so naive. The fact is that black Communities have been at a competitive disadvantage for years. Finally a competitive all-black team beats these "super teams" from these affluent communities and there's a problem. Where was the problem with residency laws when they were losing?
They were losing because they weren't cheating.

White, Black, Red, or Green...this is the type of participation trophy mentality that drives me insane.

I was a coach in the JFL for 8 years. Only once in that time did I have a winning season. Some would say I wasn't a very good coach from a playcalling standpoint...and I'd be hard pressed to argue with them. But the reality is, I got the majority of kids that didn't want to play. My teams were predominantly white. And we played against seriously stacked competition, who happened to be predominantly black...and high school coaches out there coaching 5-12 year old kids because some parent of a wealthy community "asked him to".

Only once in that 8 years did I have a winning season. And it was because I had a talented team. What happened the next year? All but maybe one or two talented kids managed to find themselves a part of one of the "super teams". All but one or two of those kids that left my team was black.

So here I am, left with basically the equivalent of a soccer team. Did I bitch and moan and complain to the JFL? No. Did I cheat and conspire to recruit better players and fudge district rules? No. I coached what I had. We won a few games and had fun in the process. I decided to use the game as a way to teach the kids about commitment, teamwork, and friendship. When they would ask why we didn't win, sometimes I'd say because they were better than us. They were better coached. More talented. Just plain better at football. It happens. But, parents don't want to hear that shit. They want to hear how little Trevor would be QB for the Mustangs even though he can't throw a ball more than 5 yards. They want to win. Not the kids. The parents. You think for one second if the parents hadn't gotten involved those kids would have had any less fun just playing baseball?

Over the 8 years I coached, only a dozen of those kids is going to play this sport past the age of 12. They won't make high school teams. And that's ok.

What's not ok is cheating because you aren't good enough. I don't care what color you are. You play the hand you're dealt and you move on.

If you can't compete because of your location or your socio-economic background, that's the way it is. But don't cheat your way around it and then wave the racism flag.
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The little league guy that blew the whistle on this did it because JRW was poaching his neighborhood despite it being well outside of their domain. He said it himself that there was no racism involved, he just wanted the playing field to be even.

There were multiple reports of this out of Chicago. Vegas did their own investigation and there kept being more and more evidence to support the cheating argument. When DNA went live with their report, it was so obvious that it took all of 24 hours for them to vacate the title.

I actually think they would've been better off NOT vacating the title simply to avoid the shitstorm that has followed. It's made everyone look bad, and now it's swimming in the murky pools of alleged racism. It's disgraceful by all sides.
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Was JRW racist because they had no white kids on the team? Just asking. There were no white kids good enough to poach?

Wab I coached JFL for 8 yrs myself. I was amazed at some of the shit some of the coaches pulled. there were 3 small collar towns that could have their own teams. One town, Monmouth, the coach would tell the kids he wanted on his team to show up an hr before registration. He would get those studs signed up. When the real registration started, he turned those kids away because the team was full. Those kids would have to enter into our town's draft and have to travel the approx. 30 minutes for practices. One year he turned away a kid that became a stud for us. Guess what? In the kids 3rd year the Monmouth coach called his parents and wanted him on their team. The parents told him if he wasn't good enough 2 yrs ago he wasn't good enough now. The parents contined bringing him into town for our team. Kudos to the parents.

Other coaches would tell stud kids not to come to the draft camp until the last day. That way the other coaches would have not seen him but for the one day and not know enough about him to draft him. They would always take that kid with their first pick.

Then you had teams abusing the minimum 10 play rule.

Of course there was the kid, held back two times that showed up in what was supposed to be his last year of eligibility. Kid tore up the league. Because of him birth certificates were required.

We happened to have a stud on our team that no one question until his last year in the league when he dominated. The proof was in the birth certificate.

We only had on winning season as well. We went undefeated and won the championship. Everybody pointed to the stud and saying he was too old. Never mind the birth certificate proofed otherwise.

The shit adults do just to friggin win a pee wee, little league, JFL title.
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You can't convince me that NO other team is guilty of this same infraction. Yet JRW (an all black team), wins the LLWS and suddenly there needs to be an investigation. The smell of racist bullshit is very pungent in this situation. Don't get me wrong I'm not by any means condoning breaking of the rule. However as I've said I'm almost certain you'd be hard pressed not to find a past champion that didn't do the same thing. Were they investigated/have their title taken away? NO. All that other talk is pure garbage.
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You're basically defining the terms for a debate and that's really unfortunate. I'm done wasting my time with this. This is a circlejerk discussion.
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biggridironbear wrote:You can't convince me that NO other team is guilty of this same infraction. Yet JRW (an all black team), wins the LLWS and suddenly there needs to be an investigation. The smell of racist bullshit is very pungent in this situation. Don't get me wrong I'm not by any means condoning breaking of the rule. However as I've said I'm almost certain you'd be hard pressed not to find a past champion that didn't do the same thing. Were they investigated/have their title taken away? NO. All that other talk is pure garbage.
So cheating is ok as long as you don't get caught? And if someone points out you are cheating it's because they don't like black people? Maybe it's because they were poaching kids (black kids) from his area and putting his area at a disadvantage.

Just like in any other cheating scandal, the little league governing body knew about this long before the title game. They only had to do something about it because it became painfully clear how brazen and blatant the gerrymandering had become.

It's defaulted to racism because it's easier for people to say "you don't like me because of the color of my skin" than it is to say "I'm a dirtbag adult that is trying to manipulate a child's game because I need to win at all costs".

Let it sink in. Adults were cheating against KIDS.
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^^^convince yourself all you want with those blinders on. I live in the world of reality.
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Then please enlighten us.
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This is going to turn ugly, so I'll go ahead and save everyone the trouble.
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