Jackie Robinson West Stripped Of US Little League World Series Title

Adults generally ruin kids activities. There is too much focus on sports now and the potential money gained.

I think the league ought to have a serious reconsideration of the bylaws, at least for the future. I'm from the Chicago area

and know the lay of the land intimately. The corporate city itself is made up of scores of neighborhood entities like Edison

Park, Norwood Park, and so on, and for hundreds of square miles around is thick with surrounding close suburbs like a

patchwork quilt. Because of commuter rail that goes back into the 19th Century and light rail all around and outside the

city, it is substantially one entity. No farm land, limited park spaces (The Forest Preserves) and otherwise pretty much

residential, commercial and industrial. I realize Little League doesn't want to develop a recruiting situation where kids are

perpetually transported all over the landscape to play ball, but this seems to be splitting hairs. Some parts of the suburbs

are within walking distance of outer reaches of the city (my family home is about a half mile away from "Chicago") and

twenty miles or more from other parts of the corporate City of Chicago. The league might consider a radius of mileage

that is acceptable or limit miles a kid travels to practice. They have to keep it legitimately homegrown, but in this instance

it probably was. To make a group of minority kids the test case seems wrong.

Wrong way to do it, leave the Kids alone, horsewhipp the Adults. The kids just played ball, make em share the Championship with the runner up .

I feel very sad for the kids, they won, they should keep the title. The adults on the other hand, fine them, ban them, but don't take it out on the kids.

Whether or not parents knew that rules were being broken may never be known. It is even less likely that the children knew however not impossible.
There are two important questions here the first being, were rules broken. The answer apparetnly is yes. The second is, what should the punishment be for rule breaking. Such a tough issue to consider but in the end, when it comes to punishment, does it matter who the rule breaker is or does the severity of the rule breaking lead as the determining factor?
Did their illegal team building establish a team that had an unaffair advantage? Apparenlty those best informed and closest to the issue say yes. Should teams be allowed an unfair advantage? No. If a team doesn't win under the guise of fair play, does their victory count? Sadly no.
Perhaps we are allowing the fact that kids are invovled pull on our heartstrings. Let’s say the coaches had paid the umpires handsomely and this bribe lead to favorable calls infavor of Jackie Robbinson West. Would we object to the title being stripped?

Having coached and umpired Little League for over 20 years...parents are the worse to deal with....it's really sad when a few cheat and break rules in such a way that the punishment impacts the kids...very very sad...I feel for the kids and the coaches and local league organizer should be banned for life...I don't disagree with the punishment though...the team that finished in 2nd place, and hopefully did not break the rules, deserves the "win" because they abided by the rules....I agree completely pipebaum with your assessment

I first read of this story here via the ESPN website in which they dropped a little bit of information on a woman named Kristi Black who happens to be the "former Las Vegas league president." With a little bit of web searching I came across this article on DNAinfo.com that goes into much greater detail on who was pushing for this. Apparently the Las Vegas Coach, one Ashton Cave, made statments prior to the decision presuring the league saying "If we’re going to live by [your] motto, we need to make things right…" It troubles me that the losing district was the one pressing for this but not sure if it really matters in the end.
MSO gave us a great breakdown of the Chicago area. In my searching I found this map breakdown of the Chicago based leagues. MSO, not sure if you are familiar with the boundries but maybe you can give us some more insight having the map at hand.

The kids played ball with their collective heart and soul. The parents and team officials played ball with the kids. For shame!