In what is an extremely unfortunate turn of events, the Jackie Robinson West Little League baseball team has been stripped of the little league World Series title and players and parents are both in pain and sadden by the results.
According to multiple reports, Jackie Robinson was stripped off their title because players were on the teams roster who live outside the teams little league borders.
ESPN is reporting,
Little League Baseball has stripped the U.S. championship from Chicago-based Jackie Robinson West and suspended its coach for violating a rule prohibiting the use of players who live outside the geographic area that the team represents, it was announced Wednesday.
Jackie Robinson West must vacate wins from the 2014 Little League Baseball International Tournament — including its Great Lakes Regional and United States championships.
The team’s manager, Darold Butler, has been suspended from Little League activity, and Illinois District 4 administrator Michael Kelly has been removed from his position.
The organization found that Jackie Robinson West used a falsified boundary map and that team officials met with neighboring Little League districts in Illinois to claim players and build what amounts to a superteam.
As a result, the United States championship has been awarded to Mountain Ridge Little League from Las Vegas.
“Quite honestly, we had to do this,” Little League International president and CEO Stephen D. Keener told ESPN on Wednesday. “We had no choice. We had to maintain the integrity of the Little League program. … As painful as this is, it’s a necessary outcome from what we finally have been able to confirm.
The victim is all of this is the children who went out and performed on the diamond and won the title. Rules were broken and that can’t be denied but it sucks to see the kids’ whose hard work, time, sweat and passion is effected by decisions of others. Parents of the Jackie Robinson West players are looking for alternatives but this may be a decision that is final.
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