In a brewing Little League scandal that has resonated all the way to the White House, the Jackie Robinson West team that won last summer’s U.S. Little League championship was stripped of its title for using ineligible players.
The team from Chicago’s South Side that knocked off Mo’ne Davis’ Taney Dragons was disqualified by Little League officials for reportedly using players from outside its allowed boundaries.
Little League officials had said in December they reviewed the roster and found no violation, but met and reversed course Tuesday in Williamsport, Pa., deciding Jackie Robinson West knowingly used “a falsified boundary map” to include players who lived outside their allowable borders. The U.S. title was awarded to Las Vegas-based Mountain Ridge.
Jackie Robinson West was just the third team in Little League’s 68-year history to have wins stripped as punishment.
“For more than 75 years, Little League has been an organization where fair play is valued over the importance of wins and losses,” Little League International president and CEO Stephen D. Keener said in a statement. “This is a heartbreaking decision. 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.
“As our Little League operations staff learned of the many issues and actions that occurred over the course of 2014 and prior, as painful as this is, we feel it a necessary decision to maintain the integrity of the Little League program. No team can be allowed to attempt to strengthen its team by putting players on their roster that live outside their boundaries.”
Jackie Robinson West also has to vacate all wins from last summer’s Little League World Series tournament, including its Great Lakes regional title. The team ended the dramatic run of Davis’ Philadelphia-based Dragons, who became a national story for having a girl as their star pitcher.
The Dragons had been just two wins from claiming the U.S. title when Jackie Robinson West beat them 6-5 on Aug. 22 to knock them out of the double-elimination tourney. Jackie Robinson West beat Mountain Ridge the next day.
Calls to the Dragons’ offices were not returned.
Davis emerged as a celebrity after becoming the first female pitcher to win a Little League World Series game, shutting out Nashville 4-0. She was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, appeared on “The Tonight Show”, has her jersey in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and will play in the Garden in this weekend’s NBA Celebrity All-Star Game.
The Jackie Robinson players themselves have drawn support, with President Obama — who hosted them at the White House last fall — laying the blame not with them but “dirty dealing” by adults.
“I don’t have much to say. But we do know that we’re champions,” Brandon Green, one of the team’s pitchers, said at a news conference called by the reverends Jesse Jackson and Michael Pfleger. “I don’t have much to say. But I do want to say, me and my teammates work hard all year long and went down there to play baseball. And we weren’t involved in anything that could have caused us to be stripped of our championship. But we do know that we’re champions. Our parents know that we’re champions, and the team’s parents know that we’re champions, and Chicago knows we’re champions.”
In a statement Jackson said the stripping of Jackie Robinson West’s title was excessive.
“This is too harsh, assuming the worst scenario if this was the case of doctoring birth certificates or age manipulation which affects the outcomes of games, that would be understandable.
“In this instance the children have done nothing wrong. If this was the pros if a player engages in performance enhancing drugs, corked bats, of if this was a football team that used deflated footballs, the punishment is not forfeiting the games, it rest on the individual player. These children are innocent. The treatment of this championship team does not fit the charge.’’
President Obama said through White House press secretary Josh Earnest he’s still proud of the youngsters.
“The president invited the Jackie Robinson West Little League team to the White House to celebrate the accomplishment of those young men and the strong performance they delivered on a pretty large stage for a 12-year-old,” Earnest told reporters Wednesday.
“The president is proud of the way they represented their city and the way they represented the country. The fact is, some dirty dealing by some adults doesn’t take anything away from the accomplishments of these young men.”
Earnest said the president felt the players “should be proud of what they’ve accomplished” and “was pleased to have the opportunity to have met them last fall.”
Earnest also said the president “is hopeful that they will continue to take that sense of purpose and that determination and that patience and apply it to success in other elements of their lives.”