Quote:
Originally posted by His High Holiness
All;
Given the controversy regarding Little League questions, I felt that I should do my part to help Little League umpires take over.
Seriously, I am writing an article for the paid part of the site and I need help with a Little League rule. Assume a huge Little League has over two hundred players in their 11-12 Majors division. My understanding is that they must divide the League in half and have two Majors divisions and two all-star teams. Is this correct? If so...
Question: Is it legal to stack one of the divisions with the best players in order to have a great all-star team? In other words, before the season, have the coaches select the 50-100 best players and put them all in one division.
Peter
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I don't believe LL has changed that much but when I was involved, dividing the League as you suggest, got my team OUT, of the end of the year Tournament.
The LL I was involved in , had over 1500 kids in it and acted as one entity, until the District decided that our League would no longer be able to violate the rules that they allowed to be violated, for years. It was a conglomerate of "good ole boy" rules, that finally caught up with the "good ole boys."
At the time, and this may still be true, Leagues were allowed to be formed, based upon school district populations. I don't remember the numbers, (30,000, 50,000).
Anyway, over the years this Leagues Charter covered three school districts, that grew to over 100,000 kids collectively. As the years progressed and the Leagues grew in size, it became an unwritten rule that "you don't mess with my district, and I won't mess with yours."
Well that lasted up until the time that the smaller and newer Leagues kept loosing all the time.
So, as it turned out, everybody decided to get some religion, the year I had the dominating 14-15 yr old team. Oh well.
Back to your question. The League ended up having to divide into three separate and distinct charters, with three All-Star teams. Which in the long run was better because more kids got a chance to be involved in the end of the year Tournaments and the all important Williams Port Tournament.
The Constitution we redid, kept the same board, with more positions and reprsentation for each charter. More people got involved and this is still one of the larger Leagues around and run very nicely by the parents, thank you.
Guess who was instumental in re-writing the new Constitution and By-Laws. I lost the battle on the field but collectively we ended up with a better League.
Finally, "Is it legal to stack one of the divisions with the best players in order to have a great all-star team?"
Absolutely NOT.