Knew it was coming

[amusedofficial]

Originally Posted by IowaMike

In my opinion, Little League has lost its way

This was the most cogent comment I have seen about the problems with Little League Baseball.

Let us remember that this is an organization that turned its back on its founder many years ago. Little League Baseball exists not for the kids, but for the greater glorification of Little League BVaseball.

I do official, Williamsport-connected "Little League," Ripken leagues and town "youth leagues" with no affiliation with some parent organization.

I find the Ripken leagues combine the "baseball for the fun of it" attitude of the unaffiliated leagues with standards and organized structure. I think I can judge the "fun level" of a baseball game and the Ripken leagues have it all over official Little League. Unaffiliated leagues are also generally good leagues. Official Little Leagues are political sewers.

Little League playoffs are not about the players, and it hasn't been that way for 30 years.

[jicecone]

I agree, 20+ years ago I can remember sitting at District meeting in Long Island as an Assistant DA and listening to a LL representative. We had invited him down to discuss problems within our district and LL sent him down to talk about how beautiful a facility they were building in Conn was going to be.

Didn't have a clue about rules and organizational structure but could talk for hours about how LL was going to make these great facilities for the kids. I can remember asking what that had to do with teaching baseball and a lot of other core values that LL supposedly promoted. All he said was, "it was a start". Typical Corporate Airhead programmed with his robotic speeches of "let all get together in a circle and be one happy family because the Board voted, thats the way it should be." What he meant was, it was a start of LL selling out to corporate america and building this kingdom of structures around the country for monetary reasons. They could care less what really took place in the halls of those parks as long as it didn't interfer with generating revenue. Sounds like the same principle that many of our universities have perscribed to, but thats a different forum.

JMO.

[kylejt]

Originally Posted by amusedofficial

Official Little Leagues are political sewers.

Only if you allow it.

It's true that WP will come down with some pretty stupid proclamations at times. I was able work around the last one that tried to hamstring my Junior umpires. Aside from those, a local league is only as good as the people running it. LL, PONY, Ripkin, Dixie, or independent, it really doesn't matter whose flag you fly.

At our little park, WP has little effect on things during the regular season. It does get a bit heavy handed during the tournament, but that's only for a small percentage of the kids, for even a smaller percentage of the total games. No big deal.

Good leagues work WITH the good things that LL has to offer, and work AROUND the others. That's the trick.