Little League Team Disqualification.

[AtlUmpSteve]

Three separate messageboards I frequent have threads about this. I don't claim to have insider knowledge, but there is information out there that makes several of the responses here misguided, in my mind, anyway.

Here are some of the discrepancies I am reading.

1) The social media photo with 6 players giving the finger was actually taken before the semifinal game was even played. It wasn't even a response to supposed acts that were used to justify and rationalize why it was OK by the Atlee parents and coaches.

2) The Kirkland coaches and the TD were reportedly fine with a formal apology. It was other Kirkland parents that insisted further action be taken, and that they would take it higher up if the TD did not.

3) The Kirkland TD did NOT make the decision, knowing that was a no-win situation. He kicked the facts to the National Office, and the National Office made the decision.

4) As others have said, the minimum appropriate response would be to suspend the 6 players. If you define tipping pitch location as unsportsmanlike and deserving ejection of both player and head coach, there is absolutely NO WAY to ignore what these 6 kids did. In what world does that (6 suspended players) not result in a forfeit?

5) Since the photo was (reportedly) prior to the semifinal game, I see it reasonable to (at least consider) postdating the suspensions to prior to that game and declaring it a forfeit. That loss disqualified the team from continuing, not an after-the-fact disqualification. Think of it as having used ineligible players, BECAUSE ....

6) Are you freakin kidding me that LLSB would "cancel" the ESPN spot for that scheduled championship game over this? Weather, maybe; but to cancel this game when you have an administrative solution (making the suspensions retroactive and forfeiting the semifinal) is really unthinkable.

In another forum, I posted this thought:

Accountability and consequences for their actions? A public and national act of unsporting and crude behavior on social media is punished. How dare they??

It's only unfair and unreasonable to the extent that this group of kids have probably never been accountable before in their lives. Blame the parents, and multiply the blame by the excuses and rationalizations pontificated by the parents and coaches.