LLWS Thread 2009

I get the feeling that any good kids in our area (southern California) are playing travel ball, PONY, or Cal Ripken league.

The LL rules are so stunted regarding leading off, steals, etc. JMO, but Little League is looked at as the short bus brand of baseball). I could be wrong.

 

Which is a shame if it is true.

 

Even the teams in Williamsport play Babe Ruth league after their 12th birthday. There's a team from Williamsport in the 13 tear old Babe Ruth series right now. There was also a team from Williamsport in the big league world series this tear which really makes me wonder just how tough the competition is.

 

Poindexter hit the nail on the head. A lot of 12 year olds see PONY ball and think it may help them when they get to high school. (I asked a coach if he could tell the difference between a kid who played Pony and a kid who played LL, he said no).

As for RHCP, you are dead right. Once they are 13, the talent level and competition goes way down. Depending on where you live, they pretty much leave LL and go to PONY (many leagues have it set up where LL is a feeder system into PONY), or Babe Ruth or just travel ball.

 

Big League is part of the Little League umbrella.

 

I just can't wait though for ESPN Junior....no doubt coming to a cable company near you soon. All kids sports, all the time.

 

This year is the only the second where two girls are playing in the LLWS -- one girl from Canada and one from Saudi Arabia.

SAUDI ARABIA?

(It's an American girl who plays on the oil company expatriate community team.)

 

The team from Dharhan, Saudi Arabia has been to Williamsport every year since 1999. Although I can't imagine the competition in its regional is particularly tough.

 

One of the other things that happens is that, because they have to play on a regulation-sized field (90-foot basepaths, 60'6" from mount to plate, etc.), many Little Leaguers, including some standouts, can no longer play the game competitively after they're 12 years old. They just don't have the arm strength or speed or other physical gifts needed to play on the bigger field.

I grew up in, and later worked in, an area where Little League and Babe Ruth were very popular. The kids who could make the transition to the bigger field almost always continued to play in Babe Ruth once their Little League days were done. But success at the Little League level often did not mean success at the Babe Ruth level. We had one team in that area about 10 years ago that won the state title and came within a couple of games of going to Williamsport. The "stars" of that team turned out to be nothing special in Babe Ruth or high school play.

 

That transition from LL to Babe Ruth was a killer for me because let's just say the scrappy leadoff LL all-star has a hard time becoming a Babe Ruth player in a 13-15 league if puberty is slightly delayed. Yeah, that was a killer going from 60 ft bases to 90 ft. Man, that dirt infield was huge too.

But even after my kids were in Pony, and I saw leading, etc. in 9-10 yr. Pony leagues, I prefer LL better. Let the kids be kids for a while longer. Why the rush to MLB stuff? If the kid is going to be a stud, he'll be a stud, whether he plays LL or Pony.

 

Here's a great advertisement for Little League Baseball.

http://deadspin.com/5345383/little-league-pitcher-would-really-like-to-plunk-this-next-batter?t=14984491#c14984491


Check out his body english
Asks the coach if he can plunk the batter
Asks if he can stop pitching
Asks if he can sit out (coach tells him to go to first base)


I am not knocking the kid - he's 12 years old, I've seen that look on any youth sports field of any type. Too bad his "time out" moment happened in front of ESPN, with their god-damned insatiable appetite for "all-access"

 

Poin, I keep seeing your name on this thread, and I keep expecting you're going to tell us one of the LL moms was busted for boffing one of the players.