rogers park bryan wrote:
Rules are rules except for when they're not
Evergreen Park whistleblower answers allegations of cheating
Posted: 02/12/2015, 01:40pm | Seth Gruen Evergreen Park Athletic Association Vice President Chris Janes told the Sun-Times their Little League has violated residency rules, but only so the league didn’t have to turn kids away from its house league.
He said Evergreen Park has never violated residency rules in picking its All-Star teams, which is why the rules exist.Renee Cannon-Young alleged on ABC7 that her son, Jacoby, was recruited to play in the Evergreen Park Little League in 2011.
Janes said he “vaguely” remembers the child in question.“Looking at him in the picture and trying to remember who he was, if he played in our league he was about seven- or eight-years-old in 2011,” Janes said.Little League rules mandate that any participant in a given Little League must either live within the boundaries of that league or go to school within its boundaries. That rule includes a league’s All-Star and house-league teams.But Janes said that Evergreen Park isn’t in the business of turning kids away from playing baseball.
“Full disclosure: There is a Little League rule buried somewhere that says if a kid doesn’t live in your boundary, he shouldn’t play baseball for you at all,” Janes said. “Forget about tournament teams and all that. Every year we have a handful of kids from Chicago that end up playing in our league.
”Evergreen Park is surround by Chicago on almost all sides according to Janes.“We’re just like this oasis in the middle of Chicago,” Janes said.“What happens is we have a boatload of Chicago people that drive to Evergreen every day and work here and as result they drop their kids off either with another relative or in a day care facility in Evergreen. So every year we get a handful of folks saying ‘We don’t live here, but we’d like to play baseball for you here.”In each of those cases Janes said that Evergreen Park Little League volunteers sit down with each of those parents and explain to them that they will allow to play in their house league. But, because they do not live inside the Evergreen Park Little League boundaries, they cannot play on any of Evergreen Park’s All-Star teams.
“I will tell you 1,000 percent that we have never, ever, ever had a kid on one of our All-Star teams that wasn’t in our boundaries,” Janes said.Janes said the volunteer who has the league’s records is currently in California training for work. He declined to give the name of that person. Janes said when that person returns, he would be willing to provide the residency information of Evergreen Park’s All-Star teams.He said the Little League has told several talented players, who have played in the Evergreen Park house league, they could not participate on the All-Star teams.While Janes did admit that he broke and said he doesn’t want to “turn anyone away” from playing in Evergreen Park’s house league, it is widely understood that residency rules are in place primarily to create fairness among the All-Star teams.House league teams only play within their own league.
So, Janes scoffs at the notion that Evergreen Park would have recruited the child in question; there’s no benefit to recruiting for a house league.Jane said he was not contacted by any reporters or producers from ABC7.“I have spent the last day and a half just absolutely getting my character assassinated,” Janes said. “And you know what? That is fine. That’s OK. That’s fine. This Little League organization here, it’s been here for 60-plus years and has done nothing but good things for this community, and I’ll be damned if I let some jerk try to tear it down.”
Oh my God! Un-fucking-believable. The thing is he's right in not turning kids away. Where he was wrong was in vilifying JRW. In their zest to defend
RULES people have lost sight of what the whole thing is about. It's kid's baseball. bernstein and his parrot are on the air painting Darold Butler as some master recruiter who seeks out the most talented 6 year olds and grooms them for the Williamsport tournament. The whole fucking thing is absurd and getting more silly by the minute.
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