Chicago stands by little league team, ‘champions’ despite stripped title

A little league baseball team hailing from one of Chicago’s most dangerous neighborhoods was forced to give up its national title Wednesday over the use of ineligible players. But to the community that had cheered them on to despite-the-odds success and national acclaim, the team remained “champions.”

Little League International, organizers of the annual tournament, nullified the Jackie Robinson West’s (JRW) win after investigating allegations by other teams that the team had recruited players from outside its set geographic boundaries — allowing JRW to unfairly assemble a superteam, it was said.

“This is a heartbreaking decision,” said Little League International President Stephen Keener in a statement announcing the decision.

“What these players accomplished on the field and the memories and lessons they have learned during the Little League World Series tournament is something the kids can be proud of, but it is unfortunate that the actions of adults have led to this outcome.”

Despite Wednesday’s disappointment, Barack Obama — whom JRW players met at the White House after their win — still holds the team in high esteem.

“The president is proud of the way that they represented their city and the way they represented their country,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Wednesday, the Sun-Times reported. 

The national title will go to the Nevada team that JRW had bested for the honor this summer, the Las Vegas-based Mountain Ridge club. JRW’s other regional titles will go to the clubs that lost those games, according to news site DNAinfo Chicago, which first published the accusations against JRW’s roster.

The success of the all-black baseball team had been claimed as a source of pride by many in Chicago’s South Side, a part of the city long-beset by problems including a high crime rate and gangs that start tempting kids as young as JRW players — 11 to 13 years. To many, the team’s success this summer served as an example of how sports could provide healthy antidote to social ills.

Pam Bosley, who counsels at-risk youth at St. Sabina Church, which hosts educational programs focused on keeping youth away from crime, said the team deserved to win despite Wednesday’s ruling. The matter of diverting youth from violence is also deeply personal for her, having lost her 18-year-old son to a bullet in 2006.

“They’re champions in my eyesight. They gave our youth something to look up to,” she said.

Eric Wilkins, who runs an organization called Broken Winggz that helps young men paralyzed by gun violence adjust to lives in walkers or wheelchairs, said many youths in economically depressed part of Chicago don’t have stable places to live and might bounce from one home to another. To them as well, JSW’s win could be seen as a source of hope. Indeed, one of the boys on the team was homeless.

“Everybody’s still treating them as champions,” Wilkins, who lives in the neighborhood where the players came from, said of his community’s response to Wednesday’s news.

“They still stood as gentlemen. You never see them out of character. But you look at the areas that they come from; these are the worst areas in the city. These kids have friends who have died from gun violence. They face issues that are different from the other kids,” Wilkins said.

Garry McCarthy, Chicago Police Department superintendent, has also expressed the importance of sports in diverting young people away from violence.

“I’m a big believer in sports programs. It certainly worked for me growing up in the Bronx. I have a lot of friends that went in a different direction than I did,” McCarthy said last summer, citing the success of JRW, adding that he regretted not getting a police little league organized in 2013 when he first noticed a lack of baseball in Chicago’s poorer communities.

“Based on the success of Jackie Robinson, I’m quite sure there will be a groundswell of support to get that done next year,” he added.

On the streets of South Side Chicago, continued support for the boys was tempered by a sense of discouragement over Wednesday’s news, Wilkins said. A young man had expressed his frustration to Wilkins over the development.

“‘Why even try?’” the young man said.