{"id":46,"date":"2015-02-12T12:43:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T18:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/02\/what-were-missing-about-the-jackie-robinson-west-scandal.html"},"modified":"2015-02-24T21:16:45","modified_gmt":"2015-02-25T03:16:45","slug":"what-were-missing-about-the-jackie-robinson-west-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/02\/what-were-missing-about-the-jackie-robinson-west-scandal.html","title":{"rendered":"What we’re missing about the Jackie Robinson West scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

First of all, the reporting:<\/p>\n

Per the Chicago Tribune<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Little League International stripped Jackie Robinson West of its championship Wednesday, saying its officials knowingly fielded players who lived outside the team\u2019s residential boundaries and then tried to cover up their deception.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

. . .\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chris Janes, vice president of the Evergreen Park Athletic Association, had seen one of his teams demolished by Jackie Robinson West 43-2 last year. As the squad made its World Series run, he noticed that some communities outside of Jackie Robinson\u2019s residential boundaries were declaring themselves the hometowns of some Jackie Robinson players.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThe more success they got, the more publicity, the more people out there from south suburbs were laying claims to these kids,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are very specific rules out there, and the expectation is that we are all following and playing by the same rules.\u201d\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He began to research the players\u2019 backgrounds using public records like voter registration records and address listings, he said, and found that four or five of the players [out of 13 total] apparently lived outside the team\u2019s boundaries.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

. . .\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Little League CEO Stephen Keener said Wednesday that Jackie Robinson West annexed portions of three neighboring leagues on a boundary map it submitted to Little League officials, and did so without the permission of those leagues. The map was redrawn and backdated, he said. Neighboring leagues knew about the falsification but didn\u2019t speak up, not wanting to upend the team\u2019s championship season, Keener said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

. . .\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0At a news conference held at Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters, the Rev. Jesse Jackson called the decision untimely and inappropriately harsh. The Rev. Michael Pfleger questioned whether racism played a role in the extensive investigation.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t help but question whether the same thing would have been done with another team from another place \u2014 another race,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the reaction? \u00a0Lots of cynicism about Chicago corruption, and lots of cries that \u201cit\u2019s not the kids\u2019 fault; they\u2019re innocent victims.\u201d <\/p>\n

Yes, it\u2019s not the kids\u2019 fault \u2014 except that 4 or 5 of them shouldn\u2019t have been on the team in the first place. \u00a0Maybe neither they nor their parents knew the rules, but it seems as if (though I\u2019m not really certain) the \u201cJackie Robinson West\u201d team was a team specifically put together for the tournament play, not for the baseball season, and that these kids were pulled in after having played elsewhere, so it\u2019s not a given to me that everyone was in the dark about this. <\/p>\n

But the key is this:<\/p>\n

This team wouldn\u2019t have existed were it not for the misconduct of the adults in assembling a team that included players outside the established boundaries. \u00a0We\u2019re not told whether the star players were outside the boundary, or which players were, in particular, but it is reasonable to assume that the team would have been much more ordinary if not for the out-of-boundary players. <\/p>\n

Which means that the cheating was not incidental to their accomplishments but was the very foundation for it. \u00a0And you can\u2019t escape that or dither about the fairness of the penalty \u2014 it\u2019s fundamental. \u00a0You can\u2019t reconstruct the team, and say that it was really the inspirational coaches that would have transformed any random group of kids, or say that these \u201cringer\u201d kids were chosen in no way for their talent but just to given them the opportunity to play. <\/p>\n

Now, maybe, this sort of cheating happens all the time, and maybe there\u2019s a need for the league to be much firmer about eligibility or change the rules. \u00a0But it\u2019s not OK to say that JRW should get a pass because unproven others may have done the same thing, or because they don\u2019t like the rules.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s tempting to say that the problem is the high-stakes nature of the event itself: \u00a0I mean, really, 12-year-olds on national television playing baseball? \u00a0But we don\u2019t know to what extent dreams of national success motivated the coaches, vs. more mundane thoughts that \u201cit won\u2019t matter.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First of all, the reporting: Per the Chicago Tribune: Little League International stripped Jackie Robinson West of its championship Wednesday, saying its officials knowingly fielded players who lived outside the team\u2019s residential boundaries and then tried to cover up their deception.\u00a0 . . .\u00a0 Chris Janes, vice president of the Evergreen Park Athletic Association, had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[32,34,33],"class_list":["post-46","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-baseball","tag-cheating","tag-chicago"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat we're missing about the Jackie Robinson West scandal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"First of all, the reporting:Per the Chicago Tribune:Little League International stripped Jackie Robinson West of its 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