Little League World Series

Agree - There are so many youth baseball leagues - Babe Ruth, Dixie Youth, Cal Ripkin, etc., etc. Some areas choose to participate in these other leagues instead of Little League. Ocala host a Cal Ripkin national tournament of one kind or another every year and has only minimal presence in the Ocala and Gainesville areas.

 

Watching the last couple innings - this Lake Mary team has no quit in them! Knocked out the starting and relief pitcher (him literally) and then stole home on the 3rd one - aptly named Koleslaw!

Respect to that 3rd base coach for the head's up call there to steal home!

 

Florida wins 10-7!

Have to say - that was as entertaining a game in those last 3 innings as I've seen in a while!

Talk about clutch!

Congrats to Lake Mary!

 

Best LLWS game I’ve ever seen. Way to go Lake Mary!

 

Wild Game and good for Lake Mary. Got their hands full tomorrow, though. But winning the US title is a huge accomplishment for all the work these kids, coaches and parents put in.

 

Yep. We now move on to city league all-stars vs national all-stars (correct me if I'm wrong). Hoping for the best, but we won the one that counts today.

 

Lake Mary plays Taiwan for the International championship Sunday.

 

Correct. With a city league all-star team going against a nationally selected all-star team. Am I wrong? My apologies if I am.

 

Did the coach make the call? It looked like the kid did it on his own. Great play either way.

 

Hey you may be right! I thought I heard one of the announcers commenting on how the 3rd base coach gave him the green light - but now looking at the video in this tweet - not so sure.......

 

Tough to say but that head coach at 3rd has been aggressive all tourney long so credit him for getting those kids ready to take advantage of the situation. His aggressiveness helped them lose one game as well but his coaching has helped them to the LL finale. Great game today for the US Championship and worth watching the highlights if anyone did not see it.

 

Population of Taiwan is 2-3 million greater than FL, 5 million less than TX. The earlier discussion about FL and other states having multiple youth bsb organizations matters in the comparison. Does Taiwan have multiple such organizations? Aren't all the teams from local LL associations from teams that competed against each other in league play? Is Taiwan's team- and every other international teams- a local communitiy's all star team, just like US teams?

An important related question: It's my understanding that US college sports is unlike other countries' amateur sports systems. If other countries don't have college baseball websites and message boards, where do old men in those countries go to have such sincere discussions on issues such as this one. Are we an example of American exceptionalism?

 

I was incorrect in Sunday's game being for the international championship. It's for the world championship. Taiwan won the international championship, which is the title given to the champion of all the countries EXCEPT the United States. I do think that each country who comes to the Little League World Series is represented by the All-Star team from their local LL Association. I'm pretty sure that Canada, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, etc. don't have national all-star teams. The team that represents their country is the all-star team from the given association that won their national title, just like what happened in the U.S. But like @TheBoss pointed out, America has many youth baseball organizations, so the Little League National title is only representative of that organizations best local all-star team, whereas most of the countries around the world are only affiliated with Little League. So most all of the kids in their countires that play youth baseball play under the Little League banner.

 

If you wrote *half* of the stuff that happened during the game into a Hollywood script, people would pan the movie saying, "how unrealistic." Truely a game for the ages.

 

ESPN doing a replay of the home run derby if you missed it. The girls were particularly impressive. Maybe a couple names to remember.

 

Definitely an advantage putting all of your talent into one league rather than spreading it out amongst multiple leagues that do not qualify for the LLWS, but still better than what I was assuming which was that the International teams were made up of nationally selected players.

 

Care to share what you disliked about my post inquiring about the selection format of the teams, junglegator1962?

 

The slowest kid on either team too

 

Not sure how much pitching Florida has left but i think it may be a big factor