Jump to content

Little League State Tournament


Recommended Posts

Congrats to the Columbia Americans....they're headed back to the state

tournament in Lexington to defend their 2005 title. Columbia beat the Giles County Americans 10-0 and 12-0 to advance and represent district 3.

TennesseeSportsNet.Com will be covering the Columbia Americans at the state as they try to earn a repeat trip to the Southeast Regionals in St. Petersburg, Fl.

Some odservers say they could get to the World Series. I can say they are the

best Little League team I've seen in 20 years. Very awesome power at the plate.(Had 5 homers in 2 games against a pretty good Giles County team.) But anyway TSN will webcast Columbia's first game at 8:00PM on July 22 from Lexington and will be there throughout the tournament.

If anyone knows about any other team involved please let me know at

[email protected]!!!

 

Thanks CoachT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 weeks later...
  • Replies 25
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Congrats to the Columbia Americans....they're headed back to the state

tournament in Lexington to defend their 2005 title. Columbia beat the Giles County Americans 10-0 and 12-0 to advance and represent district 3.

TennesseeSportsNet.Com will be covering the Columbia Americans at the state as they try to earn a repeat trip to the Southeast Regionals in St. Petersburg, Fl.

Some odservers say they could get to the World Series. I can say they are the

best Little League team I've seen in 20 years. Very awesome power at the plate.(Had 5 homers in 2 games against a pretty good Giles County team.) But anyway TSN will webcast Columbia's first game at 8:00PM on July 22 from Lexington and will be there throughout the tournament.

If anyone knows about any other team involved please let me know at

[email protected]!!!

 

Thanks CoachT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Columbia got whipped pretty good in Florida! The state was pretty weak this year.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Little League Baseball is very weak not only in Tennessee but in the United States. The travel teams have taken 99% of the best talent and would run rule the Little League teams. If you want to see some good 12U teams go and watch the National American Tournament of Champions in Cooperstown, NY.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Little League Baseball is very weak not only in Tennessee but in the United States. The travel teams have taken 99% of the best talent and would run rule the Little League teams. If you want to see some good 12U teams go and watch the National American Tournament of Champions in Cooperstown, NY.

 

Seeing as how Little League teams are drawn from a defined boundary and travel teams have unlimited areas to recruit, it would seem that travel ball teams should be able to dominate. Having umpired at the state level in LL for the last 2 years and watching a number of travel ball tournaments, that's not exactly how it works out. Alot of them are the same kids. They play league ball and travel ball.

 

From purely a 12 year old standpoint, getting ready for middle school ball and 90 ft. bases, which is harder. Hitting a baseball thrown from 50 ft with a big barrel or from 46 ft. with a 2 1/4" bat? A kid that throws BB's is much harder to hit from 46 ft. with the smaller barrel, so hitting wise you don't gain anything in travel ball. Pitching from the stretch and leading off base in travel ball will be helpful when you get to the bigger bases. Throwing a kid out on 60 ft. bases requires no bobbles and a gun for an arm. While the reaction time is a little longer in travel ball, leading off takes away the 10 ft. longer distance, so not much difference. The difference is that the coach can handpick his team without anyone to answer to and play as many games as his parents/sponsors/checkbook can afford. Little League Baseball offers the very best of both worlds. There is a regular season with different divisions that allow everyone to play and then there's tournament time when the best from your league play the best from mine. What is the purpose of having multiple divisions in travel ball? If it's the end all, have one open division and see who's the best. 13 and above, it's real baseball all the way around. Not much difference which association you play with. You're more likely to see a travel team that's stayed together all year at the LL and Babe Ruth tournaments.

 

This topic comes up every year when the Little League World Series comes on tv. Why? Because no other youth baseball organization can put as many games in as many divisions on national television.....or.......jealousy. If you pay enough entry fees and go to enough 'state' tournaments, you can get a birth in a larger tournament for most travel ball organizations. LL is survive and advance through the same district, state and region format to get to the World Series, rather than have 10 'world series' events scattered across the country for a multitude of different initials. <_<

Edited by ksgovols
Link to comment
Share on other sites

some very good points made on this post. :angry:

 

 

 

 

 

 

quote name='ksgovols' date='Aug 14 2006 - 04:39 PM' post='826096848']

Seeing as how Little League teams are drawn from a defined boundary and travel teams have unlimited areas to recruit, it would seem that travel ball teams should be able to dominate. Having umpired at the state level in LL for the last 2 years and watching a number of travel ball tournaments, that's not exactly how it works out. Alot of them are the same kids. They play league ball and travel ball.

 

From purely a 12 year old standpoint, getting ready for middle school ball and 90 ft. bases, which is harder. Hitting a baseball thrown from 50 ft with a big barrel or from 46 ft. with a 2 1/4" bat? A kid that throws BB's is much harder to hit from 46 ft. with the smaller barrel, so hitting wise you don't gain anything in travel ball. Pitching from the stretch and leading off base in travel ball will be helpful when you get to the bigger bases. Throwing a kid out on 60 ft. bases requires no bobbles and a gun for an arm. While the reaction time is a little longer in travel ball, leading off takes away the 10 ft. longer distance, so not much difference. The difference is that the coach can handpick his team without anyone to answer to and play as many games as his parents/sponsors/checkbook can afford. Little League Baseball offers the very best of both worlds. There is a regular season with different divisions that allow everyone to play and then there's tournament time when the best from your league play the best from mine. What is the purpose of having multiple divisions in travel ball? If it's the end all, have one open division and see who's the best. 13 and above, it's real baseball all the way around. Not much difference which association you play with. You're more likely to see a travel team that's stayed together all year at the LL and Babe Ruth tournaments.

 

This topic comes up every year when the Little League World Series comes on tv. Why? Because no other youth baseball organization can put as many games in as many divisions on national television.....or.......jealousy. If you pay enough entry fees and go to enough 'state' tournaments, you can get a birth in a larger tournament for most travel ball organizations. LL is survive and advance through the same district, state and region format to get to the World Series, rather than have 10 'world series' events scattered across the country for a multitude of different initials. :thumb:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

LL get's noticed because they have the most money, have been very well organized over the years and play thier World Series on national television. However playing on 60ft bases, 200ft fences, & pitching from 46ft is a joke with the size of 12 year olds today, not to mention how dangerous it is. Put the kids on a field with 220 down the line, 250 in center, 70ft bases, and 50ft pitching distance and you will have both a better and safer game. In LL all you need is a 150# fat kid that can hit the ball out of the park in the outfield because he does not have to run and is going to play with his backside against the fence. Some people talk about kids playing both travel ball and LL but the LL programs that I know have told the kids they will not be eligible for LL All-Star play if they participate with travel teams? Is this a national LL rule? Just looking at the Middle Tennessee area I only know of 2 rec league parks (Rotary & Madison) that still play LL baseball as most have become Cal Ripken or travel leagues.

Edited by cbg
Link to comment
Share on other sites

LL get's noticed because they have the most money, have been very well organized over the years and play thier World Series on national television. However playing on 60ft bases, 200ft fences, & pitching from 46ft is a joke with the size of 12 year olds today, not to mention how dangerous it is. Put the kids on a field with 220 down the line, 250 in center, 70ft bases, and 50ft pitching distance and you will have both a better and safer game. In LL all you need is a 150# fat kid that can hit the ball out of the park in the outfield because he does not have to run and is going to play with his backside against the fence. Some people talk about kids playing both travel ball and LL but the LL programs that I know have told the kids they will not be eligible for LL All-Star play if they participate with travel teams? Is this a national LL rule? Just looking at the Middle Tennessee area I only know of 2 rec league parks (Rotary & Madison) that still play LL baseball as most have become Cal Ripken or travel leagues.

 

B) Most? Not hardly. The Franklin area and Crieve Hall are mostly travel I guess and Murfreesboro. Dixie Youth is prevalent in more areas than Cal Ripken and LL has more than all of them. Clarksville, Columbia, Donelson and Mt. Juliet are Little League. Fairview, Pleasant View, Goodlettsville and Dickson are Dixie Youth. Bellevue is the only Cal Ripken program that I know of around here. Travel ball is intertwined around all of these leagues.

 

Little League rules state that for a player to be eligible for all stars they must play in half of their regular season games. It is not illegal for kids to play both. My kid played both this year as a 13 year old. I tend to agree that the hi-tech bats make the game dangerous at 46 ft. That's the reason for the 2 1/4" bat. Moving your pitcher back a whopping 4 ft and adding 20% more surface area to your bat doesn't do anything to make the game safer and 20 more feet to the fence is nothing for a sweet spot that has been increased in the big barreled bat. What's the purpose of the big barreled bat? Bigger sweet spot, more jump off the bat. One thing that Little League knows better than any other youth organization is safety. I think they will move the bases and pitching rubber back but it has more to do with the cutoff date going from July 31st to April 30th. 12 year olds just got 33% older. Ideally, a good transition between 46/60/200 and 60/90/300 would be 53/75/250. I could see 12U and maybe 13U playing on those dimensions, but give me a break about 50/70/220 being more difficult for the fat kids. There's no significant difference when you're using big barrel bats.

 

And Lamade Stadium in Williamsport moved their fences back to 225 this year.......and still use the smaller barreled bat.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well let me say....What A Trip! TennesseeSportsNet went to Florida and covered the Columbia American in the Southeast Regional. The Tennessee state champions lost 2 games...to the best two teams in the tournament. Georgia IS one of the BEST teams I have seen in a long time. Kyle Carter will make a name for his self in the World Series. He throws 81mph....for 12 that's amazing. Plus they have another great pitcher (Phillips)...these 2 guys will cause problems in Williamsport.

In my 30 years in radio I have never been to a venue to cover a tournament, in any sport, and have received the treatment I encountered in Florida. For one, LL must have NO radio guys on their board. TSN paid LL $100.00 per game broadcast. They put us behind home plate (in 97 degree weather) and sometimes rainy weather...LL didn't supply us with any stats for the games we covered or the tournament as a whole. For each Tennessee game we had to go upstairs and hunt for someone to copy off the starting lineups. Plus they had NO hospitality quarters for the media. (A first for me) Ive covered Babe Ruth Southeast Regionals and received awesome hospitality and help.

Another encounter we had was as we were preparing to broadcast of one of Tennessee's games there was a guy spraying off the home plate area. As he finished his job, he wanted to empty his hose so he aimed his sprayer toward the backstop and began emptying the hose through the fence where I was sitting causing the water to land all over my laptop and broadcast equipment. As you can imagine, this really made my day. I was lucky....the water didn't get into my computer or microphone mixer. So this week really left a bad taste in my mouth.

There was one other broadcast crew there....a Georgia group doing their games.

As prestigious as LL is this was a joke for me. I really couldn't say if TSN would ever go back to cover a Tennessee team again. Little League Int. needs to look at their policy...the $100.00 charge made it very difficult for TSN. We had to get sponsors for the webcast, just to allow us to go and break even. I would not ever give back the experience I had with the boys on the Columbia American team. THEY ARE THE REASON WE WENT!!! AND I WILL NEVER FORGET THE EXPERIENCE OF A LIFETIME FOR THESE YOUNG MEN, TennesseeSportsNet was glad to be a part of history for Columbia. Youth sports is our focus...organizations such as LL need our participation and they should look at their policy on "Rights To Broadcast or Webcast". (Florida's team was from a community 30 minutes away from the stadium and they didn't even have radio, website or cable tv doing their games.)

If Columbia had made it to the semifinals, TSN would have had to pay LL $150.00 each game and $200.00 for the championship game. Remember these guys deserve to have their games on the air somewhere....Little League's cost is making this impossible. Small town radio can't afford to go and cover their teams and thats a cryin shame.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well let me say....What A Trip! TennesseeSportsNet went to Florida and covered the Columbia American in the Southeast Regional. The Tennessee state champions lost 2 games...to the best two teams in the tournament. Georgia IS one of the BEST teams I have seen in a long time. Kyle Carter will make a name for his self in the World Series. He throws 81mph....for 12 that's amazing. Plus they have another great pitcher (Phillips)...these 2 guys will cause problems in Williamsport.

In my 30 years in radio I have never been to a venue to cover a tournament, in any sport, and have received the treatment I encountered in Florida. For one, LL must have NO radio guys on their board. TSN paid LL $100.00 per game broadcast. They put us behind home plate (in 97 degree weather) and sometimes rainy weather...LL didn't supply us with any stats for the games we covered or the tournament as a whole. For each Tennessee game we had to go upstairs and hunt for someone to copy off the starting lineups. Plus they had NO hospitality quarters for the media. (A first for me) Ive covered Babe Ruth Southeast Regionals and received awesome hospitality and help.

Another encounter we had was as we were preparing to broadcast of one of Tennessee's games there was a guy spraying off the home plate area. As he finished his job, he wanted to empty his hose so he aimed his sprayer toward the backstop and began emptying the hose through the fence where I was sitting causing the water to land all over my laptop and broadcast equipment. As you can imagine, this really made my day. I was lucky....the water didn't get into my computer or microphone mixer. So this week really left a bad taste in my mouth.

There was one other broadcast crew there....a Georgia group doing their games.

As prestigious as LL is this was a joke for me. I really couldn't say if TSN would ever go back to cover a Tennessee team again. Little League Int. needs to look at their policy...the $100.00 charge made it very difficult for TSN. We had to get sponsors for the webcast, just to allow us to go and break even. I would not ever give back the experience I had with the boys on the Columbia American team. THEY ARE THE REASON WE WENT!!! AND I WILL NEVER FORGET THE EXPERIENCE OF A LIFETIME FOR THESE YOUNG MEN, TennesseeSportsNet was glad to be a part of history for Columbia. Youth sports is our focus...organizations such as LL need our participation and they should look at their policy on "Rights To Broadcast or Webcast". (Florida's team was from a community 30 minutes away from the stadium and they didn't even have radio, website or cable tv doing their games.)

If Columbia had made it to the semifinals, TSN would have had to pay LL $150.00 each game and $200.00 for the championship game. Remember these guys deserve to have their games on the air somewhere....Little League's cost is making this impossible. Small town radio can't afford to go and cover their teams and thats a cryin shame.

 

Sorry that you were not treated well! Maybe you should go to Cooperstown Dreams Park www.cooperstowndreamspark.com and cover the National American Tournament of Champions. The facilities are great and I feel confident that Lou Presuti will treat you with respect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

LL get's noticed because they have the most money, have been very well organized over the years and play thier World Series on national television. However playing on 60ft bases, 200ft fences, & pitching from 46ft is a joke with the size of 12 year olds today, not to mention how dangerous it is. Put the kids on a field with 220 down the line, 250 in center, 70ft bases, and 50ft pitching distance and you will have both a better and safer game. In LL all you need is a 150# fat kid that can hit the ball out of the park in the outfield because he does not have to run and is going to play with his backside against the fence. Some people talk about kids playing both travel ball and LL but the LL programs that I know have told the kids they will not be eligible for LL All-Star play if they participate with travel teams? Is this a national LL rule? Just looking at the Middle Tennessee area I only know of 2 rec league parks (Rotary & Madison) that still play LL baseball as most have become Cal Ripken or travel leagues.

 

It is not as simple as you make it, and there are some very good ball players that still play Little League. Not everyone wants or has the money to compete in travel ball, and not everyone wants to spend all weekend, every weekend, at the park. I have participated in 3 State Little League tournaments, and my observation was that this year, the teams were very weak, but I do not think that is the case for some of the other states. I do not think you can blame it all on travel ball

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well let me say....What A Trip! TennesseeSportsNet went to Florida and covered the Columbia American in the Southeast Regional. The Tennessee state champions lost 2 games...to the best two teams in the tournament. Georgia IS one of the BEST teams I have seen in a long time. Kyle Carter will make a name for his self in the World Series. He throws 81mph....for 12 that's amazing. Plus they have another great pitcher (Phillips)...these 2 guys will cause problems in Williamsport.

In my 30 years in radio I have never been to a venue to cover a tournament, in any sport, and have received the treatment I encountered in Florida. For one, LL must have NO radio guys on their board. TSN paid LL $100.00 per game broadcast. They put us behind home plate (in 97 degree weather) and sometimes rainy weather...LL didn't supply us with any stats for the games we covered or the tournament as a whole. For each Tennessee game we had to go upstairs and hunt for someone to copy off the starting lineups. Plus they had NO hospitality quarters for the media. (A first for me) Ive covered Babe Ruth Southeast Regionals and received awesome hospitality and help.

Another encounter we had was as we were preparing to broadcast of one of Tennessee's games there was a guy spraying off the home plate area. Afinished his job, he wanted to empty his hose so he aimed his sprayer toward the band began emptying the hose through the fence where I was sitting causing the water to land all over my laptop and broadcast equipment. As you can imagine, this really made my day. I was lucky....the water didn't get into my computer or microphone mixer. So this week really left a bad taste in my mouth.

There was one other broadcast crew there....a Georgia group doing their games.

As prestigious as LL is this was a joke for me. I really couldn't say if TSN would ever go back to cover a Tennessee team again. Little League Int. needs to look at their policy...the $100.00 charge made it very difficult for TSN. We had to get sponsors for the webcast, just to allow us to go and break even. I would not ever give back the experience I had with the boys on the Columbia American team. THEY ARE THE REASON WE WENT!!! AND I WILL NEVER FORGET THE EXPERIENCE OF A LIFETIME FOR THESE YOUNG MEN, TennesseeSportsNet was glad to be a part of history for Columbia. Youth sports is our focus...organizations such as LL need our participation and they should look at their policy on "Rights To Broadcast or Webcast". (Florida's team was from a community 30 minutes away from the stadium and they didn't even have radio, website or cable tv doing their games.)

If Columbia had made it to the semifinals, TSN would have had to pay LL $150.00 each game and $200.00 for the championship game. Remember these guys deserve to have their games on the air somewhere....Little League's cost is making this impossible. Small town radio can't afford to go and cover their teams and thats a cryin shame.

 

 

Enjoyed your broadcast after I got home, sorry about the bad experience in Florida. Columbia was clearly the best team in Lexington. :thumb:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've seen the last two 12 year old LL state tournaments and I thought last year's Columbia team that won it and maybe 2 or 3 others would have given this years champion all they wanted. Nothing against this years team, and the Columbia American 11's I saw 3 years ago had a dominant pitcher and their cleanup hitter that didn't even participate last year. I think he played travel ball exclusively and missed the trip to St. Pete.

 

Baseball is baseball. I don't think the middle school and high school coaches you'll play for care how you got the skills to make their teams. Personally, my biggest beef with travel ball has nothing to do with the players. It's what the NCAA would call 'lack of institutional control'. There's nobody to answer to for any of the travel ball organizations that I'm familiar with and you'll see some real rogue coaches at some of these tournaments. That's painting with a broad brush, but that's the way it is. There is noone to keep the egos in check in most travel ball situations. Stick your right thumb in the air and then poke out your index and middle finger and rub them together. It's about money. It's not about kids.

 

What do you have to do to get to the Cooperstown National tournament? I'll bet it's a check. They have a 'weekly' champion for the tournaments there. :thumb:

Edited by ksgovols
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

Announcements


×
  • Create New...