Chicago’s Jackie Robinson West Little League Team Sues to Regain Title

Chicago’s Jackie Robinson West Little League is suing in an effort to regain its winning record.

After winning the 2014 national Little League title, Chicago’s Jackie Robinson West had its victory vacated when several months after the parades and celebrations ended it was revealed that the team cheated by signing ringer players from outside of its approved region.

Jackie Robinson West (JRW) became the toast of the Windy City after its winning 2014 season. Parades, special dinners, TV and radio appearances, and all manner of accolades were heaped upon the young players. The team even went to Washington to meet the president. But even before the tournaments started other local Chicago Little League teams had been grumbling that JRW had reached out far afield from its assigned region to find ringer players to bolster its roster.

It was only a few months after the big win that some of the leaders and coaches of those other teams began to speak out more forcefully and the resulting furor ended with the league vacating JRW’s winning season.

Now JRW sues the league demanding that it turn over all documents and information that led to the final decision to vacate the wins. JRW insists that the decision wasn’t proper and wants the records to prove its case to regain its title.

“Until Little League International establishes to us that they have, in fact, acted properly, then we are not willing to concede that these young men are not still the champions from 2014,” the team’s attorney Victor Henderson, said Wednesday.

“I can’t tell you whether Little League looked at all of the paperwork for all of the teams that were [playing] in Indianapolis. I don’t know, because when I tried to sit down with them, they wouldn’t talk to me,” Henderson continued. “I don’t know if Little League reviewed all of the paperwork for all of the teams, other than Jackie Robinson West.”

Regardless, since its title was vacated, JRW quit its affiliation and joined the Babe Ruth/Cal Ripken organization.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com