Big League World Series on ESPN

ESPN is covering the Big League World Series.

Right now Central Michigan is playing the Philippines.

 

I watched the game. I was surprised by the amount of errors in a championship game. It was also neat to see a player hit two homeruns in a game with one being a walk-off in the 6th inning.

 

Yeah, there were too many errors. The grass infield had some effect but only one or two maybe.

What really is surprising that it was on ESPN. That's great for softball. That will probably give a little boost to Little League softball. They claim to have 400,000 members in softball.

I wasn't aware that they had teams at that age. Interesting.

 

Talent

The majority of the elite talent does not play Little League sanctioned softball.

This year, the elite tournament from a talent perspective is the ESPN RISE National High School Championship which is going on this week in CA. ASA GOLD was last week but the talent pool was down this year because the elite CA programs did not participate in ASA GOLD. They are all participating in ESPN RISE though.

Carolina Cardinals and Lady Lightning Gold are both competing this week in the ESPN RISE Nationals. Game results, stats and live gamecast are available at the ESPN/RISE website.

 

TV coverage

IMO, ESPN is only covering LL softball due to the contract agreed with LL to cover baseball. There are rumors that ESPN will televise the ESPN RISE/Premier Girls Fastpitch National Championship next year.

 

Little League is still "neighborhood" based. You cant simply pick and choose the best talent and go play ball, it has to come from your specified area. We took Senior teams to regionals 2 years in a row and one of the girls now plays on UNCC. It is more about having fun with the kids in your neighborhood. Several different groups from NC have won the world series at the different age levels. It is really too bad that LL doesnt get more attention, it is truly a great feeder system.

 

They were giving information during the broadcast about how to get teams started in your own area. The info about the locations are on the web site.

It sounds like they take great pains to protect the players from over pitching, too many games, etc.

Doesn't sound like it's for the 24/7 players. But that may be a good thing.

Whatever it is, the coverage is much appreciated!

 

agree?

maybe it's more of a community pride thing & TEAM accomplishment than TB since it's based on a level playing field with geographical boundaries to derive the players from?

 

I agree with that.

With the economy being like it is, I think it's ripe for someone wanting to form local teams. On the site it listed Clayton as a location with a team. Other locations included Fuquay, Garner, but no teams there.

 

could be

I think that rec ball is watered down from what it once was.