Letter writer: Aren't our kids good enough for Little League?

EastBayRI.com ·

To the editor:


The Warren children ages 13-16 were told there would not be a fall ball team for them because there was not a manager for them, and were told to go to Bristol to join their fall ball team for Juniors. Bristol organized two tams to accommodate their own children and ours. So my grandson along with others, joined the Bristol Fall Ball Team for Juniors (supposedly an email was sent to sign up for Fall Ball if interested. No email was received by us or anyone else who ended signing up for Bristol).
You can imagine my surprise when we were scheduled to play the Warren Junior Fall Ball team with two of their members under the ages of 13 to 16.
I would like an explanation regarding this matter. I attended that game and it was awful. Warren didn’t have enough players so they asked Bristol to help out. When Bristol agreed to send a player out to help them, the Warren “elite” team heckled and swore at that player. The Bristol coach requested an apology and did not allow another player to help out Warren.
At that point, Warren did not have enough players and the game should have been called a forfeit and a loss for Warren.
Warren would rather farm their 13 to 16-year-olds to another town and hand pick only the players they want. Should our boys even be playing for another team when, in fact, there is a team in Warren already in place? Why wouldn’t Warren have two teams for the children who do not meet the “elite” status set by the manager of the team? That, to me, is an insult to our children who were not “good enough” for the elite Warren Junior Fall Ball Team. This is wrong and an explanation is necessary to our boys who were not good enough to play for their own town. This makes me very angry and sad. I have lived in this town my entire life, and now I am ashamed this kind of thing happens.
This situation may have happened in the past and no one really cared or didn’t want to come forward .But this is my first experience with it and I am saying something about it.
Hats off to Bristol for accommodating our Warren boys who were not good enough to play for their own town. I do not want my grandsons to ever play Warren Fall Ball and encourage them to play for Bristol in the future. At least Bristol didn’t mark them “not good enough.” In my eyes, the “best team” is the Bristol team, who played the game the best they could, with dignity and fairness.
I hope I receive a reply to my letter. But if not, I did let everyone who reads this letter know,t here are even politics in Fall Ball. Very, very sad.


Linda Dallaire
Overhill Road