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| President Barack Obama @ JRW Parade
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JACKIE ROBINSON WEST LITTLE LEAGUE "The tradition continues...."
Welcome to the Jackie Robinson West Little League website home of the 2008 10-11 year old Illinois State champs, 2008 Little League Illinois State champs and 2009 Little League State champs.
Visit us on Facebook for instant updates of all Great Lakes Regional Tournament games involving JRW.
Jackie Robinson West's Profile
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Monday, October 19
Volunteers/Coaches Meeting : November 4th 7PM "JRW 2010"
Coaches/Volunteers meeting Wednesday November 4th at 7PM; West Pullman Library Community Room 830 W. 119th St. (1/2 block west of Halsted)
Joins us at this important planning meeting for the spring/summer 2010 season. Refreshments will be served. Hope to see you there.
Monday, August 17
Thank You Volunteers and Sponsors
JRW Family,
Our 12 year olds lost to the Kentucky State champs Thursday night 10-4 bringing an official end to the 2009 JRW season.
When our boys took the field to start the game Thursday they were one of the final three teams still playing in the entire Great Lakes Region which includes hundreds of leagues from Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan.
For a little league to have success at the level JRW has experienced its takes much more than talented players. It requires a committed group of adult volunteers who are dedicated to providing a quality program for the neighborhood kids.
As you know, there are unlimited baseball options for players and their parents within a 20 minute drive of Jackie Robinson Park. The fact that players and parents are loyal to JRW with all of these other options at hand is due to your hard work and support of the program each year.
Whether you are a full time manager/coach, team Mom or Dad, cheerleader coach, member of grounds crew, scoreboard operator, league sponsor or board member everyone's contribution is valuable and is never taken for granted.
While the tournament teams capture so much attention because of their championships and flags, we would never base the success of any season solely on tournament victories.
There were so many other "victories" that were won even before the tournament teams were selected including;
1) 2009 registration which was the smoothest ever
2) Expansion of the Tee Ball program
3) Opening Day Parade which honored the memory of Airee Lewis
4) Renewal of the Annual Friendship Series with Beckum LL of Milwaukee
5) First ever league playoff series for Minor League and Major League
6) Extensive renovation to the little league stadium at Jackie Robinson Park,
7) Creation of the JRW Face Book www.facebook.com site which has allowed us to reconnect with hundreds of former players and coaches
8) First ever Team picture day May 27th
9) Awards Banquet attended by 600 players and parents on June 28th which honored two former Negro League baseball players
- We'd like to extend a special thank you to our sponsors and to everyone who donated within the past few weeks to assist with the travel expenses to our trip to Indianapolis.
Your financial contributions have helped us provide new uniforms each year, as well as, new equipment so that the kids can play the game safely.
Time now for a break and an opportunity to reflect on a memorable and successful season on so many levels.
Our primary goal for the off season is to recruit more volunteer coaches to help us expand the Tee Ball division (ages 5-6) and expand the teenage divisions of JRW.
JRW reaches many kids but there are so many more who could benefit from participating in the league.
If you have any ideas, feedback, potential sponsors or initiatives for 2010 feel free to email. This is the perfect time to brainstorm and see what we can do to improve the league for the kids.
Thanks for your continued cooperation and support.
Best regards,
Bill, Rook, Sharon, Rona and Ann Haley
Monday, August 17
JRW vs. Kentucky in Semi Finals
Great Lakes Regional Tournament
Indianapolis, Indiana
August 6 - 15
(All times listed are local. Box scores are unofficial.)
www.eteamz.com/llbcentral
| Team |
| Illinois |
Jackie Robinson LL
Chicago, Illinois |
3 - 1 |
Indiana |
Bartholomew County National LL
Bartholomew County, Indiana |
2 - 2 |
| Kentucky |
Logan County/
Russellville LL
Russellville, Kentucky |
2 - 2 |
Michigan |
Grosse Pointe
Farms-City LL
Grosse Pointe, Michigan |
2 - 2 |
| Ohio |
West Side LL
Hamilton, Ohio |
2 - 2 |
Wisconsin |
West Madison
American LL
Madison, Wisconsin |
1 - 3 |
Kentucky advances to the Little League World Series.
© 2009, Little League Baseball Incorporated
Please direct comments about this website to webmaster@littleleague.org.
Saturday, August 8
JRW featured in True Slant Blog
JRW Family,
Hope you enjoy this piece written about the league by writer Bob Cook in the True Slant blog.
How one urban youth baseball league succeeds
On the morning of the day he leaves to watch his son’s all-star team play in a Little League tournament game, Bill Haley is doing two things at the Jackie Robinson West field on the south side of Chicago. One is keeping watch while a crew films a commercial for Harris Bank. “You’d think they were making Star Wars,” Haley says. The other is talking to me on the phone about how a normal thing for him and his league — African-American kids playing baseball — seems so unusual to most everyone else.
“I can understand why it’s news, but I don’t think it’s news,” Haley said.
In this previous piece on Jackie Robinson West, I talked about the long-term decline in the percentage of African-Americans in Major League Baseball, from about 30 percent in the late 1970s to around 10 percent now. I talked about how that has become a symbol of many blacks’ overall disengagement from the game, compared with earlier generations. And how an all-black team making the Little League World Series in 1983, as Jackie Robinson West did, is not big news, but that team making the LLWS this year could be a very big deal, given Major League Baseball’s greater sensitivity and awareness to its dwindling African-American base.
 Jackie Robinson West’s second straight appearance in the Central Region final in Indianapolis, the last stop before South Williamsport, Pa., is a very big deal to Haley, but not for the reasons listed above. It’s a big deal because it’s his league — and his 12-year-old son, Adam — playing a big series. Black has nothing to do with it. For that matter, Jackie Robinson West’s playoff road is gravy to the real goal of the league, the stated goal of most local leagues — “give kids something to do, and provide an outlet for the adults.”
What makes Jackie Robinson West succeed as a league is the same as what makes any league succeed, no matter the players’ race, ethnicity or income status.
“It’s a combination of factors,” said Haley, a dispatcher for the Chicago Transit Authority. “Our league has a strong tradition. The coaches were once players. It’s taken hold in the community. You pull kids from a limited area, so there’s a sense of community to start out with. Being state champions (the league has won two Illinois championships in a row) is incidental to what we’re trying to do.”
The key, Haley said, is not the children. “It’s the adults. Baseball is a family game. It starts with just a dad playing catch with his kids. You’ve got a dad who hits pop flies on a Sunday. That’s where the connection comes in.
“That’s how it started for me.”
No surprise, because Haley’s father, Joseph, founded the Jackie Robinson West league in 1971. There was some sociological significance to that as well. In 1960, the Washington Heights neighborhood on Chicago’s south side was 88 percent white. Thanks to a decade of blockbusting, white flight and black emigration from other parts of the city and the South (Joseph Haley was from Louisiana), by 1970 the neighborhood was 75 percent black. (My suburb, Oak Lawn, had its big population boom in the 1960s thanks to white people fleeing Washington Heights and other south side areas that, as Chicago residents still diplomatically put it, were “changing.”) By putting the league together, Joseph Haley, who died four years ago, created a center for the mass of new arrivals in Washington Heights, not only a place to play baseball, but also a place for adults to meet and greet.
Like many neighborhoods and suburbs on Chicago’s south side, a lot of the people who now live in Washington Heights are people who grew up in Washington Heights. (My Oak Lawn is that way — my wife and I moved all over the country and ended up a mile from her childhood home. Like south siders say, they always come back.) Washington Heights is nearly 100 percent black. However, not all urban neighborhoods are created unequal. Washington Heights is a stable, working- to middle-class area where the likes of a Bill Haley are around and available.
It’s not just that there are fathers around. It’s that whole families and neighbors are invested in the league and its success. Washington Heights is not unique in Chicago — there are baseball leagues in neighborhoods on all sides of the area served by Jackie Robinson West. For any youth league of any kind in any area to survive and thrive, you need adults who are invested (hopefully in a productive way) in their children’s lives. You also need people who respect the league and its traditions. That’s easier to do when you have people like Haley, who played, and then coached (so does his brother). Haley’s 16-year-old daughter, once a Jackie Robinson West cheerleader, helps to coach the newest generation. The league has annual reunions of past players.
That’s not to say Washington Heights and all the kids at Jackie Robinson West are all about baseball. “What people don’t realize is the tremendous amount of energy and time that goes into basketball,” Haley said. “I can’t tell you how many kids we lose to basketball.” That’s become particularly acute since a few years back, thanks to the success of a recent graduate of nearby Simeon High, the Chicago Bulls’ Derrick Rose.
However, “we’re not in competition with basketball,” Haley said. The success of the older kids does help generate excitement in baseball, to be sure. “We’ve got a whole park of 7- to 10-year-olds watching these guys like they’re Alfonso Soriano, Derrek Lee and Milton Bradley.”
Some might read Haley’s naming of those three players as a way of holding up black role models in baseball (with Lee and Bradley among the relatively rare African-Americans in the majors). I tend to think of it as Haley not being a true south sider by rooting for the stinkin’ Cubs. Hey, if we want to talk African-American baseball role models, how about 2005 World Series MVP Jermaine Dye, or DeWayne Wise, who made the greatest catch ever to save a perfect game? Oh, did I mention I’m a White Sox fan by marriage?
But I digress.
Speaking of major leaguers, Haley isn’t sure about the various MLB initiatives to goose African-American participation and big-league representation.
The success of “our league is simple. The commitment of the adults in the community. They believe this is important for the kids to have. Without that, if it’s not organically grown, [a league or initiative] is just a good idea. Time well tell whether they have any success. Though I’m always concerned when the forces behind something like this is not at the ground level.”
In its first game in Indianapolis Thursday night, Chicago’s Jackie Robinson West beat Columbus, Ind.’s Bartholomew County 4-2 in the Architecture Bowl. It has round-robin play this week before the championship round. If Jackie Robinson West keeps winning, you’re likely to hear more about how something so ordinary to Haley seems so extraordinary to others. The goal is no more high-minded than having a good baseball league that kids enjoy and parents support.
By the way, Harris Bank wasn’t filming a commercial at Jackie Robinson West as some sort of statement. It just liked the field.
Friday, July 31
JRW 2009 Illinois State Champs
Congratulations to our boys and coaches for winning the Illinois State championship with an 11-3 victory over Western Springs Wednesday night at Norris Field in Evergreen Park.
JRW advances to the Great Lakes Regional tournament for the second consecutive year.
Wednesday nights championship game will be broadcast on Comcast Digital Channel 100 Thursday at 7PM and Saturday at Noon. Game will be available On Demand starting August 4th for a month.
Thanks to Ken Fryer, Ben Hardy and all of the volunteers at Evergreen Park . Great job on hosting the Illinois tournament.
More details coming soon!
Wednesday, July 29
JRW vs. Western Springs for State Title
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| State Championship Wednesday night
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JRW will face Western Springs LL in the Illinois State Championship game Wednesday July 29th at 7:45 in Evergreen Park at Norris FIeld (91st-California).
In the final game of pool play Tuesday night, our boys defeated Peru, IL 18-2 to run their record in the pool play round to an unblemished 4-0.
The state championship game will be televised on a tape-delay basis on Comcast Digital Channel 100 on Thursday, July 30 at 7:00 p.m., and again on Saturday, August 1 at 12:00 p.m. The telecast of the game will be available via Comcast On-Demand for one month beginning on August 4.
Come on out to the ball park tonight to support our boys in what will be a very special night for them.
Tuesday, July 28
12s Advance to State Title Game at EP!
Congratulations to our 12 year old tournament team which has won three consectutive games at the Little League state tournament being played at Norris Field in Evergreen Park, Illinois at 91st -California.
We have one more pool play game Tuesday night at 8pm, however, our boys have already advanced to the championship game and will face the winner of Western Spring vs Tri Cities on Wednesday evening.
The game will be filmed by Comcast Sports and broadcast on Thursday night. Game will be available "On Demand" starting August 4th.
JRW fans, you don't want to miss Wednasday's game!. Come out and be a part of a special night for our boys.
Game 1 JRW 14 Champaign Western 0 (perfect game for J. McKinney)
Game 2 JRW 13-Western Springs 3
Game 4 JRW 8 _ Tri Cities 3
Game 4 JRW 18-Peru 2
Illinois State Championship game Wednesday night at 7:45;
JRW Class of 2013; 8 year olds
JRW 8 year old tournament team won the championship of the Evergreen Park LL tournament and also won the championship of the Hinsdale Little League tournament finishing with a recored of 11-0.
Team is coached by Rhay Street, Brian Street, James Mason and Darold Butler.
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JRW 8 yr olds
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Thursday, July 23
JRW Class of 2012: 9 year olds
JRW nine year olds finished in 2nd place of the Richton Park LL 10 year old tournament and also in 2nd place of the Illinois District 4 10 year old tournament. The team is coached by Bill Haley and Acie Forman.
Thursday, July 23
JRW Class of 2011; 10 year olds
JRW ten year olds won the championship of the Richton Park LL tournament with a 5-0 record. The team is coached by Del Re Dudley, Reggie Griffin and Arnold Stewart.
Thursday, July 23
Class of 2010; 11 year olds
JRW 11 year olds won the Illinois District 4 championship and finished in 2nd place of the Illinois Section 3 tournament. The team is coached by Fred Thompson, Jaryl Norman, Rick Williams and Leon Hamilton.
Thursday, July 23
Class of 2009; 12 year olds
JRW 12 year olds won the Illinois District 4 and Illinois Section 3 championship and will compete in the state tournament at Evergreen Park (91st-California) starting July 25th.
Sat July 25th JRW vs Champaign Western 11:30
Sun July 26th JRW vs Western Springs at 2:30
Mon July 27th vs Tri-Cities at 8:00PM
Tues July 28th vs Peru at 8:00pm
Thursday, July 23
Junior League 13-14
The JRW Junior League team coached by Mike Outten, Greg Dollison, Dave Thornton and Shawn Jimerson won the Illinois District 4 championship.
Monday, July 20
JRW 8 year olds Win Evergreen Tournament
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| 8 yr olds win EP tournament
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Congrats to the coaches and players of the JRW 8 year old tournament who won the Evergreen Park Little League tournament Saturday. The boys finished undefeated in the week long tournament.
The team is currently undefeated in the Hinsdale LL tournament and will play Clear Ridge Tuesday evening.
Friday, July 17
JRW Hosts 11-12 Year Old Illinosi Section 3 Tournament
JRW will host the Illinois Section 3 tournament which begins Friday July 17th at Jackie Robinson Park; 10700 South Morgan 60643.
Game 1 will feature District 7champ Eastside LL vs District 6 champ Lansing @ 5:30
Game 2 will feature District 4 champ JRW vs District 8 champ Evergreen Park @7:30
Action will resume Saturday with games at 4:00 and 7:00; Sunday at 6:00pm and the championship game Monday at 7PM
The winner of this double elimination tournament will advance to the Illinois state finals which will be held in Evergreen Park at Norris Field, 90-th-California, July 24th-29th.
Come out this weekend and enjoy some of the best Little League action Illinois has to offer.
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| 10-11 year old District champs
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Tuesday, July 14
JRW Captures 3rd District Championship
JRW has won District 4 Championships in the 10-11 year old divison; 12 year old divison and also the 13-14 year old divison.
Congratulations to all of the volunteers, players and parents involved with these teams.
All three teams will be back in action this weekend and we'll post the schedule here as soon as its available.
Be sure to visit JRW Facebook page for hundreds of photos of the boys, game updates and events.
See you at the ballpark!
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JR League Champs
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Thursday, April 23
Little Leaguer Flips Script on Dad
Great video from Little League showing a kid stepping out of batters box to flip the script on his Dad. Click the photo on the left for video.
We've had our chance to play let's allow them to have theirs.
Wednesday, July 8
Tournament Action Begins Friday!
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| Tournament action begins 7-10
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JRW will begin tournament play Friday July 10th with 7:30PM games at Brooks High School (111th-Indiana) for the 13-14 year olds and at Jackie Robinson Park (107th-Morgan) for the 12 year olds.
Tournament play will kick into high gear on this weekend as the 8 year olds, 9 year olds, 10 year olds, 11 year olds, 13 year olds begin the tournament season at various location.
Check this site for schedules, locations and results.
If you want in depth coverage of tournament team action; send us your email address to jackierobinsonwest@hotmail.com for exclusive photos, interviews and tournament insight regarding our boys.
If you remember the 2008 tournament season, you know you won't want to miss any of the action this year!
We have a limited amount of WEST t-shirts remaining for just $10. Email us for more details to purchase a 2009 WEST t-shirt.
See you at the ball park, our boys need your support!
Tuesday, June 23
Heat Alert!
Tuesday and Wednesday will be our first experience with extreme heat this season. Pay special attention to your players during games the next couple days. Here are some signs to look for and guidelines to follow during extreme heat:
Heat Exhaustion:
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Symptoms: Paleness, muscle cramps, fatigue, weakness, dizziness, headache, nausea or vomiting, and fainting.
- Actions to be taken: Move the player to a cool, shaded place and provide cool liquids. Place wet towels or ice packs on the player’s head, neck and armpits to assist in cooling.
Heat Stroke:
- Symptoms: Body temperature above 103 degrees Fahrenheit, red, hot, and dry skin (no sweating), rapid, strong pulse, throbbing headache, dizziness, nausea, confusion, and unconsciousness.
- Actions to be taken: Call 911 immediately and inform them that a player is down and you suspect heat stroke. After calling, if possible get player to a cool, shaded place. Put wet towels or ice packs on the player’s head, neck, feet and armpits. If conscious, get the player to drink cool fluids. If unconscious, roll the player over to their side, so that if vomiting occurs, it won’t block the passageway in their throat.
Tuesday, May 5
JRW Host 4th Annual Friendship Series
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| James Beckum of Milwaukee, Wi.
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JRW has received approval from Liitle League Central Region HQ to host the 4th Annual Friendship Series with Beckum Stapleton LL of Milwaukee, Wi. This years installment of the series will be played following the JRW Parade Sunday May 17th at Jackie Robinson Park.
The event will feature two regular season Major League (11-12) teams and one regular season Junior League (13-14) from each from each program playing each other.
The Friendship Series is a highlight of the season for both leagues as the kids and coaches looking forward to traveling and the friendly competition.
Be sure to be in attendance following the parade to catch all of the action as the two leagues renew this annual event!
Thursday, April 2
JRW Parade Sunday May 17th; 2PM
Plans are underway for the 39th Annual JRW Opening Day Parade. Our Parade is known throughout the city as one of the largest and most colorful and we'd love to have your group join us.
If you have a marching band, youth group, Scout troop, community organization, marching unit, cheer team, dance squad or block club that would like to participate in the Parade email JRW at jackierobinsonwest@hotmail.com.
Participation in our Season Opening Parade is FREE! Contact us now for more information
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