Little League World Series: Impression Analysis

For years the Little League World Series (LLWS) has been played the same way with the same rules. However, starting in 2018 the rules will be changed. No longer will there be any thirteen year olds allowed to play in the series. Currently, the age cutoff for the LLWS is set on April 30th, but once the rule changes, the cutoff will be August 31st. The cutoff date means that any player that turns the age of thirteen before that date will not be eligible to represent their county in trying to go to the LLWS. Now if this rule had been enforced for the 2015 LLWS then sixty-seven out of 209 people would not have been eligible to play (Wire 1). That statistic is outrageous. The LLWS officiators are trying to basically remove one-third of the competition.

The officiator’s argument is that the thirteen year olds simply are too developed and stand out too much. The number of hits, homeruns, and no-hitters being thrown by the thirteen year olds was outrageous. There was more no-hitters thrown in this past LLWS then there has been total by kids twelve and under. This past year also set a record for the most homeruns hit in the tournament. Now there is still some good that can come out of this rule change. The change as a whole is a bad idea, but there are some good effects that the change can cause. The change will align kids with the peers that they will eventually find themselves playing high school baseball with (Eaton-Robb 1). The change will allow the players to build better chemistry with their peers and ultimately have fun with their friends. Little League puts the players first, but they think more of the fun aspect of the game and don’t really think about the extremely competitive players in the league. Now during the twelve and thirteen year old age, kids do most of their growing. For some kids a few months of growing and developing can make a very big difference. Saying this, there are a few kids that just turned thirteen in the tournament that are clearly way more developed than other players, but outliers like this are going to pop up every once in a while. Just because there are a few kids that have developed

Even though there are some good things that can arise from this change, there are just too many bad things that are caused from it. The Little League officiators should see that the good doesn’t outweigh the bad. They should see that the younger they try to make the league, the less people there are going to be actually competing and watching the LLWS. The LLWS is supposed to be a big deal that kids look forward to playing in and watching every year, and if they go through with this change then there will be less kids watching and playing. I hope that the officiators know what they are doing, and hopefully they will come to their senses and keep the current age rule that is currently being