Little League Softball World Series: Washington team throws a game, parents cry scandal

Little League Softball World Series: Washington team throws a game, parents cry scandal

When it comes to Little League softball, kids usually want to have fun. Then the adults get in the way.

That's what happened at the Little League Softball World Series in Portland when the team from Snohomish, Washington was accused of deliberately losing a game.

Little League International intervened and ordered Snohomish to play a one-game playoff Tuesday morning, with the winner advancing to Tuesday night's semifinals.
The accusations started flying when the Snohomish team lost a game to North Carolina 8-0 Sunday. What made the loss unusual was the Snohomish team apparently benched their star players and started a bunch of reserves. The coaches ordered the players to bunt the entire game and they didn't get a hit.

"It's clear to everyone that they basically threw the game," Central Iowa Little League president Chris Chadd told The Des Moines Register.

"It was very evident right away what was going on. They weren't striving to win," Central head coach Charliue Husak told WHO.  "We saw that and (our) girls — you could see — it took about a half an inning for them to catch on. We were trying to keep it from them, but you could see when they caught on that the tears started to pile up and it was pretty emotional."

Why would Snohomish do this?

Snohomish and the Iowa team would have advanced to the semifinals if Snohomish beat the North Carolina team. The Snohomish team won two of its three games by a combined score of 21-0, but beat Iowa 4-3 in pool play. The Iowa coaches allege that Snohomish didn't want to play them again in the semifinals, so they threw the game against North Carolina to prevent Iowa from advancing.

Iowa appealed to Little League International after the officials at the Little League Softball World Series failed to act. Little League International agreed with Iowa and forced a playoff between Snohomish and Iowa.

"The Little League International Tournament Committee recently received credible reports that some teams did not play with the effort and spirit appropriate for any Little League game," Little League International said in a statement Tuesday. "Given these circumstances and in order to best determine the second team to advance from Pool B, the Little League International Tournament Committee is requiring that a tie-breaker game be played between the two affected teams -- South Snohomish Little League and Central Iowa Little League."

The Iowa team is happy about the opportunity, but the coaches say the team from Snohomish should have been disqualified.