Jackie Robinson West Little League was stripped of its US championship on Wednesday after a lengthy investigation revealed that the team used players from ineligible districts. According to former MLB pitcher Mark Mulder, this was nothing new for the Chicago-based team.
Mulder, who grew up in South Holland, Ill., played against Jackie Robinson West in Little League 25 years ago.
“JRW Little League has been cheating and doing things the wrong way since I played them as a kid,” he wrote on Twitter Wednesday. “Sad that those kids are taught that’s ok. Good chance the people running it now played for them when I was little.”
Evergreen Park Little League vice president Chris Janes, who blew the whistle on Jackie Robinson West, said on Wednesday that cheating rumors have surrounded the scorned league for years.
“There’s been rumors of innuendo circulating around for that organization for years,” Janes told 670 The Score, via CBS Chicago. “But that’s all it’s been. There’s been no proof that I’m aware of that they’ve been cheating. All I have firsthand knowledge of is this year.
It’s an absolute atrocity that parents and adults have tarnished what a group of 11- and 12-year olds accomplished. Jackie Robinson West represented one of the best sports stories of 2014, with the Chicago Cubs honoring the team with warmup jerseys and one business owner paying rent for a player whose family was struggling. Situations like these make you feel like nothing is sacred anymore.
