|
If you are a baseball fan, you ought to watch LLWS because it is a world championship for kids under 12 y.o., and some of these young players might one day become Major League players.
The Championship is held every year in August at Williamsport, PA, USA. 2017's final , I think, is this weekend. There is live telecast this SAT and SUN.
To qualify, Teams from various cities of countries are divided into groups. Winners and runner ups (?) will then go to Williamsport for another round of group robbin games, the winners of the groups will then move into one-game elimination rounds to decide the winner.
The beauty of the LL games is that young players make mistakes (not that many) which make the games so much more exciting as the results may not come out as planned.
The rules are slightly different than MLB, shorter aluminum bats are used, the diamond is smaller, players cannot start stealing bases until the ball has been hit. There is a 60 pitch count (?) for pitchers; and if the pitcher wants to pitch again the next day, there is another smaller pitch count. This is to protect the young pitchers from injuring their arms permanently.
LLWS used to be strictly a USA domestic game in the 50's, then teams from overseas US military bases joined in, then the host country teams joined in. Domestic US teams used to win every year, then foreign teams started winning, Japan, followed by Taiwan for a succession of at least 6 years.
For a few years, ther final was between 2 foreign teams - Taiwan and Japan, the organizors and sponsors were not happy, and changed the rules.
These days, teams from USA are in one group while all others are in another group. Winners from the two groups will then meet in the final to decide the winner.
Anyway, if you have never watched a LLWS games, this is the weekend to "put things right"!
|
|