Lake Mary, Florida Wins the Little League World Series On a Chaotic Walk Off Error In Extra Innings
What a finish. What a Little League World Series. I watched more Little League World Series games this year than I'd care to admit. Honestly I probably watched 80% of the games start to finish. I was a little league baseball umpire for 10 years of my life. Not in the actual "Little League" organization. I always umpired USSSA & Nation's Baseball. Honestly, I don't even know where Little League is played. I've been confused about where these "Little League" teams come my whole life. But whatever. It's all basically the same. This year's Little League World Series was as good as any.
Early on in this tournament, I thought the team from Lake Mary, Florida, coming out of the Southeast Region, had no chance. They were obviously a good team. But I didn't think they had the bats to do it. They lost to Texas early on in the double elimination tournament. They didn't blow out a single team. They had multiple 1 run games. The only time they scored 10 runs was in the U.S. Championship game where they beat Vegas 10-7.
Meanwhile, other teams, like Chinese-Taipei who they just beat in the LLBWS Championship, were winning games 8-0, 11-0, 10-2, etc. At no point did I think Florida had what it took to win this. Even when they made it to the championship, I was scared Chinese-Taipei would run-rule them in 4 innings.
But Florida had some magic. They had to play 8 games to win the Little League World Series. For comparison, Chinese-Taipei played 6. Texas, who they beat in the U.S. Championship, played a total of 4 games. But that's how double elimination works. If you lose early on, you gotta take the difficult route.
Florida had serious magic though. They had characters on their team. You can't talk about this Florida team without mentioning their team hype man, Teraj Alexander.
The big man was ELECTRIC the entire tournament. You might think a unit like Teraj wouldn't be a threat on the bases. But holy shit would you be wrong. In the U.S. Championship game, the kid simply would not stop running.
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He knows they're not paying attention to him, because he's a heavy set kid. And he's smart enough to use that to his advantage. I love that. That rules.
Sure, he got a little greedy later in that game and got hosed at 3rd. But you have to love the effort.
But the kid seemed like he was the heart and soul of the team. He made me laugh from start to finish.
Also… I have to mention Florida's coach. The man was passionate. I can't hate him for being passionate. As a guy who spent years umpiring Little League, I know exactly what type of coach he his. He cares about his kids more than anything. If there are any calls that go against him, he's going to let the umpire hear about it. He's an umpires worst nightmare. But he never got out of line this tournament. He kept his shit together all LLWS. But I couldn't help but wonder all tournament long… if he wasn't live on ESPN… when these umpires (who aren't paid a dime, which is one of the biggest crimes in the history of sports) rings his kid up on a pitch 3-feet into the other batters box…….. I just can't help but think that if there wasn't a camera on him, he would have murdered several umpires throughout the course of the LLWS. Unfortunately, I can't find any good videos of the guy. Because Little League safe guards their image like the nuclear codes. But if you watched the tournament at all, you know exactly what I mean.
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Great tournament all around. I swear to god, Chinese-Taipei was the best defensive team of 12-year old's I've ever seen. Which I know sounds stupid considering the way the game ended. The minute I tweeted that, they lost the game because of their defense.
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(also for anybody who thinks they could have made that play at home… you're just wrong. There's zero chance that ball was beating the runner)
So congrats to Lake Mary, Florida. You guys earned it. Shout out J.J. Feliciano, who was their ace and best player all tournament long. Shoutout Landon Bono, who won the LLWS home run derby, is a phenomenal catcher, and was one of their most consistent hitters all tournament. And shoutout first baseman DeMarcos Mieses, one of Florida's two big boys who showed up clutch all tournament.
Honestly that was one of the better LLWS I've ever watched. And if anybody from Little League is reading this, for the love of god, listen to Rico Bosco. Pay your fucking umpires. I don't know what you're trying to prove by having them be volunteers. I don't know if you think umpires making bad calls is endearing. But you have a massive contract with ESPN. You owe it to the kids to make sure they have qualified umps.