Mid-Atlantic Should Move

With Mid-Atlantic games having barely a couple hundred people at the games while New England teams can have upto a couple thousand fans, it's time Little League steps in and puts the Mid-Atlantic Regional Series at a Midpoint between NY and Maryland. In my opionion a town like Hammonton, NJ that has won the Little League World Series and has rich historical values in Little League should get a shot at hosting the Mid-Atlantic Regional. A town like Cherry Hill with 3 state titles in the 80's has a great shot also within 10 minutes of downtown Philly and 50 minutes to Atlantic City, 45 min. to Great Adventure and every big business chain in the town. NOt to metion 3 of the best LL fields in the Eastern State, better than even Bristol.

Mary has had to drive upto 8 hours to get to Bristol it would be about one and half hours to Cherry Hill and we would see the big crowds at the Mid-Atlantic Regional instead of the measly 50 parents and 150 locals waiting for the New England games to begin.

That's the best idea in the world!!!

You're completely wrong. You can't hold a 6 team regional. It's just ridiculous. You'd have to double the East Region staff to hold two tournaments of only 6 teams. It's a ridiculous idea.

have 2 teams from Pennsylvania that way WEst Pa always gets a chance to go to Willy instead of DC, and add the host town like Hammonton or even Cherry Hill. Cherry Hill was WS runner up on two occasions back then when it was Delaware Township/Valley. The history is here. That would make 8 teams and the same Board of directors of the league would become the administration.
You've got a very closed mind. If they expanded the Great Lakes they can do it in Mid-Atlantic. You know how every year for the past 5 years the attendance numbers in Bristol are falling. We need new blood and a new venue.
St. Pete is moving too.

was from a kid from Cherry Hill, NJ. before Cherry Hill HS it was called Delaware Valley HS.
History is in Jersey and the Phillies are 10 minutes away.
West Pa
East Pa
NY Western
NY Metro/Staten Island
North Jersey or Jersey Champ
South Jersey or Host
MaryLand
Delaware
Host League Board will be the administration.
I'm going to get it done buddy within the next 5 years and my son will play in a Regional even if we can do it on a 2 year trial.
You in or out, you can be my statistician and it will be an hour ride to Cherry Hill.
We will need to do research on the past few years attendance and travels by teams. We will also need a pettition signing by parents of this years regional and presidents at Bristol. Start that for me today. We could also get comments and sighning of the last 5 year participants.

Ripken Mid-Atlantic is done in Jersey why not Little Leagues also.

They didn't expand the Great Lakes Regional. Both thet Great Leakes and Midwest regionals are held simultaneously at Central Regional Headquarters in Indianapolis, the same way both the New England and Mid-Atlantic regionals are held at East Headquarters in Bristol and the Northwest and West are held in San Bernardino (West headquarters).

Now perhaps some sort of alternating system could be worked out. One year in CT and one year in NJ or PA.

I can tell you from experience that hosting something like this is a major undertaking. Our local league hosted the Illinois state tournament (5 teams) a few years ago, and the planning and execution for that took a couple years. A regional would be even more.

Section1Guy wrote:

You're completely wrong. You can't hold a 6 team regional. It's just ridiculous. You'd have to double the East Region staff to hold two tournaments of only 6 teams. It's a ridiculous idea.

I agree with Section 1 Guy. Bristol has great facilities. Any other place would have to have loging and recreation facilities for the teams anc coaches, ability to provide meals, press facilities, etc. I've been to many games at Bristol and the atmosphere for the players is great. Also, I have send a lot of Mid-Atlantic fans attend Bristol games, particularly from New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

ct-dad wrote:

They didn't expand the Great Lakes Regional. Both thet Great Leakes and Midwest regionals are held simultaneously at Central Regional Headquarters in Indianapolis, the same way both the New England and Mid-Atlantic regionals are held at East Headquarters in Bristol and the Northwest and West are held in San Bernardino (West headquarters).
Now perhaps some sort of alternating system could be worked out. One year in CT and one year in NJ or PA.
I can tell you from experience that hosting something like this is a major undertaking. Our local league hosted the Illinois state tournament (5 teams) a few years ago, and the planning and execution for that took a couple years. A regional would be even more.

I agree. Hosting a tournment like the regionals will require continuous year around planning. LL girls softball allows Distircts to host the regional. Our District has hosted the 11-12 softball regions for the past 4 years. The only reson we did it because Bristol asked us to do it because they could not get any one else to do it. That was due to all the work involved. As far as adding teams to include two teams from several states, I don't like the idea. That is why you have State tournaments, to decide who is the best team from each State. New York has over 500 charterd little league. Each year they put on a high class tournament for the State Chamionship. That's the way it should be. Whoever wins, goes to Bristol.

I agree, one state champ is generally the way to go. I can live with Northern and Southern California as well as Texas East and Texas West, due to the sheer number of programs in and geography of those two large states. On the other hand, you have one district states Oklahoma, Wyoming and Utah advancing teams to regionals for winning what amount to district tournaments. There's no perfect answer.

Nj states provide lodgeing, meals, recreation and the whole 9 yards. leagues fight every year for this tournament. add 2 more teams is no big deal. with 500 LL in NY they should have another rep. Japan goes to the WS with 300 leagues. PA should always have a chance to have a local team in the WS. West and East PA is the answer. Mid-Atlantic's 50 fans per game at Bristol is nothing. Mid-Atlantic needs to move. there would be 10 leagues in Jersey that will take it. not to mention Pa or Mary leagues. Metro NY I'm sure would outbid everyone(southshore or great kills)

SouthEast is moving to NC I hear. Mid-atlantic could do the same and become better for the teams and fans. Bristol is a joke for the Mid-Atlantic teams and the whole admin at Bristol knows it. They concentrate on the New England teams and try to accomadate NY a little more, the rest are just step children at Bristol.

I'll take a poll and I'd bet every team on the Mid-Atlantic side would love to travel less than an hour to the regional and have all their fans, media, and foes support

You're so off base with this. It's not even close to happening.

They won't add a second team from other states for starters. That's stupid and watered down.

LLWS does just fine for attendence, and holding the regional "closer" wouldn't do squat for fans. The people who would be attending attend now. It will not change much. The New England bracket doesn't draw anyone except for CT games because of the locals. That's it.

Move Va and West Va to mid atlantic. They have nothing in common w/ the south...more in common with Mid Atlantic. SE should be a 6 team region-make mid atlantic an 8 team region. The Va Team always has to fly down to regional-only team that has to do so..Extremely expensive for 12 families and for the leagues themselves.

Section1Guy wrote:

You're so off base with this. It's not even close to happening.
They won't add a second team from other states for starters. That's stupid and watered down.
LLWS does just fine for attendence, and holding the regional "closer" wouldn't do squat for fans. The people who would be attending attend now. It will not change much. The New England bracket doesn't draw anyone except for CT games because of the locals. That's it.

Although I won't argue the other issues, "watered down and stupid" is a pretty heavy handed and uniformed comment w/respect to adding second teams. NY has roughly 540 leagues, Pennsylvania has roughly 470. New Hampshire has 38, and Delaware has 30. ALL of these states get to send a team to the regionals. Is that fair? Absolutley not. Statistically, it's highly likely that more talented teams from states with more leagues are denied the opportunity to play in the regional in favor of teams from sparsely populated states. Until 1987, NY sent a Metro and an upstate league to what had been the Eastern Regionals. I'm all in favor of NY Upstate/Metro and Eastern/Western Penn, maybe even North/South Jersey. There would be no "watering down" effect, just more talented teams and better games.

the consensus is that it's time to change. I agree with the Virginia teams entering the Mid-Atlantic and give Florida and Georgia 2 if you have too. Cali and Tex get two entries why not Florida, NY, Penn. these are huge Little League states. Why did DC with half a district get in the Mid-Atlantic is unbelievable. It's disrespectful to the other states that have hundreds and hundreds of leagues and can't get in.
We all need to send this link to Bristol and to Williamsport.
cright@littleleague.org dlewin@littleleague.org and skeener@littleleague.org
We want a fair shot at participating in Little League Regionals. Sure we understand that each state should have a represetive but when it comes to free tickets let's give it to little league states that support little league year after year.

Yes, watered down. Delaware has actually made it to Willamsport this decade. NJ hasn't made it to the series in how long? Take out Toms River and you're talking 15 years instead of 10. You wanna give that state TWO champs? Hahaha.

Metro NY isn't a bad idea as long as Westchester County is included in upstate. Otherwise, that's bogus.

Section1Guy wrote:

Yes, watered down. Delaware has actually made it to Willamsport this decade. NJ hasn't made it to the series in how long? Take out Toms River and you're talking 15 years instead of 10. You wanna give that state TWO champs? Hahaha.
Metro NY isn't a bad idea as long as Westchester County is included in upstate. Otherwise, that's bogus.

Why would you take out Toms River, who made it three times in the last 13 years?(no logic in that comment). I do agree you should include Westchester in Metro NY, not that it would matter though. How many times have Westchester teams ever even won Section 3 to get to the state tournament? Not many.

The point is that NJ hasn't done squat. They've been bad a lot lately.
Keep Toms River in, NJ hasn't won in over 10 years. That's terrible.
Westchester has never won Section 3 because they're playing against teams from NYC. Put South Shore in Section 2 and nobody would win that section either. That's the point. if you split NY, Westchester should move to upstate considering they're not part of NYC.

MaryLand people in Willy say they where estatic to reach Regionals and didn't matter where they played, but by the 6th 7th and definately by the last championship regional game they all wished Mid-Atlantic Regional was closer to home. All had a story of granny, uncle, teacher etc wanted to see them live but the trip was overbearing.

Nottingham LL knows how to host a State Championship and has the ability to Host a regional. They have the College of NJ to house the kids and the Admin. to handle a Regional. They have a great history in LL with 6 State Titles.

Two teams from Georgia is a great idea.I am from Northern Little League in Columbus, Ga. The level of play around here is unreal. Phenix City (1999 US Champs)is ten minutes away. We of course won the title vs Japan two years ago. Some of the teams that made Williamsport this year wouldnt have made it out of our district tourney. Sad but true.