JRW Rival Denies Forging Documents So Chicago Kid Could Play In Evergreen Park
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The Evergreen Park Little League official whose raised concerns about the eligibility of some players on the Jackie Robinson West all-star team has vehemently denied allegations from a Chicago woman that Evergreen Park officials forged documents so her son could play there in 2011.
"We have never ever done that with anybody," Evergreen Park Little League vice president Chris Janes said Thursday.
According to broadcast reports, Renee Cannon-Young of Chicago claimed Evergreen Park Little League officials forged paperwork so her son could play there in 2011. She accused the league of hypocrisy, as Janes raised concerns about the eligibility some of of JRW's players after they won the Little League national title last summer.
On its way to the national title, Jackie Robinson West defeated the Evergreen Park team 43-2 in a slaughter-rule win in the sectional playoffs.
Little League officials have since stripped JRW of its national and regional titles, saying team officials used a bogus map to cover up the fact they were using ineligible players who lived outside the JRW boundaries.
Janes said the Evergreen Park league does allow a few kids from Chicago to play on its teams during the regular season, usually because their parents work in Evergreen Park, but he insisted those parents are warned up front their children are ineligible for official tournament all-star teams, because they don't live within the league's boundaries.
"Somebody dug up some garbage witness. They put up some garbage story, and it got on the news," he said. "We spent two days assassinating my character. That's fine, but I'll be damned if I let them go after a league that's been around for damn near 70 years, and hasn't done a g******** thing wrong. It's garbage, and it's wrong."
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Janes said Evergreen Park officials never recruit players for their league.
"Kids sign up, we let them play," he said. "We don't recruit anybody. We never have. We have sign-ups. We have like eight of them. People sign their kids up. If they meet the eligibility, we let them play."
He said the league keeps records of all its players, including where they live.
"Anybody who would like, submit a request. We'll sit down, we'll go over kid by kid. Ninety-nine percent of the kids in our league walk to practice. We take pride in it," he said.
Janes said he has received dozens of threatening phone calls since JRW was stripped of its title. He said he had his home phone number changed Wednesday after getting at least 52 messages.
"A lot of it was just expletive-laden rants, but some of them were 'I hope you die,' 'I hope you burn in hell,' things of that sort," he said.
