Here is some more info from articles around the web....
"For other kids it’s a scary thing."
That’s parent Nana Velez. She and other parents complained that the ace pitcher frightened kids and left them feeling discouraged. League officials agreed. They decided that Jericho should play a different position and shouldn’t be allowed to pitch. When his coach refused, the League disbanded his team.
Last night the League held a press conference to discuss Jerichos’ situation. League lawyer Peter Noble says Liga Juvenil is independent and not affiliated with Little League.
"It is really the directives or the prerogatives of the League to decide how it wants to handle the development of the players and in this particular case the League decided that the player while still on the field, shouldn’t pitch."
Wayne Morrison coaches the All Star Pop Smith – Little League team in New Haven. He says he’s never seen anything like this controversy
"I just think a kid if he’s good at what he does he should be allowed to do what he does. I hear the team was dominating other kids and then kids was losing interest cause they losing by 20 and 30 runs
another....
Jericho Scott also plays for an all-star team in the Dom Aitro League in New Haven, where he is coach Mark Gambardella’s fourth-best pitcher and only recently installed as the regular second baseman. We should all be sad when Gambardella says that “the kid is a wreck” over all the attention and the associated guilt trip of a 9-year-old who thinks he has done something wrong.
Conversely, we’re guessing that Nicole and Leroy Scott, the
parents of the young man, are on a thrill ride, judging by the comments made by Nicole Scott when a league team threatened to pull its team off the field if Jericho pitched in a game on Aug. 20. According to several earwitnesses that day, Nicole Scott threatened to bring the league to its knees, using vulgar language within earshot of the players.
and another....
Like most around the country upon hearing of Jericho Scott’s plight, I was appalled that this kid was being harassed, indirectly as it may be, by league administrators and parents. What do you mean he’s a menace to the batters? Everyone agrees he throws hard and straight. Moreover, I talked to no less than four kids who have faced Jericho Scott without fear in the Dom Aitro League, and at least a couple of them profess to have hits off of him.
But there is a foul smell when a team that is 4-0 with a full complement of players and suddenly adds two Dom Aitro all-stars in mid-year while other teams of modest ability, including at least one team with a short roster, are left to struggle.
“This is a fun league, and it really doesn’t have many rules,” said Chris Helland, whose daughter, Danajah, and nephew, Frankie Scalo, both 10, play for J&I Luncheonette. ”I’ve been with this league from the start, and whenever they have a discussion (over some league issue), they get together and agree on rules. That’s how we decided upon the pitching (total pitches). Otherwise you’d have the same kid pitch every game.”
And here’s where the whole affair takes another sordid turn. Some people in the league bemoan the fact that Jericho has pitched more than is reasonably necessary. In his first day in the league, Aug. 9, a Saturday, Scott pitched five innings. The next day, he pitched three more innings. In the following game, Wednesday, Aug. 13, he pitched another five innings — after which the league was ready to disband Will Power Fitness, unless it gave assurances the Scott wouldn’t pitch any longer.
Understand that this is not your Williamsport-styled little league. It is not affiliated with the official brand and it is best called a developmental league. So when little Jericho and his fastball turned up in mid-season to blow 40 mile per hour smoke past uncertain newbie batters game after game, there were raised eyebrows throughout the league.
Tuesday, in response to threats of a suit from an angry Nicole Scott, the LJB held a disjointed press conference at Criscuolo Field. Attorney Peter Noble, the league’s advisor, hemmed and hawed his way through real questions and kept getting back to the fact that league parents were in fear for the eyes, ears, and noses of their precious kids.
So is this whole Jericho Scott story a political backlash at Will Power Fitness, to some, an increasingly renegade team in a league where the emphasis of many is on the most elemental teaching aspects of the game? Therein lies the inherent inconsistencies of the LJB because in one breath, the league purports to be all about “Community and Family” (the words on the T-shirts that were distributed to parents for press conference purposes Tuesday). Yet, if it truly wants to be a developmental league, don’t keep score and don’t crown champions. You either play to win or you play only for fun.
One interested observer to the dysfunctional attempt at the press conference was Wayne Morrison, coach of the 9-10 all-star team in the affiliated Pop Smith Little League in New Haven. He came here thinking, from everything that he’d heard the past couple of days, that a gross injustice was being perpetrated upon Jericho Scott and Will Power Fitness.
“I’ve never heard of anything like this ... it was unbelievable ... a kid kind of being denied a chance to play because he’s too good,” Morrison said. “Our first reaction was, Wayne, go over there, find the kid and bring him over to Pop Smith. We’ll welcome him with open arms. It kind of took me for a loop. And then I came out here and I was talking to some of the people who are involved in this and my understanding is that this team was beating other teams (by lopsided scores), and they were trying to kind of balance things.
“The more information I get, the more I understand. You’re talking about 9- and 10-year-old kids here. Is the main thing winning? Sometimes it’s not. I’m just amazed how they let him on this team. I would question that. If a team is 6-0 and you put two all-star kids on it, are you balancing things out? So I’m kind of confused at what the issue is here.”
And another...
But despite that nationwide coverage and commentary, I have heard or read less about, as Solomon revealed in his objectively illuminating column, that Jericho Scott also plays for an "all star" team in the city's Dom Aitro league, and was put onto his new team in the LJB, which is of a more developmental origin, in mid-season. That makes about as much sense as recruiting players from either the Yankees or the Red Sox (How's that for diplomacy?) and having them play against these kids midway through a season. It's the same scenario here, albeit on a smaller scale. These kids threatened to walk off the field, not out of bad sportsmanship, or not bucking up to adversity, but because they were scared, and they should have been scared.
In Jericho's defense, his high-speed pitching was reportedly always accurate and he never hit anyone with the ball. I once caught a ball in the forehead (as opposed to in my hand) when I was nine years old, and now, decades later, the bump is still there, as well as the vivid memory. Being hit with a speeding ball is not a requirement to be rightfully scared of one. Jericho Scott, through no fault of his own, was literally "out of his league."
And I blame his coach, and the league officials for that. The LJB reportedly has few formally written rules, so the coach, at least on paper, did nothing wrong by playing Jericho. But common sense and common decency should have directed his decision over a vicarious unquenchable thirst to win at all costs-in a league for little kids! Growing up as a kid, my father always encouraged me to participate in organized sports, but he was never really enthralled by them. He often regaled me with his stories of his growing up as an urban street kid and playing "sandlot ball," just with his friends, spontaneously, with whatever resources they had to play or even improvise with at that time, and without the need, or the desire for adult supervision and intrusion. Now I see why. My Dad, who also played semi-pro football and is no shrinking violet by any means, always emphasized tough competition, but not nearly as much as he did good sportsmanship. Maybe the LJB should now begin implementing some more written rules, and sportsmanship should be on page 1.
As for the coach, Wilfred Vitro, he's history. Apparently, he did violate one of the league's actually formal directives by not taking Jericho off the mound to give both he and his opponents a break. And the nature of Vidro's demise as a coach in the LJB only further accentuated his arrogance. He was only fired by the league when he refused the opportunity to resign. As for some of the kids, they have now been scrambled around throughout the league since all the hoopla. But this is all a little too little, and much too late.
Now, lawsuits are involved, press conferences convened, T-shirts have been made up, written propaganda dispersed, angry parents and hired lawyers are now involved in the mix, and even accusations of angry and vulgar threats being made by parents within earshot of the kids. Jericho's parents, and another player's parents have already consulted prominent civil rights attorney John Williams, and are threatening to sue for the alleged suffering of their kids.
