Needville wins their 1st game 2-1


They play North Dakota Friday at 6pm

While I do watch the LLWS, I also find it funny how everyone talks about hard the pitchers are throwing. They are 12 year olds pitching from 46'. That's what 9u pitches from! It makes no sense to me why they have such a short distance.

The only LL all star teams that are not populated by select players are the crappy ones that go 0-2 BBQ.

I'm not sure why people are surprised by this. All of these leagues do this and it has been going on for a while. Pearland does it too. We are zoned to ORWALL and a couple of years ago they were trying to get their program going, but it never happened to my knowledge. They invite select teams to play in a Sunday league against each other at their parks for the sole reason of getting a team to Williamsport when they are 12. My son's team played the Needville team at 11u. We beat them. They are a solid upper level AAA team, but there are far better teams out there. It would be comical for some of the Houston area major teams to play in Williamsport. I don't know how it works in other states, but it is definitely like this in Texas and specifically, the Houston area.

TarponChaser said:

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PhatMack19 said:

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evestor1 said:

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Go Needville!


When are they going to show speed on pitches?

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They are showing it now. Chinese Tapei kid is throwing 80. Needville kid is 64

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80 at 46' is absurd. My son saw 82 at 50' last summer and that was basically unhittable. I think the conversion I saw was that 82 at 50' was equivalent to 105 from 60'6" when it comes to relative reaction time.

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The kid looks to be 19. They threw a combined Perfect Game today.

Bassmaster said:

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I'm not sure why people are surprised by this. All of these leagues do this and it has been going on for a while. Pearland does it too. We are zoned to ORWALL and a couple of years ago they were trying to get their program going, but it never happened to my knowledge. They invite select teams to play in a Sunday league against each other at their parks for the sole reason of getting a team to Williamsport when they are 12. My son's team played the Needville team at 11u. We beat them. They are a solid upper level AAA team, but there are far better teams out there. It would be comical for some of the Houston area major teams to play in Williamsport. I don't know how it works in other states, but it is definitely like this in Texas and specifically, the Houston area.

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I would hope so. There's a difference between stacking a team with talent from the greater Houston area, etc vs a group of boys from one small town / LL that happen to also play on a select team together.

Bassmaster said:

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Hi, Im Brett said:

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Bassmaster said:

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Do we really consider Needville some small town? Richmond/Rosenberg are growing pretty rapidly. That aside, there are plenty of select teams in Houston that have kids all zoned to the same little league. It's not like Needville is some podunk town in the middle of nowhere.

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Rose/Rich is Lamar LL (Randal Grichuk). I would consider 10k population or whatever Needville's surrounding area is a small pool compared to what most of the better Houston area select teams are pulling from.

I can't speak to some of those teams being from the same LL other than it sounds like they missed out on a chance to go Williamsport, all the free gear, and living on ESPN for a few weeks.

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I wouldn't say "missed out on a chance to go to Williamsport" as much as I'd say "didn't care enough to take a chance." I enjoy watching it and no doubt it would be a cool experience, but these kids have all been playing open bases since 9u, 50/70 fields since 11u, using USSSA bats, etc., so to subject the kids to the ridiculous little league rules for a chance to make a run just doesn't do it for most of the teams who have been playing high level select for years. My son's team is all zoned to ORWALL in The Woodlands and when the league tried to put together a double header league for select teams so that one of their teams could make a run, there was zero interest from the parents.

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Major disservice for the kids. I bet you every kid that ever went to Williamsport remembers their time there fondly. It's not an experience that they'll ever get at yet another high level select tournament that they'll forget about by Monday morning.

Agreed, it is a great experience. They get to play on a national/world stage infront of thousands of fans vs. select where they play infront of their family.

Plus they get to live in dorms for a week or so with kids from all over the country and many parts of the world. A fantastic experience!

Playing select gets you no closer to MLB than playing LL or whatever local league available, especially at age 12.

Bassmaster said:

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If the only two options were going to Williamsport or not trying, then yeah, I agree. But obviously it isn't a foregone conclusion that any specific team makes it. A 12 year old who has been playing select since 9u isn't getting much of anything (from a baseball standpoint) out of a failed run to Williamsport.

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This is a bit of a snarky comment, but if they're such high level select studs that have been balling together since 9 then they should have a very good shot at making it...a shot worth taking.

My son made it to a regional tournament this year, and even that experience was worth the effort and was a once in a lifetime event that he'll remember forever.

Needville wins 6-2