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 The Jackie Robinson West team of 11- and 12-year-olds from
Chicago's South Side beat a team from Las Vegas, Nevada, last week
to become the top U.S. team in the World Series played in
Pennsylvania, but lost the international final to South Korea on
Sunday.
However, no one in the nation's third-largest city seemed to care
that the 13 pre-teens lost the last leg of the series - feeling the
national championship replaced negative news about gun violence.
"Being a black male from the south side, people think you will be
bad, a criminal. So for them to do this for the city is a big deal.
They are showing kids there's more out there than gang-banging,"
said Darletta Smith, 48, a resident of the south side who watched
the team's games on TV with her children.
Smith and thousands of other supporters wearing the team color of
yellow packed Millennium Park for a rally to greet the players, who
drove through town waving to crowds from the top of a double-decker
bus as news helicopters flew overhead.
Through the month of August excitement built over the team. Little
League games became ubiquitous on Chicago sports bar televisions as
people watched Jackie Robinson West - named for the player who broke
the color barrier in the major leagues in the 1940s - advance in the
tournament.
Last week, television ratings for the team's games soared to levels
that are the envy of Chicago's professional sports teams. Nielsen
ratings reported that 422,000 viewers tuned into the Aug. 21 game,
much higher than regular viewership for the struggling Cubs and
White Sox baseball teams and higher than many games featuring the
popular Blackhawks hockey team.
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Local media reported that more than 800,000 Chicago viewers tuned into the
final game on Sunday.
"It is really hard to be a professional baseball fan in Chicago some
years. But this year I had a team to believe in. I had a team to follow.
I had Jackie Robinson West and they are winners," Illinois Attorney
General Lisa Madigan said at one of Wednesday's rallies for the team.
(Reporting by Fiona Ortiz; Editing by Jim Loney)
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