It might have been just Opening Day jitters for the losing teams and just another day at the ball park for the winners
There were four games played yesterday and all of them were pretty much blowouts. In the three United States games, the Mid-Atlantic team, South Shore National Little League from Staten Island, New York defeated the Northwest team, Mercer Island Little League from Mercer Island, Washington, 10-2 and the Southeast team, Warner Robins American Little League from Warner Robins, Georgia beat the Midwest team, Urbandale Little League Urbandale, Iowa, 11-3. In the night game, the Southwest team, McAllister Park American Little League from San Antonio, Texas took out the team from New England, Peabody Western Little League from Peabody, Massachusetts, 10-1.
In the International game, Asia-Pacific from Kuei-Shan Little League from Taoyuan, Chinese Taipei, beat the Europe team, KMC American Little League from Ramstein AFB, Germany, 16-0.
After each game the Manager of the winning team and a few players and the losing Manager without players present, hold a press conference to discuss their respective games. I think these quotes are a good representation and helps put into perspective what it means to play in the Little League Baseball World Series.
"I haven't had a chance to talk to the kids yet, but what I did get to say was 'It's pool play, one loss doesn't put you out'". "We're not out of it and hopefully this is the game where we worked everything out." New England Peabody Manager David Batchelor
“You have no idea what this week is like. I was pulling my hair out while the kids were sitting there making friends. I wanted to get a win and get it out of the way. I was tired of waiting.” Southeast Manager Randy Jones
"He pitched a great game. He was just nailing the strike zone. We pride ourselves on being patient hitters, but, patience works well when you can get ahead in the count. But he got himself in a favorable position, 70, 80 percent of the time it felt like." Northwest Manager Steve Stenberg talking about Mid-Atlantic Pitcher Angelo Navetta who threw 87 pitches - 68 were strikes (78.2 percent).
“There were kids talking in the dugout that it’s only a couple runs, we can get this. We were in position late to steal a game we had no business being in, to be honest. Their pitcher did a fantastic job keeping us off balance. We looked like we hadn’t seen a curve ball before. Our boys are a little down, but we'll bounce back quickly. We always have with this group." Great Lakes Manager Scott Grau
"The big thing with us is we need to rest up and get a good night's sleep because we have a few kids who are under the weather right now. That's no excuse, either. We just have our backs to the wall now and have to win two of our next three to advance, but I'm confident they'll bounce back. When we went to regional's we were just pinching ourselves because we could not believe it, so anything after that is gravy. The great thing about kids is that they'll be up in the dorm five minutes from now having a great time and they will have forgotten about all this. It's the coaches who will struggle with the loss and rehash it in our minds over and over again." Northwest Manager Steve Stenberg
Greg Lopez, our Industry Manager for Active Sports and his son Gabe are with me here in Williamsport. We have our Active booth setup and are handing out trading pins, pin towels, taking pictures that will be posted on www.pictureu.com/eteamz and meeting some great Little League folks. It's been a very busy Opening Day and I haven't been able to do many tweets or Facebook updates. I wasn't even able to do many videos but hopefully that will change.
There are five games scheduled for today and it should be another great day at the World Series... as long as the rain holds off!
