Greetings ALL!

Time for me to remind you about the “big push” For Little League District 13 for 2027… and to remind you about watching the Little League World Series! It started yesterday and Washington got their first WIN! Also behind the plate for the night game was Our Super Ump from Washington State, Dennis Williams. Washington State has a very good program for training up umpires, and Dennis is part of that chain of training… Anyway – he looked very profession in last night’s games. Games start at 9:00 AM for the next couple of games on ESPN… great baseball!

NOW for the reminder and tickle for our BIG PUSH for 2027… WE NEED TO GET OUR INTERMEDIATE DIVISION GOING IN DISTRICT 13!! What is “Intermediate” Division? Well it’s the Division ABOVE majors. Players aged 11-13 can play Intermediate division play. What makes Intermediate DIFFERENT? Here is a list for why Intermediate is the next best step for playing Little League…:

The game is played on a larger field.

It has a 50’ mound instead of a 46’ mound like Majors
It has 70’ base paths, instead of 60’ base paths
The field is a minimum of 225’ and a maximum of 275’
Second Base is 99’ from home.

You can play “lead-off-steal” in Intermediate. In Majors, Runners cannot lead off. In Intermediate they can lead off of the bases.
There is a pitching “Balk”… With the addition of lead-offs, the pitchers now face a true “balk” when committing one on the mound. Same “Big League Rules” apply for a balk in this division. In Majors, it was just a “no pitch”. So the penalty is real.
Pitchers in the appropriate age group (13) can now pitch up to 95 Pitches a day instead of 85 as with Majors.
There are District, State, Regional, and World Series play opportunities in this Division

Finally, it helps to get an intermediate division going because it helps bridge the “Middle-School” to “High School” gap for baseball. Players can still play school baseball in this division if their Junior High or Middle School offers it and it keeps them playing in competitive baseball if the schools don’t offer it.

We need to get a bunch of players signed up next year for intermediate for other reasons as well. Here are some other reasons your league needs to get the Intermediate Division going:

It helps bridge the school gap if it exists
It’s more competitive and plays more like High School and College baseball
If there are younger siblings then trips to the ballpark can be consolidated
It gives a growth path for players who want to try to get into their high school programs

AND FINALLY

This year (2027) District 13 is scheduled to host the State Intermediate Division Tournament. This means that you would have a team from the District that gets to play “at home” for their first outing to state. AND we get an automatic “first round bye”. For tournament play, it wouldn’t get any better than this.

Other things to consider:

Intermediate Plays more like “Travel” or “Elite” baseball.
Competition is greater
Coaching requires a seasoned approach
Players are pressed more physically
There may be some travel around. Your players may travel to other leagues to play. This includes Idaho, Walla Walla, Yakima, Tri-Cities and Elsewhere.
As a DA I also relax the rules a bit so for instance we could set up conditions where your Little League team might play a Pony League team.

This general change in approach gets the kids more life experiences, and more experience playing in different venues. If you sign your player up for Intermediate and your league doesn’t have enough players to field a complete team, we can take those players and “combine” them with another league and your players can play as part of a “Combined” team with another league.

There is definitely a way to get a lot of playing opportunities for these players IF there is a “will” in your league to get the division going. How do you make this happen in your League? Do this:

Talk with other parents about the idea of getting the “next level” of play going in your area. See how many players you can put together.
Approach your board about chartering the division
Offer to help your board do any of the following:

Offer to help coach or manage a team
Offer to volunteer to be a team parent (coordinator)
Offer to recruit other players
Become an official member of your League and speak at board meetings about the division and your goals in seeing it come to fruition.
Find Sponsors for your team(s)

Keep in mind a league can has a many players in Intermediate as they can sign up. If you have 5 players or 50 players, form the team and lets play! This is the best year to do it because of the state tournament being in our backyard.

If you have questions, be sure and contact us at dadist13@wadist13ll.org OR call 509-995-4200

THERE IS ANOTHER PUSH I WANT TO MENTION:

And that is SOFTBALL. Yes Little League plays SOFTBALL as well. And they have just about the same divisions as baseball…(T-Ball, Minors, Majors, Juniors, and Seniors). If you have a softball player, you need to get them in Softball in Little League. If your league is not offering softball, do the same things as above and let your board know that you want softball as an offering in your league). The softball program in District 13 is slowly growing and improving and we want more players there.

In Softball they also have all the tournaments levels that mirror baseball. Minors play Districts and State, Majors and above can go all the way to a World Series. The problem in District 13 is we need about 3x as many teams as we have right now. So talk with your Board, get softball going. Most of the fields in the area can play both baseball AND softball, we just need the “Will” of the league and parents to want to offer it, and we need the same effort as Intermediate above…

So talk with your board and get SOFTBALL going if your league doesn’t have it.

If you have questions, don’t hesitate to ask… you can call or write the District Office and someone will have the information you are looking for to get started. This is the perfect time of year, and the perfect things to add to make your league more robust and provide something to your kids to make their sports experience better. You can also respond to this message and someone will get back to you.

Sincerely,

District Administrator (DA)

Washington Little League – District 13

E: dadist13@wadist13ll.org

T:509-995-4200

http://www.wadist13ll.org