Evergreen Park whistleblower answers allegations of cheating

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Evergreen Park Athletic Association vice president Chris Janes — the whistleblower in the Jackie Robinson West saga —  told the Sun-Times on Thursday his Little League has violated residency rules, but only so the league didn’t have to turn kids away from its house league.

Janes stressed Evergreen Park has never violated residency rules in picking its All-Star teams, which is why the rules exist.

Renee Cannon-Young alleged on a Channel 7 report that her son, Jacoby, was recruited to play in the Evergreen Park Little League in 2011.

Janes said he “vaguely” remembers the child in question.

“Looking at him in the picture and trying to remember who he was, if he played in our league he was about 7 or 8 years old in 2011,” Janes said.

Little League rules mandate that any participant in a given Little League must either live within the boundaries of that league or go to school within its boundaries. That rule includes a league’s All-Star and house-league teams.

But Janes said that Evergreen Park isn’t in the business of turning kids away from playing baseball.

“Full disclosure: There is a Little League rule buried somewhere that says if a kid doesn’t live in your boundary, he shouldn’t play baseball for you at all,” Janes said. “Forget about tournament teams and all that. Every year, we have a handful of kids from Chicago that end up playing in our league. We’re just like this oasis in the middle of Chicago,” Janes said.

“What happens is we have a boatload of Chicago people that drive to Evergreen every day and work here, and as result, they drop their kids off either with another relative or in a day care facility in Evergreen. So every year we get a handful of folks saying, ‘We don’t live here, but we’d like to play baseball for you here.’ ”

In each of those cases, Janes said that Evergreen Park Little League volunteers meet with each of those parents and explain that they will be allowed to play in their house league. But because they do not live inside the Evergreen Park Little League boundaries, they cannot play on any of Evergreen Park’s All-Star teams.

“I will tell you 1,000 percent that we have never, ever, ever had a kid on one of our All-Star teams that wasn’t in our boundaries,” Janes said.

Janes said the volunteer who has the league’s records is currently in California training for work. He declined to give the name of that person. Janes said when that person returns, he would be willing to provide the residency information of Evergreen Park’s All-Star teams.

He said the Little League has told several talented players, who have played in the Evergreen Park house league, they could not participate on the All-Star teams.

While Janes did admit that Evergreen Park has in the past broken residency rules because he doesn’t want to “turn anyone away” from playing in Evergreen Park’s house league, it is widely understood that residency rules are in place primarily to create fairness among the All-Star teams.

House league teams play only within their own league. So Janes scoffs at the notion that Evergreen Park would have recruited the child in question — there’s no benefit to recruiting for a house league.

“I have spent the last day and a half just absolutely getting my character assassinated,” Janes said. “And you know what? That is fine. That’s OK. That’s fine. This Little League organization here, it’s been here for 60-plus years and has done nothing but good things for this community, and I’ll be damned if I let some jerk try to tear it down.”

Email: sgruen@suntimes.com

Twitter: @sethgruen

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