Jackie Robinson West Advances to U.S. Championship Game

Jackie Robinson West will advance to the U.S. Championship game against Las Vegas in the Little League World Series.

Thursday night’s 6-5 victory for the kids from the South Side of Chicago ended the storybook season for Taney Little League of Philadelphia’s Mo’ne Davis, the female pitcher who graced the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine.

Down 6-2 in the late innings, Taney looked to make a comeback, but the kids from Chicago held them off.

“It’s unreal. It’s unbelievable,” the Chicago team’s manager, Darold Butler, told ESPN after the game. “I’m excited. I’m speechless. I don’t know what to say. I’m overjoyed right now.”

This team has won a lot of fans throughout the Chicago area during this amazing Little League World Series run.

“We get so much negative publicity with gangs and shootings that you have no idea how much fun it is to see the attention this has created all over,” Cedric Watson, 43, told the Chicago Tribune. He lives across the street from Jackie Robinson Park in Morgan Park. “For a lot of people around here, them winning the World Series would be like the Bulls winning it all.”

Jackie Robinson West lost to the Nevada team earlier in the series, 13-2 in pool play. They meet again at 2:30 p.m. Chicago time on Saturday.

“We mean a lot to the city because seeing an all African-American team come from the city is a good thing,” said Marquis Jackson, the starting pitcher, in an interview with ESPN after the game. He said others in the neighborhood can see the example he and his teammates set. “It shows that kids can do anything.”

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