THE LOOP — The Jackie Robinson West saga continues …
Now, disgraced Little League District 4 administrator Michael Kelley — the gatekeeper ousted from his volunteer post for signing off on bogus boundary maps that helped Jackie Robinson West adults stack their All-Star team with suburban ringers — finally has showed his face and broken his silence.
“At no time did I engage in any inappropriate conduct as district administrator,” Kelley contended in a statement. “Little League claims that I submitted multiple fraudulent [boundary] maps. That is false.”
Kelley’s news conference came one day after Bill Haley, JRW’s de facto leader and controller of the league’s rich bank account, launched a snitch hunt in court, asking a judge to require Little League International to identify whistleblowers and answer other questions about the decision to strip the South Siders of the Little League World Series U.S. title.
The fact that Kelley and Haley — the two men implicated by Little League as the masterminds of a scheme to create a super team to win the nationally televised title — have separate legal representation and held separate news conferences appears to signal that they don’t agree on much.
Well, except for one thing: Neither of them want to talk to reporters from DNAinfo Chicago, the news organization that first reported the cheating scandal that led to JRW getting stripped of the championship.
On Thursday, JRW’s legal and public relations teams had security escort me and fellow DNAinfo reporter Josh McGhee from a news conference announcing JRW’s court filing against Little League International.
And on Friday, Kelley's reps barred DNAinfo.com reporter David Matthews from attending the news conference where Kelley read a carefully worded and lawyer-approved statement that he “did not knowingly approve a bad map.”
Whether Kelley likes it or not, the job of a Little League district administrator is to make sure that none of the leagues he oversees breaks the rules that matter the most — age and boundary restrictions — in the World Series tournament.
And in removing Kelley from his post, Little League said the 20-year Chicago Fire Department veteran “signed documents to make players eligible who should not have been.”
After months of not returning DNAinfo Chicago’s calls seeking comment, Kelley’s statement to the media was cryptic, confusing and lacking details about his role in overseeing JRW’s eligibility for the World Series tournament.
In the statement, Kelley tries to explain away map conflicts by saying he signed off on “boundaries that I understood were agreed upon by the [other] leagues.”
Well, maybe Kelley misunderstood. Several officials from District 4 leagues told DNAinfo Chicago that they never signed off on any changes to boundary maps after 2013.
What’s most bizarre about Kelley’s statement is the confusing explanation he gives for giving Little League International a different map than JRW submitted with the team’s tournament package.
In response to Little League’s September 2014 request that JRW resubmit its boundary map, Kelley said, “I no longer had a photocopy of the map, so I submitted another copy that was the same in form and substance as the one submitted in May.”
Kelley goes on to explain he “intentionally signed this version [of the map] in a different spot to make Little League know that I was not trying to pass a false map. I made Little League officials aware of what I was doing at the time.”
Kelley’s lawyer, Nicholas Gowen, did not return messages seeking answers to questions about Kelley’s statement including, “Huh?”
Kelley said, “Little League has never asked for my input or to provide any information regarding the allegations surrounding JRW,” according to the statement.
Little League spokesman Brian McClintock said that’s not true. Little League officials spoke with Kelley on the phone and in person regarding the JRW controversy, he said.
McClintock specifically pointed to Kelley’s presence at a series of meetings at the Chicago Hilton on South Michigan Avenue on Jan. 31.
That’s when JRW sister league officials from the district under Kelley’s control told Little League International reps that they did not sign off on Jackie Robinson West's expanded map and refused to recognize the bogus boundaries for the 2015 season.
During that meeting, Little League brass learned that Haley and Kelley made a failed attempt to ask sister leagues to agree to boundary changes that already had been filed with Little League International without their permission, people who attended the meetings told DNAinfo Chicago.
“At the January 31 meetings, Mr. Kelley admitted to signing and backdating a map with Jackie Robinson West League’s expanded boundaries,” McClintock said in a statement emailed Friday.
Eleven days later after that January meeting, Little League stripped JRW’s title.
Little League International stands by that decision — and the move to oust Kelley from his post, McClintock said Friday.
With a court date in the future, it’s clear the JRW saga appears to be far from over.
And until it is, we'll still be asking questions — whether we're invited to or not.
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