By Dave Solomon

NEW HAVEN — While the rest of the country has already determined that the satanic Liga Juvenil de Baseball of New Haven scores its double plays 6-6-6, we are here to remind all of those who want in on Jericho Scott’s 15 minutes of fame that there are two halves of every inning.

At its worst, the Liga Juvenil de Baseball (LJB) is a league that can’t get its story straight, that can’t figure out who and what it is, and a league that doesn’t fully understand the perception that has prompted Robin Roberts, Jay Leno, Ellen DeGeneres, Jimmy Kimmel, Mitch Albom and so many other to seize on New Haven’s inhumanity to man.

But it is not a league that fails to care deeply about its children and its community — and a league that stands together today because of those facts, even while the rest of the free world is reviled by the notion that little Jericho — age 10, today, and happy birthday, by the way — has been denied his inalienable rights to pitch under the Bill of Rights.

We feel his pain, not because the LJB is a villainous gang, but because lawyers and politics and little league parents have turned his life upside down.

Jericho Scott also plays for an all-star team in the Dom Aitro League in New Haven, where he is coach Mark Gambardella’s fourth-best pitcher and only recently installed as the regular second baseman. We should all be sad when Gambardella says that “the kid is a wreck” over all the attention and the associated guilt trip of a 9-year-old who thinks he has done something wrong.

Conversely, we’re guessing that Nicole and Leroy Scott, the

parents of the young man, are on a thrill ride, judging by the comments made by Nicole Scott when a league team threatened to pull its team off the field if Jericho pitched in a game on Aug. 20. According to several earwitnesses that day, Nicole Scott threatened to bring the league to its knees, using vulgar language within earshot of the players.

Like most around the country upon hearing of Jericho Scott’s plight, I was appalled that this kid was being harassed, indirectly as it may be, by league administrators and parents. What do you mean he’s a menace to the batters? Everyone agrees he throws hard and straight. Moreover, I talked to no less than four kids who have faced Jericho Scott without fear in the Dom Aitro League, and at least a couple of them profess to have hits off of him.

But there is a foul smell when a team that is 4-0 with a full complement of players and suddenly adds two Dom Aitro all-stars in mid-year while other teams of modest ability, including at least one team with a short roster, are left to struggle.

“This is a fun league, and it really doesn’t have many rules,” said Chris Helland, whose daughter, Danajah, and nephew, Frankie Scalo, both 10, play for J&I Luncheonette. ”I’ve been with this league from the start, and whenever they have a discussion (over some league issue), they get together and agree on rules. That’s how we decided upon the pitching (total pitches). Otherwise you’d have the same kid pitch every game.”

And here’s where the whole affair takes another sordid turn. Some people in the league bemoan the fact that Jericho has pitched more than is reasonably necessary. In his first day in the league, Aug. 9, a Saturday, Scott pitched five innings. The next day, he pitched three more innings. In the following game, Wednesday, Aug. 13, he pitched another five innings — after which the league was ready to disband Will Power Fitness, unless it gave assurances the Scott wouldn’t pitch any longer.

Understand that this is not your Williamsport-styled little league. It is not affiliated with the official brand and it is best called a developmental league. So when little Jericho and his fastball turned up in mid-season to blow 40 mile per hour smoke past uncertain newbie batters game after game, there were raised eyebrows throughout the league.

Tuesday, in response to threats of a suit from an angry Nicole Scott, the LJB held a disjointed press conference at Criscuolo Field. Attorney Peter Noble, the league’s advisor, hemmed and hawed his way through real questions and kept getting back to the fact that league parents were in fear for the eyes, ears, and noses of their precious kids.

Yet there are a couple others in the league who throw almost as hard with less control. No one is demanding that they turn in their pitching spikes. Moreover, Carlito’s Barber Shop, the team that finished first the previous two seasons, actively pursued Jericho Scott for their team prior to the season.

So is this whole Jericho Scott story a political backlash at Will Power Fitness, to some, an increasingly renegade team in a league where the emphasis of many is on the most elemental teaching aspects of the game? Therein lies the inherent inconsistencies of the LJB because in one breath, the league purports to be all about “Community and Family” (the words on the T-shirts that were distributed to parents for press conference purposes Tuesday). Yet, if it truly wants to be a developmental league, don’t keep score and don’t crown champions. You either play to win or you play only for fun.

One interested observer to the dysfunctional attempt at the press conference was Wayne Morrison, coach of the 9-10 all-star team in the affiliated Pop Smith Little League in New Haven. He came here thinking, from everything that he’d heard the past couple of days, that a gross injustice was being perpetrated upon Jericho Scott and Will Power Fitness.

“I’ve never heard of anything like this ... it was unbelievable ... a kid kind of being denied a chance to play because he’s too good,” Morrison said. “Our first reaction was, Wayne, go over there, find the kid and bring him over to Pop Smith. We’ll welcome him with open arms. It kind of took me for a loop. And then I came out here and I was talking to some of the people who are involved in this and my understanding is that this team was beating other teams (by lopsided scores), and they were trying to kind of balance things.

“The more information I get, the more I understand. You’re talking about 9- and 10-year-old kids here. Is the main thing winning? Sometimes it’s not. I’m just amazed how they let him on this team. I would question that. If a team is 6-0 and you put two all-star kids on it, are you balancing things out? So I’m kind of confused at what the issue is here.”

Around the country, it’s pretty black and white. The LJB of New Haven is being picked over by the pundits and talk show celebrities who have their cause celebre of the moment. But the Liga Juvenil de Baseball of New Haven will survive the ridicule another day, and other year, because enough good people in the community have their hearts in the right place. Jericho Scott, sadly, is caught in the crossfire of a situation that should have been handled with reason instead of threats.

Dave Solomon, the Register sports columnist, can be reached at dsolomon@nhregister.com.

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