MI Little League Baseball Parents and Players:

As the Bellevue/MI City Tournament begins to wind down this week (we will have champions in at least two, and maybe all three divisions!), the Baseball All-Star Committee (BASC) is in the midst of the selection process for both players and coaches for the Little League "International Tournament", commonly known as All-Stars.  Little League hosts a 9/10 and 10/11 tournament (known as the Minors divisions) which end with a State Championship tournament.  Mercer Island won the 9/10 State Championship last year! Little League also hosts an 11/12 tournament, known as the Little League or Majors division, and this is the one that ends at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA.

Announcements of All Star Managers and player nominees will be made on Monday, June 15th, the first date allowed by Little League International.  We will send an e-mail and post the list on the MILL website.  We will then hold tryouts to determine the final All-Star tournament teams for 2009, which can consist of 11 to 13 players on a team.

To identify our All-Star tournament teams, we go through the following process:

Little League (11/12 Year old team):

• Each Majors team's players vote for 9 nominees from other teams
• Majors team coaches vote for an additional 6 nominees
• The All-Star Manager has the option of inviting additional nominees to the tryouts
• TRYOUTS for the All-Star nominees are Monday June 15th at Lid West and Tuesday June 16th at Lid East from 6:00pm to 8:30pm

Minors - 10/11 Year old team (MILL restricts this level to 11 year olds only):

• Majors coaches vote for 12 nominees
• The 10/11 All-Star Manager has the option of inviting 3-8 additional players to the tryouts
• Nominee TRYOUTS are Wednesday June 17th, at Lid West from 4:00pm to 6:30pm, and Thursday, June 18th at Lid East from 6:30pm to 9:00pm

Minors -  9/10 Year old team nominees:

• All 9&10 year olds that played in Majors
• Coaches vote for up to 12 additional nominees that played in AAA or AA
• Manager discretion to add 1-3 additional player nominees
• Nominee TRYOUTS are Thursday, June 18th and Friday, June 19th at SMP #2 from 6:00pm to 8pm

Managers for the 10/11 and 11/12 Year old teams ares elected by a vote amongst the Majors coaches.  The 9/10 Year old team Manager is selected by the BASC.  After the announcement is made regarding the Manager, player nominees and then those who are selected for the various tournament team rosters will be receiving most of your communication and coordination directly from the Manager.

Final selections for the tournament team rosters are made by the All-Star Manager.

As we have done extremely well in the City Tournament, we are very excited about the prospects of this year's All-Star tournament teams.  Should you have any questions about the All-Star process prior to or after June 15th, please feel free to contact me.

Don Costa

MILL President

MI Giants run the table to win Bellevue/MI City Tournament - MI wins for 2nd straight year.  MI Yankees finish 3rd; Pirates and Red Sox tie for 5th out of 22 teams.

Tournament Bracket, Game Schedule and Rules.