LITTLE LEAGUE BASEBALL World Series begins without controversy

Eligibility rules and enforcement were tightened, and the moves have paid off.
SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (AP) -- The first game of the Little League World Series wasn't to start until this afternoon, but in one respect Little League already is off to a good start.
"Last year, we had 11 lawsuits, where we ruled a certain way and a parent or someone went to court to try to keep that ruling from standing. Our record last year was 8, 2 and 1," Little League spokesman Lance Van Auken said. "Our record this year is 1 and 0 -- we've only had one time where someone actually went so far as to file papers in court."
After two years of dealing with rampant rumors about player eligibility and a series two years ago that ended in one of Little League's biggest scandals, the organization is trying to return to normalcy for this year's series.
To put it simply, they want the Little League World Series to be about baseball again.
Scandals
Two years ago, Danny Almonte threw the first perfect game the series had seen in 44 years, leading the Rolando Paulino Little League of the Bronx, N.Y., to a third-place finish. Team officials were constantly showing Almonte's birth certificate to combat rumors that he was too old to play Little League.
It was only after the series ended that Little League learned that birth certificate was a fake -- that Almonte was really 14 years old instead of 12 and that he really lived in the Dominican Republic instead of the Bronx. The Rolando Paulino team was stripped of its third-place finish, and Almonte's perfect game was erased from the record books.
Last year, Harlem Little League was dogged by rumors about players living outside the league's boundary lines. Although some players did live outside the district, Little League ultimately determined that they met the criteria for residency waivers and that the team was eligible.
Harlem had to send representatives back to New York to find the documents that proved their players were eligible. That won't happen this year, because Little League now requires that teams carry all documentation with them throughout the international tournament. Members of the tournament committee were on hand at regional sites to verify each player's eligibility.
"Certainly if you're one of the faithful, if you're following your particular team, this makes you feel that it's a concern that is being addressed," said Bob Jarvis, who teaches sports law at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "But to the average person in the public, they don't know about this."
Story lines
This year's field does have story lines that could eclipse past scandals. Matt Keen, of Tallmadge (Ohio) Little League, will try to win a title on the field where his father placed fourth back in 1974. Japan's Musashi Fuchu Little League of Tokyo is back three years after a third-place finish. And hard-throwing pitchers, like Chandler (Ariz.) National's Cory Bernard, and heavy hitters, like David Mastro of Naamans Little League of Wilmington, Del., could still captivate the fans the same way Almonte did.
Little League has overcome scandals before, first when foreign teams were barred from the World Series in 1975 because of trouble verifying player eligibility, then again in 1993 when a team from the Philippines was forced to forfeit its World Series title after it was learned the team violated residency rules.