Hello Little League Parents,

We want to provide an update on the La Salle, Peru and Oglesby Baseball Little League programs.

We as boards have decided to merge the three leagues into one league for Instructional Division through Senior League. Tball programs will continue to be in each town and there will be no change.

This decision was not taken lightly and is a result of discussions that have occurred over the last couple of years. There are several reasons why, here are a few:

1) We have done this for other divisions in the past. Senior League for years, Majors this year.

2) The kids are already playing other sports together such as Football, Soccer, Basketball, etc.

3) We can reduce the number of kids on teams and have them smaller to get the kids more playing time. We all know how difficult it is once you get a number more than 11 or 12 on a team.

4) Board Member Resources, we could have more board members that are active and spread out the duties with 3 leagues versus 1. The active board members have been declining for years.

5) Kids participating is declining and has been for 10 years or more. The leagues years past have had 6 or more teams and now in some cases are down to 2 or even 1 in a division.

6) Little League is shifting to allow kids ages 4 to 7 to play in any league they want, boundaries don't matter. Once at that league they can stay there through their little league playing days. So, for example, there could be a kid that lives in Oglesby that  goes to play in Peru and he can play there as long as he wants or vice versa.

7) More teams in our towns combined means more games locally in those 3 towns, in some cases at the Major League level the team played all but 3 games in La salle, Peru or Oglesby

8) More field use, when there are rainouts, we were able to use one of the other towns fields when they were open to coordinate make up games

9) All Stars. We were able to have an 11- and 12-year-old All Star team with these combined teams this year and the 11-year-old team made State, if we did not combine, we would never have had an 11-year-old All Star team. This will give kids a chance to compete even more for All Stars starting at an earlier age.

10) We can coordinate with the schedulers of the district to have time set aside for a large-scale City Tournament; it will be a competitive atmosphere to provide the kids an All Star like experience for those that may not make All Stars

There are lots of items we are finalizing before the 2025 season and will provide updates on registration etc. as soon as possible. Any questions you can reach out to any of us Past Board Presidents or board members and we would be happy to answer them.

At a meeting on 10/20/24 the following members were voted into their positions along with At Large Members that will be assigned to help with certain positions at a future meeting; we still have some further discussion about filling additional positions and will provide that as we have that as well:

Thank you,

Josh Busche, Lance Siebert and Shawn Zavsza

League Presidents for 2024