2024 LLIWS Preview: Vine Ingle, Macon, Georgia

I have the privilege of calling a Little League World Series once again this year! This will mark my third consecutive call of the Intermediate 50/70 Baseball World Series, held from July 28-August 4 in Livermore, California. It's for 13-year-olds, played on a field slightly larger than Little League but still smaller than Junior League (50 feet from the pitcher's mound to home plate, 70 feet between the bases). Following this tournament and its qualifiers closely over the last three years, I've come to expect fantastic action and stories, and I'm looking forward to bringing them to you again this year!

The 2024 Intermediate World Series will air on ESPN+, and I will lay out the backstory for one of the 12 competing teams each day from now until the tournament's start on July 28. I hope you'll read along and remember a nugget here and there when you watch the tournament!

Vine Ingle, Macon, Georgia

League:
Vine Ingle Little League
Location:
Macon, Georgia
Championships:

Georgia District 5
Georgia
Southeast Region
Record: 8-1
Date Qualified: July 23
Noteworthy:
1st Georgia representative at 50/70 World Series.

1st baseball World Series appearance for Vine Ingle (reached Senior League Softball World Series last year)
Coaches: Harry DeHart, Chad Hickman, Tevin Chambliss

We get used to seeing some of the familiar leagues that qualify for World Series events year after year, but some of the most special stories come from the first-timers, achieving beyond anything their league has ever accomplished.

One such story this year is, simultaneously, one of the oldest and most established leagues in the field. Vine Ingle Little League, of Macon, Georgia, was established in 1954 and has been a mainstay of baseball in the area. But it had never sent a team to a Little League World Series event until its 16-year-old softball team qualified last year, and it follows that up one year later with its highest-achieving baseball team ever.

Vine Ingle had stopped its teenage baseball programs several years ago, but one of the many league alumni involved, coach Chad Hickman, remembered how much fun he had playing in the teenage divisions of Little League when he was in high school. Together with manager Harry DeHart, a league legend who retired from coaching 12-year-old major baseball in 2015 but keeps getting pulled back in, they called area kids who had played at younger ages and offered them the chance to play teenage Little League. Before they knew it, they had 58 players committed to field five teams, with a waiting list beyond that.

That built the robust infrastructure for a 13-year-old all-star team that has only a handful of kids from the 12-year-old team that went out in district play last year. Not many Georgia leagues field teenage teams, so the path to the Southeast Region tournament in Kernersville, North Carolina, was fairly simple. Once there, however, they ran up against history: Florida teams had won six of the last seven Southeast titles, and unbeaten Destin, Florida reached the title game unbeaten after beating Vine Ingle 5-2.

A deep pitching staff allowed Vine Ingle to keep throwing out solid arms despite having used two of its aces in the early rounds. The elimination bracket final saw a second one-run game of the tournament against South Durham, North Carolina. Leading 3-1 after Jayden Cannon (11 strikeouts) exhausted his pitch count, Vine Ingle elected to pull lefty Ross Greer in the 7th at the 20-pitch threshold to keep him eligible to pitch the championship game. After a wild pitch made it 3-2, another pitch to the backstop gave South Durham a chance to tie, but Vine Ingle corralled the ball and applied the tag at home plate in one of the tournament's most dramatic finishes!

The region championship game marked the third consecutive year a one-loss team beat the unbeaten team, perhaps making a case for a format change, but it worked just fine for Vine Ingle, as it came from behind to beat Destin 8-3. And maybe history is on its side after all: The only non-Florida team to win the region since 2015 was McCalla, Alabama in 2019, and McCalla went on to win the World Series championship.

Road to Livermore
Georgia District 5
June 22	at Chatham County, Savannah	W	10-0 (5)
June 22	at Chatham County, Savannah	W	20-0 (4)
Georgia
July 6	at Peachtree City	W	29-1 (5)
July 6	at Peachtree City	W	24-1 (3)
Southeast Region
July 19	South Durham NC	W	2-1
July 20	Alexandria VA	W	14-2 (5)
July 22	Destin FL	L	2-5
July 22	South Durham NC (elim bracket final)	W	3-2
July 23	Destin FL (final)	W	8-3
Intermediate Baseball World Series
July 28	MOT, Middletown DE	W	6-4
July 29	Scripps Ranch, San Diego CA	L	9-12
July 30	HYR, Georgetown IN (elim)	W	6-4
July 31	Livemore CA (elim)	L	4-5

 

Linear basketball - in person! - for the first time

Besides working the Women's Euros, a real positive of this year for me, professionally, has been the opportunity to call games on linear TV (aka you can just flip on the TV and find the channel, not deal with a streaming app) in sports other than soccer.

I'll always be a soccer person and proud of it. But I'm a baseball person and a football person and a hockey person and a basketball person, too! I have ties to each of these that go beyond broadcasting ambition, and each one challenges me and captivates me and piques my interest in a different way. I'm very proud to cover all of those sports, and softball and volleyball as well, when given the opportunity, but it often feels like some other sports write me off for bigger games because I am "a soccer guy."

So the chance to call the 13-year-old Little League World Series this summer, including the world championship game on ESPN2, was a thrill and an important professional step.

Similarly, the chance to call the Georgia-Bucknell men's basketball game for the SEC Network on November 18, in person no less, was a real highlight of the year. I have done lots of college basketball for ESPN and the Big East, and I have done lots of NBA work in virtual reality, but I'd only called one previous basketball game on linear TV, and that was a pandemic-enforced home broadcast. Not quite the same energy!

So I tried to soak up the atmosphere at venerable Stegeman Coliseum in Athens, Georgia, and enjoy every minute of the game, one that wound up finishing a close call. Partner Mark Wise and I had a fun post-game interview as well, with Georgia's Jabri Abdur-Rahim, who at some point said he "wants to be a TV personality," and he confirmed that he's coming for our jobs as soon as his playing days are finished.

Here's a look at some of the highlights:

The best news is there's at least one more linear basketball game still to come (December 17, LSU-Winthrop men's), even if that one will be called from home. So stay tuned.

Long, fun day at the "office"!

We had a crazy one today in Athens, Georgia. Not so much because of the game, which was plenty exciting and had tremendous scoring chances throughout. No, the weather kept us on the edge of our seats today.

With Hurricane Nate reaching the US mainland late Saturday night on the Gulf Coast, we knew our game, about 75 miles northeast of Atlanta, would likely be affected by rain and wind from the outskirts of the storm. We mentioned it briefly with the coaches on our Friday calls, but when models didn't show too much wind expected in the area for game time, we didn't think much of it.

But we did find out on Saturday that the coaches were considering trying to move the game to an earlier start time and discussing with ESPN SEC Network officials just what that would mean for the game broadcast. When I woke up Sunday and did not find an email outlining a change to the game time, I figured we were home free to kick at the scheduled 5pm time.

But in checking Twitter a little after 9 am, Texas A&M's soccer account posted that the game time had been changed to 2pm Eastern Time. So that was quite a way to find out. I immediately heard from Todd Jones, our producer, and we quickly met downstairs at the hotel with my partner, Jill Loyden, for our production meeting.

Playing through the rain! @AggieSoccer at @UGASoccer right now on WatchESPN, joined in progress on @SECNetwork w @jloyden! pic.twitter.com/DcyLIlhCho

— Jonathan Yardley (@jtyardley) October 8, 2017

It was an accelerated timeline, but nothing outrageous. We got underway at 2pm under steady rain, beginning on the SEC Network alternate channel and moving over to the main channel after the 1pm volleyball match finished. But the rain began to intensify after about 25 minutes, and by 30 minutes into the game, we couldn't see the far sideline due to the heavy rain and the wind, and I don't think our viewers could, either! The game was stopped shortly after, and we turned things over to taped programming and sat around to wait.

We watched other SEC games via the ESPN app, we talked to the Texas A&M radio broadcasters, we tried in vain to get some lunch, and we talked with our very helpful stage manager and statistician. We did two on-air updates to keep fans abreast of the schedule. All the while, Jill was having to rearrange her flight out of town, which I (thankfully) was spared.

Finally we got to resume at 4:50pm and enjoy the rest of the game, which saw Georgia goalkeeper Louise Högrell credited with 14 saves as the Bulldogs stayed with 19th-ranked Texas A&M and took them to overtime. Naturally we went all the way to the 109th minute, just 90 seconds before the game would have ended in a tie, with the game wrapping up more than four hours after it started.

Thankfully, it was well worth the wait! Texas A&M sophomore Grace Piper ended things with a really powerful left-footed shot from outside the penalty area, ending the day (that turned into night) on an exciting note!

I was really pleased with the effort from our entire crew to put together the post-game package, which we tape for the SEC website ... but unfortunately it doesn't embed well, so I'll just link to it here.

The game highlights, as they sounded in real-time, are right here:

Pictures from my latest Georgia trip, ESPNU broadcast

I made my second trip of the year to call a game at the University of Georgia last weekend, including what felt like my umpteenth flight from LaGuardia to Atlanta. Many more still to come, of course!

With a free Saturday night and no college football in the area, I went to see Silverbacks Park in north Atlanta, home to the Atlanta Silverbacks of the North American Soccer League. Small stadium (c. 5,000 capacity) with a large youth-soccer presence in the crowd.

I was very surprised by two things: 1. The wind made it quite a cool evening. 2. T-shirts for 'MLS Atlanta 2017' were sold side-by-side (from a third-party vendor) with those of the home team, a member of a league often considered in competition with MLS. Very interesting.

My partner for Sunday's game, airing on ESPNU this time instead of the SEC Network, was former US women's national team star Shannon MacMillan, who won the MAC Hermann Trophy as the nation's top player in 1995 while at Portland, then was a key player as the US won the 1996 Olympics and 1999 World Cup and later played in the WUSA.

What had not occurred to me was that the 1996 Olympic soccer competition culminated in Athens, Georgia, with MacMillan scoring the semifinal game-winner and a goal in the final in games played before capacity crowds in Sanford Stadium, the Georgia football stadium! This was Shannon's first time back to Athens in 18 years, and even though she was performing in a much smaller venue, I think she had a great afternoon.

Most of us working on the broadcast were shadowed by University of Georgia broadcast television students as part of ESPN's Campus Connection program, and Shannon and I had the chance to talk to a bunch of them before things got too crazy, so that was a lot of fun.

Great opportunity for @UGAAthletics Students to learn from @jtyardley & Shannon MacMillan @ESPNU Campus Connection pic.twitter.com/ByqwRALPyM
— Meg Aronowitz (@megaronowitz) October 19, 2014

The game itself was a little hectic. A half-marathon held in the morning had limited our crew's access to the site, so there were a few things that wound up being done on-the-fly. In taping our opening segment, we were about to complete our best take when the stadium PA system launched into The Star-Spangled Banner, a definite no-no. So we did the open live, and except for one word stumble on my part (which I fairly successfully worked through), it still went great!

Afterward, with flights from Atlanta scheduled for Sunday night, we both high-tailed it out after the game, but not before I changed clothes and took a quick selfie with the stone Uga (pronounced like Uggla without the L) that keeps watch over the UGa Soccer Stadium!

Once I got to the airport, I could not convince TGIFriday's to switch any of its televisions away from Sunday Night Football, so to catch the first half of LA vs. Seattle for the MLS Supporters' Shield title, I used their wireless signal instead.

Finally, here's a link to our post-game segment, including both of the game's goals.

Since I'm in the area ... My first college football game at an SEC stadium

My fall work in the SEC means I will occasionally get to drop in on extra sporting events, and I had the chance to take in my first college football game in an SEC stadium (although I have been to midnight yell practice at Texas A&M) at the University of Georgia's Sanford Stadium on Saturday.

While I have no special ties to Georgia, I've always had a soft spot for Sanford Stadium because of its distinctive hedges. When you see a lot of the big stadiums on TV, they're mostly distinguishable only by the colors painted in the end zones and worn by the fans. With Georgia, however, you see the hedges and instantly know where the game is taking place. It always makes me think of watching football with my grandfather as a kid.

Georgia's game on Saturday was a noon kickoff against Troy, a school I called twice in 2012 but was definitely going to be overmatched in this game. After a wake-up call around 5:30 am CT in Mississippi, I flew to Atlanta, got my rental car, and set out for Athens, Georgia (only a little more than a year after my first trip to Athens, Greece).