The Cal Ripken/Babe Ruth Baseball League in Bayonne was criticized last week for expelling a 12-year-old boy who missed a makeup game in order to play with another league.
The criticism came after Tyler Cruz, 12, was tossed from the league for missing a rescheduled game on the Friday before Memorial Day, a day when he had to attend a game with a Jersey City traveling league.
The Cal Ripken League’s “loyalty policy” demands that players not miss certain games in order to attend games in other leagues.
“My son has missed one [other Cal Ripken] game in six years, and that was over Spring Break when he was in Florida and he was 8,” Cruz’s mother, Danielle Lipowski, said last week. “He hasn’t missed an All Star game in three years, but he has missed family parties. He’s very dedicated to the game.”
“We don’t take any pleasure in removing players.” – Bob DeChiaro
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The policy was revised this season, but has been in effect for approximately 10 years, according to the league president.
Several leagues in area
Bayonne has two main baseball programs – Little League, and Cal Ripken/Babe Ruth. In addition, students also have a third option: Playing with out-of-town “traveling teams.”
Cal Ripken does make some exceptions for playing in more than one league. The Cal Ripken policy stipulates that any player who registers to play in Bayonne Little League is not eligible for certain special Cal Ripken activities. In addition, a player drafted by another program who quits Cal Ripken is banned forever from rejoining.
The policy also states that a player drafted by another program cannot miss a Cal Ripken game to play in that other league (with the exception of Bayonne Little League, Pony League, or Bayonne High School) and will not be allowed to play again for Cal Ripken if he does so.
Understands
Cruz’s mother said because her son signed up for Little League, he could not be part of Cal Ripken’s All Star games this year, and she understood that. But in trying to balance other games in several leagues, she started running into problems.
“I don’t want my son playing exclusively with Cal Ripken,” she said. “I want him to get the most experience possible. It was a hard decision, but we made it.”
Lipowski said that after Tyler joined Cal Ripken, a Jersey City coach asked Cruz to join a Jersey City team. To avoid a conflict, Lipowski and Cruz decided to not attend the Mother’s Day Tournament in Delaware (a Little League game) because it conflicted with a Cal Ripken game.
“We were told that if he missed the game to go to Delaware, he would get kicked out, so he stayed,” Lipowski said.
The problem came when a Cal Ripken game was rained out on April 21, and did not get rescheduled until the last day of the regular season, May 30.
“We were notified two days before the game,” Lipowski said. “They knew my son had a game in Jersey City for that day. Half the kids on both teams were not there, including a coach. But my son was thrown out because he decided to play in Jersey City. None of the other kids were thrown out, but they didn’t go to play on another traveling team. This is not fair. He made every game on the schedule, and this was a last-minute makeup game. My goal is to keep him in sports and off the streets. He has never been in trouble. He has second honors in school this year. He’s trying to balance everything.”
Other parents upset
As a 12-year-old, Cruz would have been going on to the Babe Ruth League, the next level, but the banning will prevent him from playing on that level.
Other parents said they raised concerns and wanted to keep their kids from attending the last Cal Ripken game in protest, but feared it would impact their kids in the future.
David Wissen said his son and nephew, who did not intend to play in the league next year, wanted to sit out the game.
“They were mad about what the league had done to Tyler,” Wissen said. “And they haven’t felt comfortable down there since the start of the year.”
Wissen said he let league officials know that his boys would not attend, and there seemed to be no problem. But later, he received a voicemail and text message from one of the coaches saying that the decision to boycott the game could affect the kids in other sports programs later, he said.
“I sent them to the game. They played the last game. Their team got blown out, and they were so relieved to be done with it, they were actually smiling when they left the field,” Wissen said.
League President Bob DeChiaro said Tyler was never singled out.
“The policy has been in existence for several years and it applies to any game and every individual player that signs up for the program,” he said. “We don’t take any pleasure in removing players. This policy is in place to protect our program and the dedicated volunteers and players that participate in it.”
He said about 10 years ago, before this policy was in place, there was a travel team formed in Bayonne that recruited 13- to 15-year-olds.
“We had our Babe Ruth draft before this travel team was formed,” he said. “After our draft, about eight or nine kids that were drafted in Babe Ruth signed up to play for this travel team. And when our season started, all of the players decided that they would attend their travel team games whenever there was a conflict. Babe Ruth teams had to forfeit games because lack of players.”
He added, “It was a year later that this policy went into effect. If a player misses any one of our games to participate in an outside travel baseball program, that player is permanently removed.”
The rescheduled game was unfortunate, he said, but the league has only one field and that games must be made up when there is an available slot.