Everyone is new to Little League at some point. If that is you right now, here are some things that are good to know as you become part of the program and part of our league.
About Little League
Virtues - The three virtues of Little League - Character, Courage, Loyalty - continue to be the driving force that guides the Little League experience. Little League has redefined what these words mean to the program and, while the words are used differently today, the value of those three words will never be lost.
CHARACTER is knowing yourself and staying true to your values.
COURAGE is the ability to act confidently under pressure and in the face of adversity.
LOYALTY is acknowledging where you come from and representing your community with pride.
Structure - Little League players and teams are organized by League, District, State and Region. The foundation of the program is the local league, which is focused on including youth from a particular area; Westwood LL is such a league, focused on the west side of Kalamazoo.
A number of local leagues are then grouped into a District. District 2 comprises 12 local leagues, including Westwood, and is one of 16 districts in the state of Michigan.
Michigan is one of 13 states that make up the Central Region of Little League, which is headquartered outside of Indianapolis.
Central is one of 5 regions in the US that implement the LL program on behalf of the International Headquarters in Williamsport, PA. There are also 4 international regions.
Eligibility - Players are eligible to join a league based on their residence or their school being within the league's boundary. This helps maintain the community feel and identity of a league since you play with neighbors or schoolmates.
All Stars - This is the common name for the tournaments held after the regular season that lead to one of the World Series operated by Little League. District winners can advance to a State tournament, then to a Region tournament, then to the World Series. The All Star tournaments start in late June and can stretch to late August. See the
All Stars page for more details about our District and State tournaments.
About Westwood
Board of Directors - The group of people elected by our volunteer population to lead the league. The
Board of Directors page lists the current members as well as descriptions of the positions and reasons to join the Board.
Volunteers - After the players, this is the most important group of people to our league. Board members, coaches, team parents, umpires, concessions workers, grounds keepers - all those who make the league work - are volunteers. There are numerous ways you can
help the league as a volunteer and we encourage you to find the right role for you. It takes many hours to operate the league but you can make a big difference even if you don't have a lot of time.
Divisions - Players are grouped by age into divisions of play. The division names we use, the age groupings, and the traditional days of play are on the
Divisions page. It is possible the days of play can change from year to year, especially if interleague play is involved, but those changes are rare.
Games - Teams have two games scheduled each week. Teams must have at least 12 games scheduled and played for the season, though generally there are 14-16 games scheduled. That enables us to ensure teams are able play 12 games for All Star eligibility if games need to be canceled for weather or other reasons.
Interleague - If we don't have at least 4 teams in a division, or if other leagues need opponents due to their low number of teams, we would schedule games against other leagues in District 2. That means traveling to other
area league locations for games. All the leagues try to balance the schedules so each team plays one of their games each week at home.
Concessions - The concession stand is a significant fundraiser for the league and allows us to improve the league grounds and operations each year. To maximize the funds for the league, we operate the stand via volunteers. Each team is asked to provide a few people to work one day (a few teams will have two so that we can cover all days). We schedule teams on days they play at Westwood and encourage them to find enough workers so that shifts can be split to minimize the amount of team anyone would be away from the game. We have found that most parents prefer to volunteer at concessions during games rather than come to the fields on a day they wouldn't otherwise be there.
FAQ - We have a list of other common questions on our
Frequently Asked Questions page.