Starting with the 2025 Little League season, players ages 4 to 7 can elect to play in whichever league they want, regardless of where they live or go to school.

The change is a big one, as it removes the boundary requirement that had been in place for all Little League players, and it has created uneasiness among those who help run these leagues.

“It’s going to hurt some leagues. It’s going to benefit other leagues. But all the district administrators that I know of across the country are very apprehensive about this rule, because there is that possibility of using it to get some sort of advantage,” said Chet Cooper, who has been involved in Little League in various roles for about 30 years and is the administrator of Ohio’s District 2.

Cooper said there have already been instances of families signing up their child between the ages of 4 and 7, enabling them to move their older child into the same league despite being over the age limit to skirt the geographic or school-linked boundaries.

Little League is aware of the possibility of this rule change being exploited, Cooper said, and is actively tracking it via its new Central Registration platform, which is mandatory for all leagues in the United States, starting this season.

While league selection could help create pseudo travel teams in Little League and kill off smaller leagues, there is hope the change, which was first announced in December 2023, will help increase the number of children joining and staying in Little League baseball and softball.

“Maybe a kid from Youngstown goes to St. Charles, and all his friends are at school. Now, that child has the ability to play in whatever league his friends from school – if they’re mainly Boardman kids, then they could play here. If it’s a bunch of Canfield kids going to St. Charles, they could not play out there. So it’s an increased opportunity to get the Little League experience,” said longtime Boardman Little League secretary Greg Krieger.

Krieger said, though, that he has not seen much of a difference with the new rule in effect; according to him, around 10 players from outside of the Boardman league’s boundary joined the league, which would be about 2% of the roughly 600 registered players..

The South Range league, of which Brandy Angus is the president, has seen its participation increase as a result of the rule change. Still, she advocated for the geographic requirement to remain in place.

“I think the idea of having boundaries within Little League is something they should definitely hold on to,” Angus said. “It helps to protect smaller leagues from losing too many kids. It continually fosters the idea of community, which is very helpful, especially nowadays.”

Austintown Little League President Buzz Palkovic, an ardent supporter of maintaining boundaries, said that while the rule can be detrimental to certain leagues, travel teams are one of the biggest obstacles in keeping children involved in Little League regardless of where they play.

The prevalence and popularity of travel teams have become so great in baseball and softball, Palkovic said, that he has made efforts to “coexist” with them rather than try to compete directly.

“We’ve centered our program, pretty much, Monday through Friday to allow for those weekend travel ball players,” Palkovic said. “So this way, they can still play with their neighbors and friends and classmates during the week in the local Little League programs, and then on the weekends, they’re still free to travel with those other programs.”

While travel teams can negatively impact Little League, they have been helpful in the development of some of the area’s elite high school baseball and softball programs, which, by extension, can benefit Little League.

Angus said the success of the South Range high school programs – the Raiders’ baseball and softball teams are routinely among the best in the area – has led to greater participation and enthusiasm at the youth level.

“We have a higher number of softball players in our league than we’ve ever had in the 10 to 12 years I’ve been involved, and part of that is that we do a good job at keeping their interest in the game,” Angus said. “They usually have a game set up at the end of the year, where we’ll play on the high school field, and then some of the players will come and coach the kids and hang out with them and get to be with them. The kids really look up to them.”

Cooper and Palkovic confirmed that high school and previous Little League success, both of which the area has experienced recently, are enormously helpful to the youth program’s efforts. Austintown, in particular, has seen its Under-12 softball team make it to the Little League World Series in back-to-back years, while the Fitch softball team won its second straight state title last year.

“We’ve got an incredible relationship with [Fitch head coach] Steve Ward over with the softball girls,” Palkovic said. “They actually just got done – they put on a clinic last week and this week for our girls from elementary ages through middle school. We’ve got a tremendous relationship with him. He’s a firm believer in [us]. There’s kind of a quote that says, ‘Feed the nest,’ so to speak, for the Falcons. So we feed that nest with our program, get them ready for baseball and softball, but primarily on the softball side.”

While the skepticism about this most recent rule change will likely remain, there is palpable hope among the local league administrators that Little League will continue to serve communities as it has done for decades.

“There’s nothing like playing games with and against your friends and classmates and neighbors and co-workers,” Palkovic said. “You’re not going to get any more of a community feel outside of maybe Friday night high school football under the lights. Outside of that, you’re not going to get a stronger community feel than you will with community Little League.”