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LITTLE LEAGUE WORLD SERIES
Little League World Series

Why Little League removed Tulsa baseball team from Southwest regionals

Kristie Ackert

USA TODAY
Updated Aug. 10, 2026, 8:14 p.m. ET

Little League International removed Tulsa National from the Southwest Region baseball tournament Monday, Aug. 10, ruling that one of the Oklahoma team’s players was ineligible. It is the second Tulsa National team thrown out of a regional in less than three weeks.

Little League’s ruling landed about an hour before first pitch in Waco, Texas. It erased Tulsa National’s 3-2 win over Louisiana on Sunday – the victory that had sent the team to the region final, one victory from Williamsport. That game is now a forfeit.

“The decision of the Little League International Tournament Committee is final and binding,” Little League said in a statement.

Monday’s 2 p.m. CT game was supposed to be an elimination semifinal between Texas West (Boerne) and Louisiana (Ascension Parish), It became the championship instead. The winner goes to the Little League World Series, which starts Aug. 19 in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Tuesday’s title game was canceled.

Little League did not name the player or say what he did wrong. The rule itself states that a kid has to live inside his league’s boundaries or go to school inside them.

Little League spelled that out three weeks ago in the softball case, when the tournament committee pulled Tulsa National’s softball team from its Southwest Region tournament, also in Waco, and forfeited its win over Louisiana. That team was one victory away from making the Little League Softball World Series. The committee said adults and parents had not produced enough documentation to show every player qualified, either through school enrollment or what Little League calls bona fide habitation, meaning where the child actually lives.

The questions go back further than this summer. After Tulsa National’s softball team finished third at the 2025 Softball World Series, parents, league officials and former administrators raised concerns about the roster, Tulsa TV station KTUL reported. They cited an Oklahoma City Little League board member and a Texas manager as having made the protests.

Little League reviewed a protest then and cleared Tulsa National, finding the league had supplied documentation consistent with its rule.

Whether anything follows Monday’s ruling is unclear. Little League has removed teams and gone further before. In 2015, it stripped Jackie Robinson West of its Great Lakes and U.S. titles after finding the Chicago Little League team had used players from outside it boundaries. It also suspended the manager and removed the district administrator.

Little League’s statement Monday said nothing about penalties. It ended with thoughts for the kids involved.

“Little League International is committed to supporting all children impacted by this decision and will continue to provide support and administrative guidance to the families in Tulsa National Little League.

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Original source: https://www.usatoday.com/sports/

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