The Atlee Little League softball team from Virginia was disqualified from the Junior League World Series championship game Saturday after one team member posted a photo on Snapchat of six players with their middle fingers up.
Little League spokesman Kevin Fountain said the post violated the unsportsmanlike conduct policies of the league and called it “inappropriate,” according to The Washington Post.
Team manager Scott Currie reprimanded the players involved and made them delete the post and apologize in person to the rival Kirkland, Washington, team at which the photo was aimed. According to the Post, Currie later said he didn’t think the punishment fit the crime, however, and asked the league to investigate the Kirkland team for targeting the Atlee team with harassment during the Friday game between the two teams, which Atlee won 1-0.
A player and coach from the Kirkland team were ejected from that game for relaying Atlee pitching signals to Kirkland batters during the game.
“It is important to remember the young women athletes involved in this unfortunate event are minors who are part of the fabric of this community that supported them,” Currie said in a lengthy statement, the Post reported.
Currie ended by saying, “As all young athletes are trained to do, they will brush themselves off after a loss, and try again — after having learned a most valuable lesson.”
The Atlee team was replaced in the championship by Kirkland, which lost 7-1.
It was unclear which rule the league invoked to disqualify the Atlee team, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.
Twitter had a variety of opinions on the matter.
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