Best of 2008 Little League feted

The champions of the Major, Junior, Senior, and Big Leagues were celebrated during the 2008 Saipan Little League Baseball Association awards ceremony held last Saturday at the pavilion behind the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium.

The event was almost two months after all four age group finals were concluded, but the SLLBA had good reason to postpone the award ceremony, as Saipan hosted the 2008 Asia-Pacific Regional Little League Tournament in the three older age groups recently.

SaipanCell Patriots were the first to receive their trophy after the Thelma Mizer-managed team won the Major League regular season and playoff championship trophies.

It marked the third straight year that the SaipanCell Communications-backed squad had dominated the division.

Mizer and her 12-man dynamite crew capped a one-loss season with a 15-0 demolition of the Dragons last May 25 at the Miguel Basa “Tan Ge” Pangelinan Field.

Last year, the Patriots repeated as champions after a 20-1 drubbing of the Hustlers. The win capped an 18-0 season, including 15-0 in the regular season.

The year before that, the Patriots won the Major League title following an 11-7 win over the Tanapag Braves. The team went 21-0 in 2006, including 18-0 in the regular season.

Also receiving their hardware Saturday were regular season runners-up UMDA Hustlers I and Bank of Saipan Red Sox and playoff runners-up San Antonio Dragons and Ol’Aces. Shell Suns, meanwhile, won the sportsmanship plum.

The Patriots also lorded it over the individual awards as Jeremy Rabauliman and teammate Jun Rabauliman were named playoff and regular season MVPs, respectively.

Other Major League individual awardees were Pirates’ Frankie Camacho (batting champ: .733), Aldebert Lizama (runs champs; 38), Jun Rabauliman (doubles champ: 18), Jeremy Rabauliman, Jun Rabauliman, and Survivors’ Poland Masaharu (homerun champs: seven), Jun Rabauliman (RBI champ: 38), Patriots’ Chris Mizer (ERA champ: 0.26), and Patriots’ Jeremy Lizama (strikeout champ: 56).

SLLBA president Juan I. Tenorio congratulated all the teams that made up the 2008 season of the program during an interview with the Saipan Tribune following the awards ceremony.

“First of all, I would like to congratulate the managers and the coaches for a great job done. The result of their work is showing when we find that some of the players are tied for homeruns, for RBIs, for doubles, triples. So, those are indicators on how our leagues have progressed and developed.”

He, however, encouraged everyone involved in the island’s Little League program not to rest on their laurels and work to make it better in the coming years.

“My overall assessment of the 2008 season is above average, we still have some room for improvement and I hope that we would continue to work to achieve that end and to continue to improve. Hopefully, next year more teams will participate in the 2008 season. That would give us more players to select for the all-stars,” he said.

The Kagman Lion Hearts (Junior League), Jets (Senior League), and Tanapag Falcons (Big League) also were feted Saturday with SLLBA officials awarding them their trophies. Full details of their successful season will be published in the Saipan Tribune in the coming days.