NWLL baseball scandal

[Anonymous]

Sad. I’ve always thought that LL should get rid of all-stars. My boys are aged out of LL, but in our league, all stars was the center of so much drama and bad behavior by the adults. Team stacking/rigging the player draft, political maneuvering to get AS coach positions, backdoor negotiating and favors traded regarding which kids get picked for AS, even favors trades for certain defensive positions ON the AS team. Basically the entire year was spent setting up for all stars, with serious talks/maneuvering by coaches and parents starting up to a year or even years ahead of time. The regular LL season was basically an afterthought- just going through the motions for alllll stars.

No sour grapes either- my kids were usually selected bc of their pitching ability

Board members in our league usually only stay for their kids’ time in the league, and many only volunteer to increase the chance their kid gets picked for all stars.

Little league would be better off without all stars IMHO. Just have an extended summer season for the kids who want to play rather than centering around just a few- after all, the majority of kids never make an AS team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s a solution that might help everything: merge CCLL and NWLL, form new board, then maybe a DC team has a chance to advance beyond Bristol!

Not sure that’s fair to the other DC leagues but an overall re-org sounds nice - although might be impractical across the city.

[Anonymous]

Here is a solution - due to the cheating and recognition of it by - LLI gives DC LL the "death penalty" similar to SMU.

No team from DC allowed into play-offs for 5 years? No coach or Board member allowed to serve?

Send a message that this is about the kids and if adults can't hold their part - the kids will suffer

[Anonymous]

The 46 page letter - without the minors name.
I read nothing but facts, sadly this is NWLL reality.
How the Board of Directors had the balls to double down after all the evidence presented it’s incomprehensible. Corrupts and proud, I guess that’s the new trend.
Grab your popcorn, enjoy your reading and you’re welcome!

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August 13, 2023
Board of Directors
Northwest Washington Little League (“NWLL”)
Dear Board of Directors and NWLL Community: Since 2022,
AAA Commissioner (Erin Sweeney) and Majors Commissioner (Mike Klisch), i.e., members of the NWLL board of directors (the “Board”), have been investigating serious allegations of cheating, wrongdoing, favoritism, financial improprieties, retaliation
(including against NWLL players) and other misconduct by certain board members, including
NWLL President Ricky Davenport and Pete Robinson.

Such misconduct includes manipulating draft scores and violating draft rules to stack their Majors team, falsifying waiver requests to steal top players from other leagues, sending emails to the local District Administrator (“D.A.”) and Little League International (“LLI”) that contain false statements about children’s playing history in NWLL (to keep them in NWLL), paying umpires who refuse to ump games, allowing umpires to mistreat children, parents and coaches, retaliating against those who challenge their misconduct, and manipulating and falsifying Board minutes to hide discussions about wrongful conduct.

Over the course of more than one year, Sweeney and Klisch (the “Demanding Members”) have obtained a plethora of irrefutable evidence that clearly and unequivocally substantiates the allegations of gross cheating, wrongdoing and gross misconduct. But despite this clear evidence, the Board, despite acknowledging some of the misconduct, has refused to take any punitive action against the wrongdoers. In fact, it has refused to even discuss the evidence at times. Instead, it has constantly looked the other way, helped fabricate and peddle implausible explanations, protected and enabled the wrongdoers, gone to great lengths to conceal it, and repeatedly retaliated against the Demanding Members and their children.

In part because Davenport and Vice President Paul Donnellan have repeatedly refused to produce documents concerning the wrongdoing, the “Demanding Members” exercise their statutory and common law rights to examine the NWLL books, records and documents (“The Documents”) described herein (“The Inspection Demand”).1

1. Donnellan refused to provide access to documents he claims were relied upon by the Board in connection with its decision-making process, such as a letter he claims exists from 12U coaches that supposedly supports Davenport and disputes the allegations of cheating. He also assisted Davenport in, among other matters, fabricating explanations for the wrongdoing, helping Davenport navigate an investigation by LLI, and concealing documents and information concerning waiver requests and other allegations of wrongdoing.

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This Inspection Demand is also issued for purposes of (a) complying with the Board’s vote to conduct a financial audit of NWLL, (b) obtaining true and full information regarding the financial status, practices and condition of NWLL, (c) obtaining true and full information concerning Davenport’s actions with respect to, among other things, (i) the 2022 Majors Spring season draft (the “Draft”), (ii) the registration and/or admission of ineligible players to play for NWLL, (iii) NWLL’s eligibility waiver request process, (iv) waiver requests submitted to the D.A. and LLI, as well as drafts of waiver requests, (v) statements made in connection with allegations of wrongdoing, carrying out and conducting the business of NWLL, including those relating to the Draft, eligibility of players, hardship cases, waiver requests, use of coupons to selectively reduce or subsidize the cost of playing for NWLL for particular players, selectively permitting certain Majors players to join the Intermediate or Junior teams at no cost, (vi) NWLL financial payments and fee waivers, (vii) complying with, and overseeing, LLI eligibility rules, waiver requests and best practices, (viii) making informal rules, such as ordering that travel baseball practices not take priority over NWLL games until it impacts his Majors team, at which point he reverses himself and demands schedule changes and benefits for only his team, and (ix) his retaliation against Board members who challenge his actions.

This Inspection Demand is also issued because certain Board members have thwarted the effort to discuss and investigate wrongful conduct by, among other things, refusing to address or have a meaningful discussion about misconduct, refusing to hold Davenport accountable (or require him to answer basic questions about his misconduct).
As noted above, some Board members agree in private that Davenport engages in wrongful conduct, including cheating, but remain silent at Board meetings, or ignore or dismiss the evidence out of hand. Instead of adhering to their fiduciary duties, certain Board members have employed a “best defense is a good offense” strategy by bullying and attacking the whistleblowers. For example, when the Demanding Members tried to address and/or discuss evidence of clear wrongdoing, Board members yelled at them, used profanity, name-called and berated them, and invented false accusations against them to try and gain leverage. Despite agreeing that Davenport engaged in misconduct, including cheating, they gaslit the Demanding Members by accusing them of living in a “fantasy” world and using words like “crazy.”
At other times, they retaliated against the Demanding Members and tried to bully them into backing down and resigning from the Board. As noted, they also retaliated against their children by denying them the opportunity to play baseball in NWLL by secretly creating a team that the children registered for, practicing for weeks, and then, only when caught, delete electronically stored information to try and hide the team - after which Robinson created the appearance of a tryout by giving them a last-minute opportunity to make the team.
The Documents sought herein also include appropriate accounting records, minutes of all meetings of its members, the Board, and any record “of all actions taken by the members, board of directors, or members of a designated body without a meeting, and a record of all actions.

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taken by a committee of the board of directors or a designated body on behalf of the corporation” and relevant communications sent by, or received from, Board members.
Per DC Code Sections, e.g., 29-413.01-02, 29-413.05 and 29-313.05, this Inspection Demand must be construed liberally. NWLL must produce the requested information in its possession, custody or control, and its Board members, affiliates, directors, advisors, agents and those persons or entities subject to NWLL’s control, e.g., if Davenport can obtain documents that the D.A. possesses, he must produce them.2
I. BACKGROUND.
A. LLI Eligibility Rules and Consequences for False Statements re Eligibility or in Waiver Requests.
LLI takes very seriously its eligibility requirements and waiver requests - and the consequences for violations of its eligibility rules and best practices can be very harsh. In a webinar on eligibility and waiver requests posted on the LLI website (the “Webinar”), LLI makes clear that “Leagues cannot allow players to participate not meeting residency and/or school requirements without first receiving approval from the Charter Committee.” For “out of boundary” players, a waiver request “must be made before player’s participation in the league.” Id. The “League and such player are not eligible until such notice is received from the Charter Committee.” “Any league who accepts any player outside of their boundaries and fails to properly document compliance or obtain a waiver through the Little League International Charter Committee may result in the disqualification of a player, team, or entire league from regular season and/or tournament play.” Id. During the Webinar, Charter Committee members were quite clear about how the rules work:

...it’s quite simple. A local league cannot allow any player to participate without meeting your residency or school requirements. If they don’t, the League and the district have to get approval through the charter committee. And it’s a couple of things that with out of bounds players that we like local leagues and districts to remember is that no league is obligated to request a waiver for a child that doesn’t meet the requirements. It’s up to the local league to vote on that and decide

2. Despite that LLI rules require Davenport to maintain copies of waiver requests, for example, he vacillates between saying he doesn’t have them and saying they might be in the “trash.” See LLI webinar (“League President, or the player agent keeps a record of it and keeps that within the league files, the DA keeps a copy. And obviously, the parent keeps a copy”). On May 8, LLI warned Davenport that NWLL he must “make sure you keep them on file, as they will need to accompany the Tournament Player Verification Form for each player, provided they make a tournament team.”

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whether they do want to request a waiver or not. And if they do, and their request has to be made before the player participates in the league at all. And it’s in the rulebook that it states you know, a waiver for a player has to be established before the players first game, or any participation. And it’s clear to remember that a league and player are not eligible until that notification is received from the charter committee.
It's a local league responsibility to ensure that that player is eligible for participation.... Because the last thing we want to have happen is find out a player is not eligible to participate. Right. Which leads us into false statements. So obviously, false statements aren’t good, because it creates a very bad situation for the players involved. So, making sure that false statements of residency and school enrollment, they could potentially player ineligibility. To that end, if the league accepts an out of boundary player or fails to properly document compliance or obtaining a waiver via the Little League International charter committee, it can result in disqualification of the player, the team or the entire league from regular season, or tournament play, which is something we’d like to avoid.
... So moving on to the actual waiver request until it’s approved by the committee, the league cannot utilize the requested alteration or the player in question.... Obviously, with a player, it’s got to be done ... before the player participates,....
But, again ... the district administrator of the local league itself, don’t have any authority to grant any waivers without checking through us first....
So here you see in front of you regulation 2d. This essentially allows the player who has previously participated with the league and met residency or school eligibility requirements to be retained for the duration of their career with full eligibility after having moved to a new residence or school outside of the local league boundaries.... However, what they’ll have to do is provide supporting documentation to make sure that they can allow that continued participation.... should a player elect to break the service with that league, then they're ineligible to come back to that local league. So that’s something very important for people to know is that if you break your duration of our term of duration, or duration of term ... that you’re not able to come back to that local league.
B. NWLL’s Core Objectives and Principles.
NWLL has core values, objectives and principles rooted, not in winning at all costs, but the well-being of children:

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(a) All League Directors, Officers, Managers and Coaches shall bear in mind that the creation of a healthy competitive environment that fosters the values of teamwork, sportsmanship and citizenship is of prime and paramount importance; the attainment of superior athletic skill and the outcomes of games are at all times incidental and secondary to the education, development and well-being of the children. [emphasis added]
II. DAVENPORT CHEATS BY REGISTERING A CLEARLY INELIGIBLE PLAYER (Player One), PREPARING A BLATANTLY FALSE WAIVER REQUEST AND LYING TO LLI ABOUT ELIGIBILITY.
On April 13, 2023, after the spring season started, Player One’s father (“Ross Goldman” or “Goldman”) started emailing, texting and calling Board members about Player One’s eligibility. As a result, the Board learned that, starting in July 2022, Davenport had been telling Goldman (falsely) that Player One was eligible to play in NWLL in the fall 2022, spring 2023 and summer 2023 seasons. Davenport then drafted and submitted a waiver request (and sent correspondence to LLI) that contained multiple false statements about Player One’s playing history, i.e., that Player One played baseball in NWLL in 2017 and 2018, didn’t play baseball in NWLL in 2021 because of COVID, didn’t play baseball in 2021 because Goldman was confused about eligibility and that his school (GDS) became out of boundary in 2021.3 Davenport’s draft waiver request even specified which division he played in, e.g., “AAA” in 2018.
Goldman told Davenport that Player One didn’t play NWLL. Despite this, Davenport later wrote an email to LLI saying that Player One “has been a NWLL player since 2017....” That statement was knowingly false and done so to effectively steal a player from Cap City Little League (“CCLL”), the only little league where he was eligible to play.
Goldman’s initial inquiry started a chain of events that led to Player One being declared ineligible by the D.A. and LLI and Player One transferring to CCLL.4 Largely because he transferred too late in the season, Player One was then left off the CCLL 12U summer team.
Because Davenport has continued to lie about what actually transpired and cover up his misconduct, the following is an abbreviated chronology of events, nearly all of which is documented in writing via email or text messages. Phone calls are noted as such.
3. Davenport continues to conceal the waiver request(s).
4. On June 11, 2023 the D.A. attended a NWLL Board meeting and said that LLI’s decision eligibility is the “gospel”

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On July 22, 2022, Goldman, who was trying to register Player One for NWLL, told Robinson, a Board member and GDS middle school baseball coach, that GDS wasn’t “listed in the schools on the registration page.”5 Robinson responded that he could get around this problem and told Goldman should “go to the school part, try [selecting] ‘other’ - and if that doesn’t work, just create the account and web admin will create the registration for you.” Goldman responded that the “Other didn’t work.” Per Davenport’s emails, Robinson and Davenport knew that GDS was an out of boundary school, have known that for years, and know that GDS students have been eligible to play only in CCLL since 2020. CCLL believes that Robinson used his affiliation with GDS to funnel Goldman from CCLL to NWLL in violation of the eligibility rules.
On July 27, after Robinson and Davenport conferred secretly, Robinson told Goldman that he (Robinson) registered Player One for NWLL and that Goldman should be able to complete the registration. Despite that Player One was unquestionably out of boundary (school and address), neither Robinson nor Davenport told Goldman that a waiver of any kind was needed. Per Davenport’s and Robinson’s request, Player One was assigned to Davenport’s and Robinson’s team in the fall of 2022.
On December 4, 2022, Goldman tried to register Player One for the spring 2023 season and encountered the same problem, as the NWLL registration system wouldn’t allow him to register Player One for the Spring 2023 season because he was ineligible. Thus, Goldman told Davenport and Robinson that he was having the “same problem as I had in the fall, where GDS isn’t listed as an in-boundary school.” Davenport cheated by fixing that “problem.” Goldman thanked him and Robinson for registering Player One, i.e., “[g]uessing you did something because he’s registered and paid for.” Id. Davenport replied “[n]o problem at all. For the schools you just have to choose Other.” In other words, they got around the GDS ineligibility by labeling GDS “other.”
On April 13, 2023, after Davenport drafted Player One for his team and Player One started playing in the Spring 2023, Goldman emailed Majors Commissioner Klisch asking whether Player One was eligible to play in the spring 2023 season and on the summer 12U team. Player eligibility is not in Klisch’s duties, and did not know the answer at the time, so he directed Goldman to Tournament Director Will Young (“Ross has some questions about eligibility that I think are best answer[ed] by you”). Goldman then told Will Young what Davenport and Robinson had told him:
I’m writing with a question about summer all-star eligibility. We live in Bethesda. My son Player One plays for the Greys in Majors for Pete and Ricky. He goes to Georgetown Day School, which as I understand it, used to be in NWLL’s boundary until the campus moved a couple of years ago. Player One also played NWLL a few years ago, while he attended GDS at the previous location on
5. Georgetown Day School (“GDS”) is not on the NWLL registration page because it has been out of the NWLL boundary since 2020. As detailed below, in an effort obtain a waiver for Player One, Davenport lied about this to LLI when he said GDS went out of boundary in 2021.

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MacArthur Blvd., on a team coached by Michael Korns. I know that Player One is eligible to play NWLL, I understand either (or both) because GDS used to be in NWLL’s boundary and/or he played NWLL when GDS was in NWLL’s boundary. I just want to get confirmation that he will be eligible to play on the summer all star team.
On April 15, Will Young asked if “Player One played NWLL in the spring of 2021 and 2022?...” and asks Sague to “give more insight into how GDS is treated.” John Sague, NWLL’s registrar, responded:
GDS is no longer considered an ‘In-boundary’ school for NWLL. I think this makes Player One ineligible to play, but I am double checking now .... [emphasis added]
Goldman, now very upset, responded that:
this is more than a little disconcerting, and also quite surprising. We had been told without any doubt that Player One was eligible to play NWLL last fall and this spring, even though we live in Bethesda and he goes to GDS. Are there different rules for the summer all-star team? [emphasis added].
Sague opined that Player One “would remain eligible as long as you continued to play in the league each Spring season” and queried whether Player One played “baseball in the Spring of 2021 and 2022?” Goldman added Robinson and Davenport to the chain and wrote that:
[Player One] did not play little league in spring 21 or 22. He played on a travel team called the Maryland Nationals for those years.
On April 16, Will Young said that a “2D waiver might be possible but if Player One hasn’t played NWLL for the past two springs, this might be hard.” Goldman, upset, called Klisch to report that (a) Davenport called him to say he would seek a waiver and, if it’s denied, “at least we can say we tried”, (b) he had made it clear to Davenport that Max didn’t play in NWLL in 2020 and 2021 because of travel baseball, i.e., not because of COVID or because he was uncertain or confused about his eligibility in NWLL and (c) he told Davenport that Player One played NWLL only one season (2019). At no time in the email chain did Davenport say that Sague or Will Young were wrong or that there was a “rewritten” rule that made Player One eligible to play in NWLL.
Davenport decides to prepare a waiver request: On April 16, Davenport, apparently without involving Sague, told Goldman “that official waiver paperwork has been done and is with the Charter Committee for a decision.” Goldman asked Klisch if “[y]ou know anything about that?” and asked about transferring to CCLL and whether Klisch will communicate that to

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CCLL. Goldman, concerned about the accuracy of Davenport’s waiver request, demanded to see the waiver request [emphasis added]:
forward me a copy of the waiver paperwork that was sent to the Eastern Region? I’m curious to learn, in particular, what was said regarding the basis for seeking the waiver.
Sague responded that he:
did not submit it personally and do not have a copy of it. The basis for the appeal/waiver is to determine if you are ‘grandfathered’ into NWLL based on the previous school location and prior season played. With the complexities of the Covid Gap, and timing for the school move we want to confirm eligibility prior to it impacting the summer tournament team.
Goldman, who was becoming increasingly frustrated, called Klisch to say he wants no part of dishonesty (which he repeats in a text) and later tells another parent that he’s a “government lawyer” and will only do something that is above board. Sague writes that Davenport never showed him the waiver request before filing it.
Davenport then gave Goldman an unsigned copy of the waiver request. Goldman sees that it contains false and misleading statements, i.e., that Player One played baseball in NWLL in 2017 (false), 2018 (false) and didn’t play in 2021 because of COVID (false). He also sees that Davenport’s waiver request even specified the divisions that Player One supposedly played in, i.e., “AAA Minors” for 2017. Goldman demands (in a phone call) that Davenport withdraw it and submit an accurate one. He then called Klisch and expresses his disbelief that Davenport submitted a false waiver, e.g.:
I don’t understand how he could have possibly gotten this wrong. I was very clear with him about when Player One played in Northwest and that this wasn’t a Covid issue. My wife and I read the waiver several times and it’s wrong.
Goldman also inquires (again) about transferring to CCLL so that Player One has an opportunity to play on its 12U summer team. CCLL asks whether “[i]f you removed the seasons cancelled for Covid would he have played consecutive seasons for Nwll.” Goldman says “no” (what he told Davenport).
On April 17, Davenport emails LLI saying “[h]ere is a request that I would like you to look at. Thanks for your help, and I hope everything is going well.” Because Davenport refused to produce the waiver requests, it is unclear which one he is referring to, but it appears that this was the false waiver request.

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By April 18, the CCLL board rejects Goldman’s transfer request. Goldman, upset, gives CCLL’s registrar screenshots of his emails and text messages with Robinson and Davenport, including those showing how Robinson and Davenport got around GDS being an out of boundary school. Goldman explained to CCLL that “I think you’ll see that I tried really hard to get this right” and calls Klisch to explain, among other things, that he wanted to show that he received wrong information from Davenport and Robinson. Goldman texts Klisch asking if Davenport “has the authority to block this”, i.e., a transfer to CCLL, and writes:
the harm to my son is considerably greater and more tangible than whatever diffuse unfairness his move to CC would impose upon the kids already
there. After all., he has a right to be there geographically... [emphasis added]
In response to Goldman’s pleas and screenshots, CCLL allows Player One to transfer to CCLL and contacts LLI, claiming that Davenport is poaching CCLL players by making false statements in waiver requests and emails. Goldman writes that “my family and my son are in a terribly unfair situation.”
On April 19, despite that Goldman previously told Davenport that Player One did not play NWLL in 2017 or 2018, Davenport reiterated the false statements he made in the waiver request and adds more false statements [emphasis added]:
Player has been a NWLL player since 2017 [false], his schools physical address changed when it built a new building in 2021 [false], went from in our boundary to out of our boundary by 2 blocks... He didn’t play in 2021, so I’m trying to see if that makes him ineligible for NWLL? [he also didn’t play in Spring 2022]
On April 20, LLI told Davenport that, “If [Player One] didn’t play in 2021, the 2d no longer applies. Your league would need to submit the waiver request to the charter committee to reinstate the 2d.”6 Accordingly, Davenport submits and “updated waiver” to LLI and says “Here’s the updated waiver. Just for clarification, he never left the school the schools actual physical address changed.” Since then, Davenport has told many people, including Board members, that he only submitted one waiver, but his emails show that this is false.
On April 21, Goldman texts saying that “For what it’s worth, NWLL’s website still lists GDS as being in-boundary for NWLL.” Sague writes that Player One is not eligible to play NWLL and that Davenport’s waiver says that GDS moved when Player One stopped playing:
6. Davenport lied to others when he said that the Charter Committee became involved only because Klisch and Sweeney involved LLI. As LLI’s and Davenport’s emails state, the Charter Committee becomes involved when there is a break in playing, which happened here.

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We are asking LLI for a ruling because of the school moving and the time he took off from playing. If he tried to register today with no prior involvement in NWLL he would not be eligible...
Sague thinks, likely because of what Davenport told him, that COVID is why Player One didn’t play NWLL in 2021:
there is enough Grey area to request the waiver, but it might be denied [and that] the key factor is that he did not maintain eligibility by playing each Spring. I think once you take a spring season off, your grandfather status goes away. We are trying to tie his absence to a COVID gap.
About this time, Klisch started asking Davenport for a copy of the waiver request(s), e.g., “please send me a copy of the waiver request?” Davenport, as he does when his conduct is scrutinized, became very aggressive, as he stonewalled, lied, claimed he didn’t have a copy, said the waiver request might be in the “trash” and “no longer needed”, and then gave Klisch a blank form, all of which was accompanied by increasingly hostile, sarcastic, and accusatory language:
7
- “I don’t need to prove anything to you” ... “I’m also not going to jump through hoops for you on a player that’s no longer in the league”
- “if you are going to aspire to model yourself after a league pick one that isn’t considered the dirtiest in the city please ... As long as the waiver is submitted on time he is not ineligible”
-“are you working against NWLL by contacting CCLL? I’m sure the board would love to know the answer”
- “the waiver was amended and resubmitted at the request of LLI” and “to play regular season not specifically for summer”
- “What John told you was absolutely correct, if we were using the old rule, the old rule has since been reworded, so that’s why LLI said to resubmit the waiver”7
- “Player One played 2022-fall, 2021-DNP, and 2020-Covid, so get your facts straight before you state them”
- “Ross Goldman, registered his son himself, not me so sorry wrong again”
7. Typos in emails are in most instances not corrected.

[Anonymous]

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meeting on June 15, 2023, and voted to approve the waivers, i.e., once again, the Board had to deal with Davenport not following basic waiver rules.
IV. DAVENPORT CHEATS BY STACKING HIS TEAM, BY VIOLATING THE DRAFT RULES AND BY MANUFACTURING FALSE TRYOUT SCORES FOR A TOP 5 PLAYER FROM CAPITAL HILL LITTLE LEAGUE.
The Player One incident is not the first incident of gross misconduct on Davenport’s part. In fact, it happened concurrently with - and on the immediate heels of - other blatant incidents of cheating by Davenport. In the Spring of 2022, once again assisted by Robinson, Davenport repeatedly cheated by (a) creating fake draft scores for a top 5 Capital Hill Little League (“Cap Hill”) player who transferred to NWLL (Player Three), (b) using those scores to conceal Player Three’s true talent, i.e., bury him in the 4th round and then draft him, and (c) violating NWLL draft rules by placing two other top 5 players on his team (Player Four and Player Five), all of which disrupted the competitive balance of the 2022 Majors season.
Sadly, numerous other Board members, because of their friendship with Davenport and/or the benefits they derive from him and/or NWLL, lacked the independence to address the cheating and gross misconduct, as they (a) disregarded the cheating allegations and refused to even consider consequences, (c) did not conduct a proper process to address the cheating allegations, (d) refused to discuss the evidence of cheating in a board meeting without Davenport in attendance,11 (e) turned a blind eye and/or participated in the cheating, (f) admitted privately that Davenport cheated but remained silent at Board meetings and/or attacked the whistleblowers, (g) actively helped him excuse and conceal the cheating, and (h) covered it up themselves.
A. Summary of Davenport’s Draft Related Cheating.
1.Davenport cheats by placing two top 5 players on his Grays team in violation of the NWLL draft rules.
Prior to the Draft, Davenport told Klisch, the new Majors Commissioner at the time, that there was a NWLL rule that gave Davenport the right to place any two players on his team (the “Grays”) before the draft. Davenport refused to produce the rule to Klisch or make a reasonable effort to locate it. Based only on the purported rule, Davenport placed two top 5 players on his team, e.g.,
11. In stark contrast, the Board excluded interested Board members, e.g., Davenport and Klisch (who were 2023 summer team manager candidates), when the Board met to discuss and vote on the 2023 summer team managers.

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Player Four and Player Five. Player Four’s mother, Katherine Rossi, is a Board member and friend of Davenport.
- In October 2022, long after the season ended, Klisch asked Davenport (again) for the rule. This time he produced it in a matter of minutes. Contrary to what Davenport told Klisch prior to the Draft, the rule allowed Davenport to place 1 player on his team, not two.
2. Davenport cheats by creating fake tryout scores.
- By early 2022, Davenport learned that Player Three, a top 5 Cap Hill player, was interested in transferring to NWLL.
- Months later, and for no explained reason, Player Three did not appear at tryouts and Davenport declared that only he would “assess” Player Three’s skill level. Klisch assessed the other 12 or so players who did not attend tryouts by, among other things, consulting with persons with first-hand knowledge of their skill level.
- In direct violation of how NWLL assesses no-shows, Davenport did nothing to assess Player Three’s skill level, e.g., he did not contact his prior Cap Hill coach to assess his ability. Rather, he arbitrarily assigned random, fake and false scores of 6.322, 5.681, 6.356 (on a 1-10 scale).
- Because in the NWLL draft process decimal points are only generated from averaging multiple scores, Davenport’s decimal points for Dylan created the false appearance that he attended tryouts, was evaluated by multiple scorekeepers and that his scores were averaged by the Board. Davenport also made sure to eliminate the “no show” notation that NWLL utilizes for players who miss tryouts, i.e., Player Three was not identified as a “no show.”
- Davenport’s fake scores slotted Player Three into the fourth round in a group of players substantially below his skill level (51/85 total players), including multiple AAA players who were “playing up” in Majors. Davenport then drafted Player Three without hesitation in the fourth round, i.e., he concealed his skill level from the other coaches in order to “stack” his team.
3. Davenport’s Cheating Disrupted the Competitive Balance.
- Davenport’s cheating resulted in his Grays team having three top 5 players (Player Three, Player Four and Player Five). As a result, Davenport’s team was stacked, unbeatable, or nearly unbeatable. Davenport’s cheating clearly disrupted the

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competitive balance of the Majors division. The Grays won the Majors Championship.
- The three top 5 players also played a prominent, starting role on the summer 12U team that won the DC State title. As for Player Three, his performance belied Davenport’s fake draft scores but was entirely consistent with Cap Hill’s assessment of him being a top 5 player.
B. Davenport’s Initial Explanations are Implausible and not Believable.
Klisch initially raised his concerns with Davenport privately in late 2022. After Davenport refused to concede or admit wrongdoing, Klisch started presenting evidence to the Board. For weeks Davenport just refused to respond to basic questions about what he had done.
Davenport ultimately started to trickle out responses. He conceded that (a) the scores he created for Player Three were not averages, (b) he “slotted him were I wanted him”, (c) “[o]bviously I should have ranked him higher”, (d) he gave the Commissioner the “wrong form” that had unreasonably low scores for Player Three, (e) he had another form with higher correct scores for Player Three that he lost, (f) the low fake scores were for his (and Robinson’s) “eyes only”, and (e) he made a mistake by placing two players on his team rather than the one allowed by the rule.
On February 17, 2023, Klisch, per Walsh’s request, limited his inquiry to Davenport to five follow-up questions, including “[h]ow did you arrive at the numbers 6.322, 5.681 and 6.356, i.e., did you just create them?” and “why didn’t stop the draft and point that out to everyone when you selected him?” Davenport refused to answer the questions.
C. The Flawed February 2023 Board Meeting.
At the February 26, 2023, Board meeting (“February Board Meeting”), Davenport handed out a multi-page single spaced written statement that he prepared with a secret “trusted advisor.” Although it was implausible and unbelievable, the Board never addressed the cheating allegations or Davenport’s statement, but instead accepted the written statement at face value. Davenport gave vague and unpersuasive explanations, as he (a) said he could not find the purported draft slate with the supposed correct, higher scores, for Player Three, (b) did not explain how he arrived at the scores of 6.322, 5.681 and 6.356, (c) did not explain why he used decimal points, and, perhaps most telling, and (d) opined that the low scores and “lost” higher scores were both accurate, which is impossible. But the Board did not pause to read the written statement or discuss it. In fact, it has never discussed the written statement.
And when Board started arriving at the February Board Meeting, there were 9 or so non- board members in the room. Their attendance was planned secretly in advance without notice to the entire Board. Each non-board member had one thing in common, i.e., their child played on

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the 12U summer team (coached by Davenport) that won the DC State title in 2022. All but one 12U parent also had a child eligible to play on the 2023 summer 12U team. Each one, with a clear personal interest at stake, staunchly supported Davenport and was against any disciplinary action of any sort. Many of them refused to even speak to Klisch or Sweeney.
Chaos effectively broke out over their attendance, as the Board debated whether to allow the 12U parents to stay in the room. After a back and forth, one 12U parent (Joshua Daniel) said that the 12U parents would not leave unless the Board voted to impose no consequences against Davenport for cheating. Donnellan quickly moved for no consequences, which the Board supported with a 10-3 vote. Satisfied, the 12U parents left the room. The Board allowed no discussion about the cheating or Davenport’s statement. In fact, it has never met to discuss or critically analyze the evidence.
D. Davenport’s Written Statement is Unbelievable and Implausible.
Later, to cover up their own wrongdoing, certain Board members, e.g., Donnellan, invented the notion that the Board read and analyzed Davenport’s written statement. Specifically, on June 11, 2023, Donnellan tried to whitewash the record with a self-serving, gratuitous and false email saying that:
every Member of the Board was well acquainted with both the allegations and Ricky’s explanations. While you may continue to believe personally that there was some kind of cheating, that was not the conclusion reached by the Board after considering the evidence presented by both sides.
But when asked if he spoke for the entire Board, Donnellan didn’t respond. That is because, as detailed below, his statement directly contradicts what numerous Board members said, such as Walsh, who said that Davenport’s written statement was “bullshit”, that Board members “didn’t want to get involved at all, they came in with what they want” and that he didn’t “like” that they shirked their duties by ignoring the cheating. Koopersmith, while vilifying Klisch, said that Davenport’s conduct was “shady.” Other Board members said that Davenport “definitely did something in my opinion” and “wants to win the championship.” Despite these statements, Donnellan acts as if every Board member accepted the totally implausible written statement and ignores that the Board never considered the cheating, but just voted for no consequences in response to 12U parents refusing to leave unless it did so.
Because the Board has refused to address Davenport’s written statement, Klisch and Sweeney provide this point-by-point response showing, without a doubt, that Davenport’s written statement is totally unbelievable, false and misleading:

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Davenport’s three decimal points: Davenport has never explained why his tryout scores for Player Three contain three decimal points other than saying they were designed to slot him where he “wanted him.”
Response: Davenport used decimal points to give the false appearance that Player Three appeared at tryouts and that his scores were averaged by someone.
Elimination of “no show” notation: Davenport says the “no show” notation was not on the coach’s scoring sheets.
Response: It was Davenport’s sole responsibility to ensure that every player who did not attend tryouts was identified as a “no show” on the Draft slate. He never explained why the Draft slate he created assigned a “no show” to only one player – not Player Three.
The 8s: Davenport says he is falsely accused of providing scores of 8 for Player Three on a coach’s draft scoring sheets.
Response: Davenport misses the point, which is that he created fake scores of 6.322, 5.681 and 6.356 out of nowhere.
Davenport’s initial admissions of clear wrongdoing. Davenport says that - when he admitted he “slotted” Player Three where he “wanted him” - he “simply meant that I ranked him where I thought he should be in the rankings based on my limited knowledge of him.” And by admitting that he “obviously” should have been “ranked higher” - Davenport claims he actually meant that, with “the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it is clear that he was much better than I had anticipated or understood at the time.”
Response: Davenport’s claim that the low scores were accurate is undermined by his claim that he (a) has a spreadsheet with higher scores that he admitted were the accurate ones and (b) gave Klisch the “wrong” spreadsheet with lower inaccurate scores. In other words, the low scores and the high scores cannot both be accurate.
Davenport’s lost Draft slate: Davenport says that one way to test whether he is being “honest about this” would be for him to produce the correct Draft slate with the higher scores, but that he can’t produce it because “I no longer have the computer on which the lists were prepared, and because I did not share the other list with anyone via email (since I erroneously shared only my own list), I can’t retrieve it from email.”
Response: Implausible because the purported lost Draft slate appears to be the only NWLL document he lost when he changed computers.

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Davenport’s back up explanation: Davenport says that “there is even a better way to reassure you that I’m telling the truth”, i.e., that he “proceeded to pick four or five other players” before Player Three who turned out to be “less skilled” than Player Three.
Response: Davenport was the only coach with “inside knowledge”, so he didn’t have to select Player Three earlier, which one coach noted:
What I’m not okay with is Ricky using inside knowledge to draft a player none of us knew would be phenomenal. That unfairly advantaged the Greys last year in a way that made them almost unbeatable. Can we trade them getting to pick two players (in a pre draft way) for Ricky letting all the coaches know about incoming talent (especially if he recruited them)?
Indeed, this email was one of many complaints we received, including from parents and coaches who figured out and/or suspected (after the Draft) that Davenport had “inside knowledge” on Player Three and “recruited” him to NWLL because he was a “top 5” player at Cap Hill. As for parents with children on other teams, it was obvious that something had gone awry. One parent, seeing his son and teammates down 20-0 in the early innings of a game, yelled “cheater” at Davenport. Another parent wrote:
The fact Ricky graded Dylan as basically middle-of-the-pack or even below average (51st out of 85) is a JOKE. Anyone with eyeballs could see in about 1 minute that he was one of the top players in majors last year, and I have to assume that Ricky knew that going into the draft... Same with the non-parent coach “rule” that was invoked to secure two other top players. I don’t know who those players were, and I’m not asking, but it’s unfortunate if the kids end up with frequent mismatches because adults are manipulating the process. I don’t think any of us expect perfect competitive balance, but it’s fair to expect that everyone is following a set of neutral, previously agreed rules in good faith, in an effort to give the kids a positive experience with baseball. I absolutely think the Board should take this seriously.
Davenport’s explanation for not stopping the Draft: Given that he supposedly had a “correct form” with higher scores for Player Three (that he lost), we asked follow up questions, i.e., “if you knew this then why “stop the draft and point that out to everyone when you selected him?” In his written statement, Davenport did an about face, claiming the low scores were accurate.
Response: Davenport cannot have it both ways. If he created a wrong form with low scores and a correct form with higher scores, there is no excuse for not correcting that when the fourth round arrived. The only plausible explanation is that he inserted his fake scores into the Draft by design, i.e., he cheated the children on every other team.

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I didn’t know about the complaints: Davenport claims Klisch never told him that people were complaining, and that, had he known about them, he would have taken corrective action.
Response: False. Klisch repeatedly told Davenport about the complaints and he told Klisch how to respond, i.e., say he (a) had the right to designate two players, and (b) didn’t know Player Three. When Klisch gave Davenport a list of Board members who he told about the complaints, Davenport yelled “prove it.” And during their conversations about complaints, Davenport said he was unfazed because people want to take him “down” and he’s a “better coach.”
Unanswered questions. To date, Davenport has never explained why he (a) used three decimal points, (b) needed lower numbers for Player Three, (c) needed scores for his “eyes only”, or (c) needed high scores and low scores for Player Three. He has also refused to answer questions about his written statement. That is because there are no explanations that make sense other than the truth, which is that he cheated in a way that made his team virtually unbeatable.
E. Continued Failed Board Process.
As Klisch and Sweeney investigated the matter and submitted reports to the Board, it became apparent that certain Board members were going to great lengths to protect Davenport by (a) refusing to discuss evidence in, or outside of, Davenport’s presence, (b) refusing to even ask Davenport to answer questions, (c) secretly inviting only his ardent supporters to attend the February Board Meeting, (d) allowing Davenport to draft false, incomplete and self-serving board minutes about his misconduct, (e) expressing their opinions (privately) that Davenport’s had engaged in wrongdoing while declining to express those views during Board meetings, (f) defending Davenport by effectively saying he’s “beyond reproach”, and (g) accepting Davenport’s explanation without pressure testing - or even discussing – the cheating allegations.
For example, on February 14, 2023, Walsh told Klisch “I know he did it” and that “Pete [Robinson] was in on it.” On March 2, 2023, Walsh told Klisch that Davenport’s written statement was “bullshit” and that he would confront him about the cheating. And immediately after the February Board Meeting, Walsh told Klisch that he and Sweeney had done NWLL a great service by raising the cheating with the Board because it “has been going on for years” and “it had to stop.” Walsh also told Klisch, in Donnellan’s presence, that Board members just “didn’t want to get involved at all, they came in with what they want” and that he (Walsh) didn’t “like” that they shirked their duties by ignoring the cheating. But refused to say any of this at Board meetings, perhaps worried that Davenport would retaliate against him.
F. The Board Attacks Klisch and Sweeney at the March Board Meeting.
At the March 2023 Board meeting (“March Board Meeting”), Koopersmith asked how the Board could move on from the cheating allegations. Klisch said he had “serious issues” with how the Board operated, including that Klisch and Sweeney simply wanted to discuss the

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cheating allegations at the February Board Meeting but that meeting was hijacked by 12U parents refusing to leave unless the Board voted to for no consequences. Klisch and Sweeney suggested that the Board engage in “a discussion about what happened in the draft” and reminded the Board that Davenport didn’t produce his written explanation until they walked into the February Board Meeting, i.e., they could not review the written explanation in advance of the meeting. Klisch and Sweeney said that they were prepared to discuss the evidence so the Board could reach a “resolution.”
In stark contrast to his yelling at Klisch, Koopersmith agreed that Klisch and Sweeney’s points about the cheating were “good ones” and that there “needs to be more checks and balances, more visibility.” Klisch reminded Walsh that he had said “I know he did it”, i.e., that Davenport manipulated Player Three’s scores and that he (Walsh) would “talk to him about it.” Importantly, Walsh didn’t deny this, but asked if they would “move on” if he admitted saying that. Klisch said it “depends what the Board decides.” Walsh demanded to know if Klisch and Sweeney would move on if the Board did “nothing.”
Klisch reiterated that the Board should discuss the cheating outside of Davenport’s presence. Koopersmith agreed that what Davenport did with the scores “looks shady”, that he hadn’t followed the process, and that the Board was not calling Klisch and Sweeney “crazy” - but that he didn’t know what else to do. Klisch pressed for a discussion so the Board could address why, for example, Davenport never called Player Three’s coach at Cap Hill to assess his skill level and that it took him (Klisch) only 5 minutes to do that. Rossi suggested an “asterisk” on the “trophy” or declaring the other team the “champions.”
Sague opined that Davenport had been volunteering for 20 years, gets pulled in many directions and that perhaps he was trying to do Player Three’s family a “favor and it blew up in his face.” Sague did “agree” that the evidence “seems really strange” and that Davenport “definitely did something in my opinion” and “wants to win the championship.”
Sweeney asked (again) for a meeting to discuss the issues outside of Davenport’s presence and said the Board wasn’t following any kind of process, hadn’t discussed the cheating, hadn’t evaluated Davenport’s written statement or sat down together to address the allegations. In response, Quigley moved for a meeting to discuss the cheating outside of Davenport’s presence, which was a pure box checking exercise as reflected by her voting against her own motion, as did the rest of the Board (except Klisch and Sweeney).
Klisch reiterated that the Board never “took the cheating seriously” and reminded Walsh (again) that he agreed that Davenport had cheated. Walsh did not deny this. Robinson started yelling at Klisch, called the allegations “nonsense” and yelled “you either you end this crap, or I’m walking.” Rossi threatened to resign if Robison resigned. Walsh and Quigley stayed on the attack, chastising Klisch for conducting an investigation into the cheating “on his

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own” - despite that Quigley took it upon herself to investigate certain financial irregularities and eligibility issues concerning Player Three, including whether Davenport obtained a waiver for Player Three.
Quigley kept bullying Klisch by telling him that “maybe we’re not the right board for you” and “maybe you should just walk away” and that the Board “can’t vote you off because you have put us on notice about retaliation.” She asked him to “resign.” Klisch responded that, “if the Board had acted independently and issued a reasonable consequence for Ricky for what was “blatant cheating, we would’ve moved on” but in the absence of any consequences for Ricky’s cheating he was “unwilling to do that.”
Walsh interjected that it wasn’t “fair” that the Board was literally “yelling” at only Klisch and redirected the Board to Sweeney “It’s you too, Erin. So, we’re all yelling at Mike. But Erin, you feel the same, don’t you?”
When Klisch said that Davenport’s written statement was not plausible, i.e., how could Davenport’s high scores and low scores for Dylan both be accurate, Koopersmith said it was “plausible” but of course couldn’t explain how this could be true. Koopersmith agreed, however, that if another draft scandal happened, he would be “right there with you.” Yet, as detailed above, when Davenport got caught registering an ineligible player (Player One), making false statements on waiver requests and lying to LLI and the D.A., Koopersmith did nothing other than yell at Klisch and join in the effort to get Klisch to resign, saying words like “maybe it’s best that you walk away” and that this wasn’t a “Bank of America” board. Sweeney responded that the Board still needs to “needs to address” the cheating and queried why it was “so hard” to do that. Koopersmith explained that “shit falls through the cracks when you’re running a little league.” Rossi and Sague said they would resign if Klisch and Sweeney didn’t walk away from the cheating allegations.
Klisch and Sweeney asked for a “fair and adequate consequence.” And in response to several Board members effectively saying that “this is just little league”, Klisch queried whether the Board was appreciating the 70 or so children who were on the other teams getting beaten badly by the Grays because of the cheating. The Board dismissed this on the grounds that children get over pain in “10 minutes” – or “15 minutes” by running around on the playground.
Koopersmith unequivocally admitted he was biased in favor of Davenport, i.e., saying he has known him for “15 years” and that “as far as I’ve known, he is not a cheater. That is my bias.” Koopersmith admitted the Board prejudged the allegations in Davenport’s favor (“We can check the box and we have this meeting. I’m going to tell you nobody is coming to a different conclusion. We just had yet another vote about it”). And despite the implausibility of Davenport’s evolving stories, Koopersmith previously stated (at the February Board Meeting) that there was “no reason to doubt” Davenport’s explanation, i.e., he just emailed the wrong draft slate with the made-up low scores for Player Three.

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And in yet another sign of bias and failed process, the March Board Meeting minutes said nothing about the 45-minute discussion about the cheating allegations or the vote, i.e., a clear effort to erase any record of the (a) Board voting against a motion to discuss the cheating allegations outside of Davenport’s presence and (b) 45-minute discussion about what to do about the cheating allegations. Accordingly, Sweeney pointed out this omission to the Board. In response, the Secretary halfheartedly amended the minutes by adding the vote and some minor details about the discussion.
Sadly, this was not the first time Davenport and his friends on the Board tried to white- wash the record. After the February Board Meeting, which was largely about his cheating, Davenport drafted and distributed board minutes that were disturbingly self-serving, gratuitous and false. After a serious of emails, including hostile emails from Davenport, the new Secretary, a close friend of Davenport that he hand-picked to replace the outgoing Secretary, listened to the recording and distributed new minutes that, while less self-serving and gratuitous than Davenport’s, were still inaccurate and overly sanitized in Davenport’s favor.
V. THE BOARD STAYS SILENT WHEN DAVENPORT RETALIATES AGAINST BOARD MEMBERS WHO CHALLENGE HIS CONDUCT.
Davenport has a history of retaliating against Board members who challenge him, including Commissioners Klisch, Sweeney and Ben Black.
For example, in the Fall of 2022, Black, the AAA Commissioner at the time, notified Davenport that an umpire (another friend of Davenport’s) threatened a child and should not be permitted to umpire AAA games. Davenport responded that he was “not going to barter over who could be an umpire.” Thereafter, Davenport retaliated against Black by making sure that umpires stopped showing up at AAA games, i.e., on at least 8 occasions, which left Black and the AAA parents to fend for themselves. Black reported this to the Board as retaliation and pointed out that Davenport had exclusive “control over the umpire schedule and could have fixed this at any time.” The Board did nothing and labeled Black a troublemaker.
Sadly, there was a decade plus history with this umpire being verbally abusive towards children, parents and coaches. But since he was Davenport’s friend, the Board protected him. Indeed, Davenport had several friends serving as umpires, many of whom used their relationship with him to purposefully underperform and mistreat parents, coaches and children. After a rash of inexcusable incidents in 2022, Board members, including Klisch, Black and Kelly Cummins, prepared a detailed report to the Board addressing the umpire issues, which included repeated incidents of refusing to ump games for no legitimate reason, yelling at children, parents and coaches, walking out of games before they ended because they simply didn’t want to continue, and sitting in lawn chairs while one umpire umped behind the pitcher’s mound. A copy of that report is attached as Exhibit A. After the Board protected Davenport and his umpires, Black resigned on the grounds that the Board didn’t care about the children in NWLL. Later,

[Anonymous]

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On April 24, Davenport lied (again) to LLI by claiming that the GDS “school address changed officially in 2021, they were virtual in 2020.” CCLL responds that this was false because the address changed in 2020.
Once declared ineligible by LLI, Goldman pulls Player One out of NWLL. Sweeney notified the Majors coaches of a draft infraction involving Davenport and that Player One is ineligible. Davenport responds that, “If anyone wants the actual circumstances, and not what an individual or another league thinks, please let me know.” Majors coaches Kritz and Klisch accept Davenport’s offer for an explanation, but Davenport refuses and never explains why his waiver request contained false statements. Instead, he, as he has done in the past, goes on the attack by accusing Klisch of working “against” NWLL. Goldman disagrees, saying that CCLL “Only reconsidered after I talked to them and pitched our case” and that
...the whole idea of working “against” NWLL seems off to me. The whole point of NWLL is to provide a nice baseball experience for kids. Whatever that requires should be the thing that in the first instance drives what NWLL or any LL does.
As detailed below, certain Board members, e.g., Board Members Ted Koopersmith and Molly Quigley, follow Davenport’s lead by attacking Klisch and accusing him of living a “fantasy” and by telling concerned parents that what they believe should be disregarded because Klisch is the “source” of the information that has stained NWLL’s reputation.
On April 25, Davenport tells Goldman that NWLL has an approved waiver making him eligible for NWLL since March 2023. CCLL’s player agent and president speak to the D.A., who confirms that Player One was ineligible for NWLL and that NWLL sent a waiver for Player One to Bristol based on CCLL's initial registration denial.8 On April 26, Davenport gives LLI another version of Player One’s playing history:
I’m not sure why they didn’t play, I know there was some confusion about how they could continue in NWLL. And I believe it got that more confusing when his classmates kept play with us and he just never asked why until last
spring. Unfortunately we had not pur [sic] an identifier on our website until this season because there are for Instances with schools moving that we use the IID waiver. Also, he didn’t come back until the fall of 2022, [sic] because of the confusion.
8. Davenport told others that Player One would eventually have been declared eligible, but the emails from LLI show that his statements are false

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These statements are also false, as Goldman already told Davenport that Player One stopped playing he preferred travel baseball, not because he was confused. Nor was he confused, as the screen shots show that Davenport and Robinson told him that he was eligible.
On April 27, LLI officially declared Player One ineligible and that no waiver will be forthcoming unless the leagues in which he is eligible “unconditionally release” him [yellow highlighting by LLI in original]:
On May 3, after CCLL involved LLI in the Goldman issues, Klisch and Sweeney learned that LLI was conducting an investigation and would be interviewing NWLL Board members with direct knowledge of the facts. Concerned that the Goldman issues might jeopardize NWLL and its summer teams, Sweeney and Klisch asked LLI for guidance. That reach out was “much appreciated” by LLI, which noted that there already were “a lot of emails flying around with Rico, Ricky, Capital City LL” so it:
Might be easiest for us to give you a call to ask some questions that we inevitably need answers to in order to provide all parties (NWLL, CCLL, DC-1) with the proper guidance regarding the eligibility of all of the players mentioned.
That call, on May 3, was spent almost entirely discussing Player One, although the last few minutes were spent on Player Two, another GDS student who lived out of boundary. During this portion of the call, LLI looked up Player Two’s playing history on its own system and told Sweeney and Klisch that he was out of boundary, ineligible, and that a waiver must be requested and granted. As a result, and because of the clear rule that an ineligible player may not play until a waiver is granted, Sweeney, as the acting Majors Commissioner when Klisch has a conflict, suspended Jones per the call and the LLI rules. Davenport, clearly unhappy, lied, i.e., he told Player Two’s coach (Greg Young) that LLI was:
processing a waiver this afternoon” and that it “Should be done in time for the game, I hope. If not - should be there for the next game.
LLI immediately responded that Davenport’s statement was false [emphasis added]:
This is not an accurate representation of Ricky and I’s conversation.... I’m awaiting to hear back from a number of colleagues on how to proceed (whether that is with an answer or if I need to present to the Little League Charter Committee – which meets next Wednesday.) [emphasis added].

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On May 4, after Klisch provided a chronology of events to the Board (of what he knew at the time). Davenport (or Donnellan) immediately secured a letter from Goldman to try and use as a defense, but the letter didn’t dispute Goldman’s texts or emails, but instead opined that Goldman didn’t recall the precise words he used during a handful of phone calls. When Goldman learned that Davenport sent the letter to the Board, he responded that he:
- Doesn’t “cast doubt or dispute anything that I wrote in texts or emails.”
- Is “merely making clear that I cannot dispute or affirm that I used the exact words
that you attributed to me” in phone calls, and
- “Definitely recall[s] saying many times to many people that I didn’t want to be involved in anything incorrect/wrong/dishonest/false/etc.”
On May 15, Corey Norton’s Majors team played against the Monarchs and was surprised to see Player Two playing and emailed Davenport (and others) saying, among other things that his frustration with NWLL:
... is exacerbated by years of friends around the city telling me our league is corrupt, kids on my own teams saying the league is corrupt (their words) and me recently having emailed this group a serious question about whether the league is being accused of massive impropriety without anyone from the leadership reaching out to clear the air.
Even if there’s some explanation for recent conflicts, they don’t smell right. I would think we all believe this requires leadership (at the Board I suppose?) to step up and resolve things. Otherwise, I can’t see why we all shouldn’t view the situation as leadership telling us it can do whatever it wants, regardless of rules...
Leadership silence here signals apathy or admission. I assume none of us wants either.9
On May 16, Sweeney responded to Norton and asks Davenport to explain his false statements to LLI:
9.
10. Davenport says that Sweeney was wrong to suspend Player Two despite being out of boundary with no waiver, but the LLI rules show that he is wrong. In fact, on May 3, LLI told Klisch and Sweeney that Player Two was ineligible to play unless and until the Charter Committee approved the waiver. It later modified its position to allow Player Two to play before the Charter Committee ruled, but only because NWLL proved that Player Two played one game in 2022 before quitting. Rather than accept the rules, Davenport continues to accuse Sweeney and Klisch of wrongdoing.

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As noted, we have asked you many times to explain your actions and for the signed waiver request that you submitted (and any amended ones that you submitted). Any board member has the right to see them, yet you have continued to hide them from the board. Because of the potential serious consequences to the entire league for these infractions, we ask that you please:
1. Produce the waivers and any amended waivers to the entire board immediately (thus far you have refused);
2. Explain why you/Pete registered Player One in NWLL in the fall 2022 season and spring 2023 season;
3. Explain why you submitted waiver requests that were false on many fronts;
4. Explain why you wrote an email to LLI that contains false statements about Player One’s
reasons for the break in his NWLL playing history; and
5. Explain why you and/or Pete confirmed to Goldman that “without any doubt that Player One was eligible to play NWLL last fall and this spring, even though we live in Bethesda and he goes to GDS.”
On May 17, rather than answer questions or produce the waiver request, Davenport
doubled down, obfuscated and attacked, i.e., claiming that the Board is demanding to know why Player Two “was held out of a game, and who decided to do so”, despite that the answers were clearly provided in Sweeney’s email and LLI’s rules. Davenport also claimed, without a scintilla of evidence, that Player Two, who showed up at the game despite that it was announced hours earlier that he could not play, was “embarrassed in front of everyone with him being call illegal and/or ineligible in front of his teammates.” 10 In reality, youth players routinely show up at games across the city with incomplete “paperwork” and are declared ineligible to play by the athletic trainer. This is neither humiliating nor embarrassing. It’s just the rules, i.e., for those players who are “out of boundary”, a waiver request “must be made before player’s participation in the league.” Id.
Davenport’s email also claims that Player Two’s “eligibility really never was in doubt, or in question before LLI was pulled into it.” But what Davenport ignores is that this was all his doing, as the Goldman facts shined a spotlight on all GDS students who play in NWLL, which is why CCLL raised concerned about both players and “pulled” both “into it.”
On May 18, Norton asked for answers to the questions Davenport avoided for weeks:
The records Erin and Mike have shared with this group seem to show our registration practices haven’t followed LLI rules for at least some players and make it difficult to accept the responses below. If Erin and Mike are wrong,
10. Who called him illegal and ineligible? How did his teammates know he was not eligible?

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please address what they’ve presented. Erin’s questions in her email this past Tuesday seem to focus the issues so addressing them makes sense.... I don’t see how we remove the cloud over everything without addressing the issues and determining whether anything needs to change. [emphasis added].
Davenport has refused to answer basic questions about his conduct, explain it or produce the waiver request(s). Rather, he attacks his accusers, which LLI revealed in its May 18 email, i.e., “I understand you have had past and current disagreements with Ricky on a number of items and topics....”
On May 22-23, Davenport launched another attack on Sweeney and Klisch, while refusing to (a) answer basic questions about his serial false statements to LLI or (b) produce the waiver requests. Accordingly, Klisch asked the D.A. and/LLI to produce the waiver requests and related correspondence. On May 23, Davenport wrote privately to Norton claiming that:
The only reason LLI and the Charter Committee are involved in his case at all is because Mike and Erin went around the normal process, reportedly represented themselves to LLI as the Player Agents for NWLL (they are not), and provided inaccurate or incomplete information to LLI.
Davenport’s statements here are also false. Because of Player One, CCLL started asking LLI and NWLL about Player Two since he went to the same out of boundary school as Player One (GDS) - and also lived out of boundary. Accordingly, as detailed above, on May 3, Sweeney and Klisch asked LLI for guidance.
Davenport told Norton that he “believed (and still believes) that Player One should have been fine to play in NWLL.” But the entire record, which includes NWLL, LLI and the D.A. declaring Player One ineligible because he lived out of boundary, attended an out of boundary school and played only one season in NW (2019), shows without a doubt that, under no circumstances was Player One eligible to play in NWLL or qualified for a waiver.
Davenport told Norton that he “believed (and still believe[s]) that [Player One] should have been fine to play in NWLL.” This is frankly scary, as the entire record, which includes NWLL, CCLL, LLI and the D.A. declaring Player One ineligible because he lived out of boundary and played NWLL only in 2019 shows that, under no circumstances was he eligible to play in NWLL or qualified for a waiver.
Davenport told Norton that he had Goldman check his waiver request for
“accuracy.” That too is false, as the written record shows that Goldman demanded to see the waiver request only because he was concerned about what Davenport wrote in it after talking to him. Once Goldman reviewed the draft, he was appalled by Davenport’s false statements and

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said he didn’t want to be part of anything dishonest. Goldman demanded that Davenport submit a corrected waiver request, which Davenport later apparently labeled the “updated waiver.”
Davenport told Norton that, “before the process played out, Mike (and maybe Erin?) intervened and got LLI and the Charter Committee involved, which then led to getting Cap City involved.” The record shows that this too is false, as CCLL involved LLI without Klisch’s or Sweeney’s knowledge when it saw the screenshots of Goldman’s communications with Robinson and Davenport. After that, LLI got the Charter Committee involved.
Davenport told Norton that “I remain unsure about exactly why Player One had a break from the league, but I believe it may have been due to uncertainty about whether he could play after his school moved out of boundary - something he absolutely could have done under II(d).”
The record shows that too is false, as there is nothing to suggest that Goldman was confused in 2021. Rather, he simply preferred travel baseball over NWLL. And in any event, Davenport peddled the “confusion” theory to LLI in an email which LLI flatly rejected by declaring Player One ineligible and requiring an “unconditional” release from CCLL as the only option to allow Player One to play in NWLL.
Throughout May 2023, Davenport continued to make false statements, including on May 22 when he said that all Klisch and Sweeney had to do was ask Davenport “how he can play for us” when in fact that was an impossibility. Davenport even took the position that “Will and John were correct in how they explained the old version of the rule to Goldman, they were incorrect on the rewritten rule.” But Davenport won’t even identify the rules to which he was referring. Moreover, his statements throughout May 2023 were directly contradicted by the written record, including his own emails to LLI and Goldman. And if “Will and John” got it wrong, why didn’t Davenport explain how they got it wrong? Where’s that email? The truth is that “Will and John” got it right, as evidenced by LLI ruling on April 27, 2023, i.e., that the only way to move forward was if the “eligible” leagues released Player One to the ineligible league (NWLL). But CCLL immediately refused to do.
On June 8, Norton responded to Davenport’s May 23 email, which Sweeney forward to the Board. Rather than address it, Quigley responded with a distraction, i.e., forwarding a concern by a parent about the fact that, during an unprecedented event about bad air quality, NWLL wasn’t perfectly aligned on its messaging to parents.
Indeed, to date, every Board member has remained silent about the hard facts concerning what occurred with the Goldman family (or just dismissed them out of hand and/or leveled personal attacks on Klisch and Sweeney, which has included name calling). Silence and personal attacks on the whistleblowers constitute complicity of certain members of the Board regarding Davenport’s wrongdoing.

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Norton, after a back and forth amongst Majors coaches, Davenport and Donnellan, asked Donnellan a key question about Board process, i.e., does “LLI know the Board didn’t vote” on waiver requests as the rules require. Donnellan never answered his question.
At bottom, Player One was not eligible to play in NWLL when Davenport and Robinson registered him in 2022. They knew that and they knew that he didn’t qualify for a waiver, yet repeatedly lied to LLI, Goldman, Board members, Majors coaches and the D.A. about his playing history. Davenport’s misuse of NWLL’s registration system and waivers directly violates LLI rules and NWLL’s constitution and by-laws. That is why, upon information and belief, LLI and/or the D.A. recently warned Davenport about his misuse of the waiver process and told him to stop registering ineligible out of boundary players. Sadly, the Board has done nothing to stop Davenport’s cheating. Rather, it just ignores clear evidence, refuses to even discuss it at Board meetings and instead, as detailed below, bullies and attacks the whistleblowers.
III. THE BOARD ACCEPTS AND EMBRACES DAVENPORT’S CHEATING AND LIES REGARDING OUT OF BOUNDARY PLAYERS - AND ATTACKS THE WHISTLEBLOWERS.
The Board was scheduled to meet on June 11, 2023. For months leading up to it, Klisch and/or Sweeney asked Davenport and Robinson to answer basic questions about what transpired with Player One, e.g., why did he draft a waiver request saying that Player One played baseball in NWLL’s “AAA” division in 2018 (false) and why tell LLI that? Why use the “other” box to register a player who was clearly out of boundary? But, as is his clear pattern, Davenport refused to answer the questions. Accordingly, Klisch and Sweeney asked that the issues concerning Player One be put on the agenda for the June 11 Board meeting and emailed the Board asking that Davenport be required to answer the following questions:
1. Why did Pete, on July 22, 2022, tell Ross Goldman to “go to the school part, try [selecting] ‘other’ - and if that doesn’t work, just create the account and web admin will create the registration for you”?
2. Why didn’t the “Other” box “work” for Ross Goldman?
3. Why did Pete tell Ross Goldman that he registered Player One?
4. Given that Player One was out of boundary, why didn’t Pete and/or Ricky tell Ross Goldman that a waiver was needed?
5. On December 4, 2022, Goldman was having the “same problem” he had “in the fall (i.e., where GDS isn’t listed as an in-boundary school”), so how and why did Ricky fix the “problem” by choosing the “Other” box?

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6. Why did Ricky and/or Pete tell Goldman in 2022 that “Player zone is eligible to play NWLL”?
7. Why did Ricky and/or Pete tell Goldman “without any doubt that Player One was eligible to play NWLL last fall and this spring, even though we live in Bethesda and he goes to GDS”?
8. After Will Young and John Sague told Goldman that he was ineligible to play in NWLL or on the summer team, why didn’t Ricky disagree if Ricky thought Player One was eligible?
9. After talking to Ricky about a waiver, why did Goldman say in writing that he wanted no part of dishonesty – in other words, what dishonesty was he worried about?
10. Why did Ricky draft a waiver request saying Player One played NWLL in 2017 (false), 2018 (false) and didn’t play in 2021 because of COVID (false)?
11. What did Ricky do when Ross Goldman told him to withdraw and/or not submit the false waiver request?
12. On April 17, Ricky wrote to LLI saying “Here is a request that I would like you to look at.” Why won’t Ricky provide this waiver request to other board members despite that LLI rules require full board approval for waiver requests?
13. Why was Ross Goldman worried whether Ricky “has the authority to block” a transfer to CCLL?
14. What did NWLL do to cause Ross Goldman to believe that “my family and my son are in a terribly unfair situation”?
15. Why did Ricky write an email to LLI on April 19 saying that Player One (a) has been a NWLL player since 2017 [false], his school’s physical address changed when it built a new building in 2021 [false], say that he didn’t play in 2021 while leaving out that he didn’t play in Spring 2022?
16. Why did Ricky tell LLI on April 19 that he was “trying to see” if Player One was “ineligible for NWLL” while telling others that he was eligible?

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17. Why is Ricky telling people that Klisch/Sweeney involved the Charter Committee when in fact on April 20 LLI told Ricky that, “If [Player One] didn’t play in 2021, the 2d no longer applies. Your league would need to submit the waiver request to the charter committee to reinstate the 2d.”
18. Why is Ricky telling people that he submitted only one waiver when in fact he submitted an “updated waiver” to LLI (“Here’s the updated waiver”)?
19. When asked for copies of the waiver(s), why did Ricky opine that it might be in the “trash” when in fact NWLL has a duty to keep a copy?
20. Why did Ricky tell LLI on April 24 that GDS’s “school address changed officially in 2021” when in fact it changed in 2020?
21. Why did Ricky say on May 23 that he “believed (and still believe[s]) that [Player One] should have been fine to play in NWLL” when in fact on April 27 LLI declared Player One ineligible and indicated that no waiver will be forthcoming unless the leagues in which he is eligible “unconditionally release” him [emphasis in original]?
22. Why did Ricky tell Greg Young that LLI was “processing a waiver this afternoon” and that it “[s]hould be done in time for the game, I hope. If not – should be there for the next game” when in fact LLI was of the view that this was “not an accurate representation” of their conversation with Ricky? What did LLI actually say to Ricky?
23. Did LLI recently warn Ricky about (a) misusing waivers and (b) registering out of boundary players who are not eligible for a waiver?
During the Board meeting, Klisch asked Davenport why his waiver request for Player One (and his April 19 email to LLI) contained false statements, i.e., that Player One played baseball in NWLL in 2017-18 and “has been a NWLL player since 2017.” Davenport started yelling and mocked Klisch to avoid giving a straightforward answer. He also refused to explain how he could have gotten Player One’s playing history so wrong.
Contrary to the written record, Davenport argued that he “corrected” the false statements after speaking to Goldman. He also minted a new, obviously unbelievable, explanation, i.e., that the waiver request does not say that Player One played baseball but that he “started” to attend GDS in 2017. This too is just another lie, as the waiver request identifies the NWLL divisions in which Player One played, e.g., “AAA Minors.” Likewise, Davenport’s email to LLI states that Player One has “been a NWLL player since 2017 and “didn’t play in 2021” - not that he attended school at GDS since then. In other words, Davenport’s use of the word “play” was not a reference to school

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attendance, particularly since he references school attendance separately, i.e., “his schools physical address changed when it built a new building in 2021, went from in our boundary to out of our boundary by 2 blocks.” And when Klisch tried to explain to the Board what Goldman actually reported, i.e., that Goldman told Davenport that the waiver request contained false statements, Davenport said “I don’t care” - and the Board sat silent.
Indeed, the Board is so biased that Davenport could have explained his false statements by saying “umbrella” and the Board would have accepted that answer. In fact, as soon as Davenport lied, the Board members took turns yelling at, and bullying, Klisch. For example, when Klisch asked “how did ‘2017’ get into the first draft?”, Board Member Redmond Walsh said it “doesn’t matter.” When Klisch tried to report that Goldman wanted the waiver corrected because it was false, Koopersmith just started yelling “[w]e’re the crazy ones? Everyone here is crazy” - “look in the mirror” at yourself - whatever “scandalization” you’re insinuating, “give it up” - it’s a fantasy” - “this is not the board for you.” And when Norton tried to explain that the evidence against Davenport looked bad and that the local community thinks NWLL is dishonest, Quigley dismissed him out of hand, pointing at Klisch and said that he (Norton) must consider the “source” - as if Klisch was just lying.
The Board’s conduct shows that it doesn’t care if Davenport cheats, lies or engages in conduct that jeopardizes NWLL. Indeed, as for the remaining questions that Sweeney and Klisch presented in their June 11 email, Koopersmith just started yelling and accusing them of launching a “scud” attack (with a single email). Rather than address substance, the Board just bullies the whistleblowers.
In a clear effort to support Davenport, Donnellan asked the D.A. if the NWLL summer teams are susceptible to challenge if, hypothetically speaking, NWLL doesn’t follow its waiver process. The D.A. said that NWLL’s summer teams were susceptible if NWLL didn’t follow its process for waivers. Board member and treasurer Katherine Rossi tried to cure that problem by saying that NWLL’s bylaws delegated waiver requests to the President and player agent. Several Board members agreed with her, but this too was wrong, which Klisch noted in an email to the Board the next day:
Our bylaws do not delegate waiver requests to the President and Player agent. They say only that they are responsible for certifying eligibility before they start playing. That is different.
During our board meeting, one board member misstated what the bylaws said about this topic, after which several board members (but not all of them) just agreed with the misstatement.
Because NWLL’s summer teams were susceptible to challenge, Klisch called for an emergency meeting to vote to approve the summer team waiver requests. The Board held that

[Anonymous]

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Davenport secretly moved the umpire to adult softball games because of his long history of abusive behavior. Sadly, Davenport let this go on for years because the umpire is his friend.12
Likewise, when Klisch started reporting on Davenport’s misconduct and cheating in late 2022 and early 2023, Davenport immediately started working with Walsh and Donnellan to retaliate against Klisch. Indeed, Klisch predicted the retaliation in an email to the Board, but that didn’t stop Davenport, who, in an effort to try and get some leverage - and in response to a request from Donnellan and Walsh - went looking for someone who might accuse Klisch of wrongdoing. They found that person, i.e., a disgruntled NWLL coach at the time in Klisch’s Majors division. Davenport baited the coach’s wife into asking her husband to accuse Klisch of violating pitch count rules on a single occasion. Davenport did so despite that the incident was easily explainable and debunked (because Klisch followed the pitch count rules and Davenport oversaw (and approved) the decision in advance). Black, who was also involved in the decision- making, responded to Davenport’s retaliatory conduct by emailing the Board saying that Davenport, was, once again, engaging in “obvious retaliation” by baiting a disgruntled coach to accuse Klisch of wrongdoing even though Davenport knew Klisch had done nothing wrong:
This obvious retaliation is silly on a number of levels. I consulted Ricky [Davenport] about options throughout the entire decision-making process that day.
As noted, Klisch easily debunked the accusation with a detailed email laying out the how the pitch count rules work and the undisputed facts, including that Davenport presided over the incident and made the final decision and that the player’s pitch count was reset to 0 because of the rain delay suspension rules in tournaments. Davenport, Walsh and Donnellan then backed down and apologized to Klisch at a face-to-face meeting that they requested with Klisch.
But despite the clear retaliation on Davenport’s part, the Board did nothing. It didn’t even discuss the retaliation against Klisch. Rather, Quigley expressed her disappointment that the Board couldn’t vote Klisch off the Board because he had predicted the retaliation.
Quite often Davenport’s retaliation is arguably petty, but serious. In 2023, the Board voted Klisch in as the summer 11U coach. Oddly, to say the least, several of Davenport’s friends on the Board voted for a candidate who could attend three of the four tournament games and Quigley abstained from voting for anyone.
12. According to Davenport, the bad apples eventually quit NWLL, so Klisch created a youth umpire program with the help of Jackson Reed High School. This eliminated the umpire misconduct problems.

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Davenport, who presided over many aspects of the 11U team, then often refused to communicate with Klisch at all, instead choosing to communicate with his assistant coach.13 He also refused to perform his basic duties that were needed to ensure that the 11U team was compliant for the City Tournament.
Rather than communicate with Klisch as he was required to do, Davenport back channeled, through children, parents, assistant coaches and umpires, important documents to the head coach (Klisch), including passports, awards, practice t-shirts, baseballs, hats and first aid kits.
For example, rather than give the 11U tournament book to Klisch, Davenport gave it, filled with passports and private medical information to a ten-year old player with instructions to give it to Klisch. Like any child might do, he put it on a bench in the dugout and went onto the field to practice. The book sat unattended in an unmarked bag until Klisch noticed it and started asking what it was and how it got there. This is particularly troubling since Davenport assured numerous parents (who were understandably reluctant to turn over original passports) that they had nothing to worry about because he would always keep the information in his control and in a safe place.
Davenport also refused to make sure 11U team paperwork was properly documented. Specifically, paperwork for two players remained unsigned by the D.A. - despite that Klisch notified Davenport on numerous occasions that he had not obtained the D.A.’s signature. Davenport didn’t respond or lift a finger to get the paperwork signed before the tournament. Rather, he told Klisch to get it signed when he showed up at the first game. So, Klisch showed up at the first tournament game and awkwardly asked the D.A. to sign the paperwork.
As for uniforms, Davenport refused to give them to Klisch or communicate with him once they arrived. Rather, he called the assistant coach and told him to come get them. Petty, but nonetheless, retaliatory. And, despite promising to put names on the uniforms, the names were missing for the tournament. Yet, Davenport’s 12U team had names on their uniforms for their tournament. That is because, in NWLL, children on Davenport’s team get special treatment.
After Klisch’s 11U team won the state tournament and was low on baseballs, he requested more baseballs from Davenport. When the team manager tried to get four boxes from Davenport, he gave her two boxes despite that the equipment room he controls was lined with boxes of baseballs. Not to be deterred, the team manager went back to Davenport several days later with “treats”, i.e., ice cream. This worked, as Davenport gave her two boxes of balls for the
13. When people challenge Davenport, he often retaliates by just ignoring their emails, text messages and calls. Ben Black, for example, was ghosted by Davenport after raising legitimate issues about the umpires.

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11U team’s final push to the Massachusetts Tournament of Champions. On July 21, she brought him leftover pizza to coax him into giving 11U team two more boxes of balls, but Davenport refused and said he would give them up if Donnellan approved. Klisch then emailed Davenport and Donnellan offering to purchase two boxes of balls for the team to take to Massachusetts. The day before leaving, Davenport called the team manager and told her to come pick them up, free of charge.
Board members who support Davenport also retaliated against Klisch and Sweeney’s children (Player Five and Player Six). In the summer of 2023, NWLL had a 14U summer team. Klisch and Sweeney timely submitted their applications for their children to play on the 14U summer team. Robinson, perhaps the Board member closest to Davenport, led the 14U summer team process - and who had been accused of wrongdoing in connection with the Draft scandal and registering Player One - started practices in early May 2023. Robinson excluded Player Five and Player Six from the practices and games that occurred from May 7, 2023 to June 20, 2023, despite that (a) Sweeney first contacted Tournament Director Will Young on May 6, 2023, and again on May 7, 2023, inquiring about the coaching staff for the 14U summer team, and (b) Klisch followed up to make sure that NWLL knew that Player Five had registered.
Sweeney and Klisch discovered that their children had been excluded from the 14U team practices only because Robinson made an off the cuff remark at the June 11 Board meeting that his 14U team had been practicing and playing games. The next day (June 12, 2023), Sweeney asked Will Young to confirm whether the 14U team was practicing. In response, Will Young provided a list of players eligible for the 14U team (including Sweeney’s son, but not Player Five) and noted that Will Young recommended that the coaching team set up scrimmages to decide who would be on the team. Sweeney pointed out that some of the players on the list, including Player Six, had never been invited to the practices and scrimmages that started on May 7, 2023. On June 18, 2023, Sweeney again followed up asking when tryouts would be scheduled for the 14U team.
On June 27, 2023, at 3:30 pm, the 14U manager, Jonathan Quigley, emailed all parents who applied for the 14U summer team letting them know that a scrimmage was still on for 5:30 pm that day. Sweeney responded that Player Six had not been invited to the Game Changer for the 14U team and thus did not know about the scrimmage. Nevertheless, she indicated that she would bring Player Six to the scrimmage. Although it was ultimately postponed due to rain, Sweeney asked Jonathan Quigley to invite her family to the team on Game Changer so that she could bring her son to the scheduled practices and scrimmages that were being held to select the 14U team.
On June 27, 2023, Robinson invited the Sweeney family to the team Game Changer. When Sweeney asked Robinson to ensure that all other families who had applied to tryout were also included on the team Game Changer, Robinson came up with his story, i.e., that the players who had been practicing and scrimmaging since May 7, 2023 were simply the spring 2023

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Juniors team, i.e., not players who submitted applications to join the 14U team. This was false, so Sweeney responded as such by noting that there were 10 players who had been invited to games and practices since May 7, 2023 who were not on the Juniors team from the spring. And that same day (June 27, 2023), i.e., when Klisch learned of this, he emailed Jonathan Quigley asking: “Is Player Five on the team? He registered but I haven’t heard anything.”
In response to Klisch and Sweeney, Robinson created the appearance that he was adding Player Six and Player Five to the team by inviting him on Game Changer to a “Raiders” tournament, which Klisch accepted and told Player Five that he was on the team and would play with his friends, including those he played with on his Hardy middle school team. But that too was about to change. Soon after Robinson created a new team to cover up that he had already made the decision to exclude Player Five and Player Six, he listed its first event as a scrimmage on June 29, 2023 - to purportedly select the 14U team. To this team, he invited the Sweeney and Klisch families.
Given that it was clear that Robinson never intended to give Player Five or Player Six the opportunity to play baseball on this team, let alone place them on the 14U summer team, these actions make clear that Robinson was retaliating for the actions of their parents in raising and pursuing the cheating allegations that had engulfed Davenport, Robinson and other Board members. Given the obviousness of the retaliation, neither parent permitted their child to be humiliated with a one-day ruse “tryout” scrimmage on June 29, 2023 for a team that had been practicing and playing together for weeks.
V. DAVENPORT’S IMPROPER PROCESS FOR HARDSHIP PAYMENTS AND REGISTRATION WRITE-OFFS.
Davenport, almost always without involving other Board members, routinely zeroes out registration fees, in one case $2,450 (the family paid $0) for purported financial hardship reasons and other reasons that are not entirely clear, including for families he works with to transfer from other leagues and who play on what has become his summer 12U team. He also works with Rossi - without notifying the Board - to reimburse families for their 12U expenses. While NWLL is committed to ensuring that every child who would like to play Little League is able to play, a certain level of oversight is standard operating process for LLI, but it does not appear that Davenport makes any effort to follow a process for verifying eligibility for hardship cases. In fact, the Board has rejected all legitimate efforts to verify hardship cases and instead agrees that Davenport should be allowed to do what he wants.
VI. DAVENPORT SELECTIVELY PERMITS CERTAIN MAJORS PLAYERS TO PLAY IN OTHER DIVISIONS AT NO COST.
Davenport selectively identifies Majors players to join the Intermediate and/or Junior teams at no cost. In one instance in 2022, he allowed a Majors player (Player Four) to play for three different divisions in violation of LLI rules, while only charging the player for the Majors

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Division. LLL advised NWLL that this was a violation of its rule, yet Davenport claimed it was allowable because some games were played in Maryland (he was wrong, as Sweeney and Klisch found no such exception). When Klisch alerted the Board to this, Davenport accused him of malfeasance. And when Sweeney notified the NWLL community of the opportunity for Majors players to play in Intermediate or Juniors to eliminate Davenport’s secret, selective benefit for hand-picked Majors players, Robinson, who is aligned with Davenport, immediately sent a correction email to parents to ensure that the benefit remained secret and selective.
VII. DAVENPORT ESTABLISHES NWLL RULES AND PROTOCOLS AND THEN CHANGES THEM TO BENEFIT ONLY HIS TEAM.
For years, Davenport has been allowed to create local NWLL rules - and then change them to help his team. For example, he required that NWLL not change its game schedule for travel baseball practices. Yet, in 2023, after he drafted numerous travel players for his team, Davenport routinely harassed Klisch by demanding that he change Davenport’s game schedule to accommodate his travel baseball players’ practices on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And his assistant coach, whose son plays travel baseball, worked with Davenport to see if the travel parents on Davenport’s team would unite to effectively demand that their NWLL schedule be changed to accommodate their travel schedule. Davenport did nothing to stop this - and in fact demanded the schedule changes himself.
And, despite years of instructing Klisch to not allow a team to play a make-up game on a practice day (except as a last report), Davenport demanded that his team play its weekday games on his Monday practice day as often as possible - to avoid travel practice conflicts. He also routinely demanded that Klisch move games when Davenport had 8 players because he preferred 10+ players. No other Majors coach made these demands because, in years past, Davenport has routinely demanded that teams play with 8 players. These coaches, including Klisch, played with 8 players and/or took a AAA player if there was a material risk of a forfeit. Unlike Davenport, they didn’t ask that games be changed to accommodate a practice in another sport. Yet, when Klisch refused to break the rules for Davenport, he declared Klisch biased and asked Sweeney to overrule him. Despite that Sweeney and Klisch denied Davenport’s requests throughout the entire season, Davenport’s team finished in first place by a wide margin.
As Sague put it, Davenport likes to win at children’s games and winning seems to be everything to him. If he must cheat to win, he has done so and will continue to do so. The wellbeing of children on other teams appears to be irrelevant.

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V. WHEN THE WRONGDOER IS NOT DAVENPORT, THE BOARD MOVES SWIFTLY ADDRESS THE MISCONDUCT AND ISSUE SANCTIONS.
During the AAA Championship game in June 2023, a parent consumed alcohol and, after the game, told the umpire to “go fuck himself.” The Board, unlike how it treated the Davenport wrongdoing, called an emergency Board meeting to address the wrongdoing.
Every Board member who overlooked Davenport’s repeated misconduct condemned the parent’s misconduct because it violated NWLL’s code of conduct, core objectives and principles. The Board then voted to suspend the parent from all NWLL activities for two seasons. In direct contrast to how the Board addressed the alleged conduct undertaken by Davenport, with respect to this parent, (i) the Board met to discuss the allegations, (ii) the Board met without the accused present, (iii) the accused was given an opportunity to be heard with respect to the allegations and tried to explain his conduct, (iv) the Board did not attack the Board members who were conducting the investigation, (v) the Board did not retaliate against the Board members who were conducting the investigation (or their children) (vi) multiple Board members weighed in and critically analyzed the issues, (vii) after critically analyzing the issues, the Board imposed meaningful consequences, (viii) Donnellan (the vice president) actively solicited evidence – in fact he directed Sweeney to contact the 10U coaching team to obtain evidence and further directed her to facilitate and circulate that evidence, (ix) Board members did not accept implausible and factually unsubstantiated and unsupported conclusory explanations from the accused, (x) Board members did not secretly invite individuals with a vested interest in the outcome to attend the meeting, (xi) Board members did not manipulate the minutes to assist the accused, (xii) Board members did not privately tell other Board members that the accused was guilty but refuse to impose consequences, (xiii) Board members did not work behind the scenes to exonerate the accused or explain away his wrongdoing, and (xiv) Board members encouraged investigation and fact finding.
The stark contrast between how the Board addresses wrongdoing when it is Davenport and when it is someone else was simply stunning.
VIII. INSPECTION DEMANDS.
The Board’s recent decisions, actions, conduct, indifference and silence seems to lack any plausible, good-faith rationale and, as set forth herein, appear to have been influenced by its biases, lack of care and indifference to misconduct. Accordingly, pursuant to
inspection of books and records sufficient to (i) investigate the misconduct, (ii) consider potential remedies for this misconduct, (iii) carefully evaluate Board member independence, (iv) use information gained through inspection to evaluate possible litigation or other corrective measures, and (v) comply with the Board’s vote to conduct a financial audit of NWLL.

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Courts encourage members “suspicious of a corporation’s management or operations to exercise this right to obtain the information necessary to meet the particularization requirements that are applicable in derivative litigation.” E.g., AmerisourceBergen Corp. v. Lebanon Cnty. Employees’ Ret. Fund, 243 A.3d 417, 426 (Del. 2020). Board members have a right to inspect records for “any proper purpose,” including possible mismanagement or self-dealing, and the independence of members. Id. at 425; see, e.g., KT4 Partners LLC v. Palantir Techs. Inc., 203 A.3d 738, 755 (Del. 2019) (investigation of “fraud, mismanagement ... and breach of fiduciary duty” is a proper purpose for a books and record request); Donnelly v. Keryx Biopharm., Inc., 2019 WL 5446015, at *5 (Del. Ch. Oct. 24, 2019) (finding a “proper purpose” where plaintiff was seeking to investigate a “conflicted transaction”); Lavin v. West Corp., 2017 WL 6728702, at * 11-* 13 (Del. Ch. Dec. 29, 2017) (finding a “propose purpose” where a stockholder was seeking the inspection of a corporation’s books and records to investigate potential breaches of fiduciary duty); Amalgamated Bank v. Yahoo! Inc., 132 A.3d 752, 784 (Del. Ch. 2016) (“Another purpose” includes investigating “questions of director disinterestedness and independence”).
All of these elements are present here, including mismanagement, self-dealing, and questions as to the independence of Board members. The Demanding Members are entitled to inspection of “all of the documents in the corporation’s possession, custody or control, that are necessary to satisfy [the] proper purpose.” E.g., Saito v. McKesson HBOC, Inc., 806 A.2d 113, 115 (Del. 2002). The information sought will provide the Demanding Members with necessary and essential information for determining whether any mismanagement, or other breaches of Board members’ fiduciary duties have taken place such that it would be appropriate to initiate litigation against the Board and Davenport who may have breached their duties to members, and third parties culpable for participating in or directing such breaches.
Because the production of Board and related corporate minutes and materials by themselves will not be sufficient to satisfy the Demanding Members’ proper purpose of investigating whether, inter alia, the Board’s recent decisions and indifference are tainted by its conflicting interests and in some case stated bias in favor of Davenport and against the Demanding Members, they are entitled to Board members’ email and text messages that shed light on this conflict of interest and other matters set forth herein.
In light of the foregoing, the Demanding Members issue this demand for books and records necessary to investigate Davenport’s wrongful conduct and potential breaches of duty, and complicity by certain other Board Members. Accordingly, this Inspection Demand further seeks the following books and records:
1. All minutes of and resolutions adopted at any meeting, including those not reflected in Board minutes, for the last three years.

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2. All written communications between Board members concerning the factual statements, and allegations of wrongdoing, made in this letter from 2022 to present.
3. All correspondence regarding the Draft, including the “letter prepared by a group of coaches” referenced in Donnellan’s email of June 11.
4. All waiver requests prepared during the last 7 years, including drafts, and those for Player Three, Player One and Player Two.
5. All correspondence between NWLL and LLI and/or Ricco Bailey during the period of 2021 to present.
6. All correspondence between Davenport and the treasurer relating to NWLL financial related business, including hardship cases, revenues, expenses or fees during the period of 2017 to present.
7. All correspondence to and/or from Davenport and non-Board members relating to the issues raised in this letter from 2019 to present.
8. Invoices submitted to and/or paid by NWLL from 2017 to present (and bank statements).
9. All records and documentation of contributions and cash inflows to NWLL from 2017 to present.
10. Records and documentation related to NWLL expenditures from 2017 to present.
11. Records and documentation related to receipts and expenditures via Venmo, Cashapp, or other types of electronic apps from 2017 to present.
12. All financial statements for the last three years.
13. Annual financial statements, budgets, ledgers, etc. from 2015 to present.
14. Support for (and documentation) of “in-kind” transactions from 2015 to present.
15. Listing of NWLL vendors, suppliers and service providers from 2015 to present.
16. Annual IRS Form 990 for NWLL from 2015 to present.

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17. All communications relating to, and records of, payments made to, and scheduling of, umpires from 2015 to present.
18. All documentation relating to umpire misconduct.
19. All documentation relating to bids for work or services provided to NWLL, including those performed by Walsh and Robinson.
20. All documentation related to the practice of permitting certain Majors players to play on the Intermediate or Junior teams.
21. All documentation concerning the selection of the 2023 14U summer team.
22. All documentation concerning payment to Board members for services or products rendered.
NWLL shall continue to take immediate steps to preserve all documents responsive to the Inspection Demand and any other documents reasonably related to the matters referenced in this Inspection Demand. This includes suspending document destruction practices, such as automatic email deletion, that might result in the deletion or destruction of any of the foregoing documents and preserving information accessible by administrators via the NWLL website.
Please advise as promptly as practicable where and when NWLL will produce - or make available for inspection - the demanded documents. If NWLL believes that this Inspection Demand is incomplete or otherwise deficient in any respect, please notify me immediately in writing setting forth the facts and law that NWLL believes supports its position and specifying any additional information believed to be required.
If NWLL does not respond with five (5) business days of receipt of this Inspection Demand, it will be assumed that NWLL finds this Inspection Demand sufficient, complete, and compliant in all respects with applicable law, and that it will comply with it. The Demanding Members are prepared to seek enforcement of this Inspection Demand if necessary.
If NWLL fails to provide documents and communications in compliance with this Inspection Demand, the Demanding Members reserve the right to bring a derivative action on behalf of NWLL for breach of its fiduciary and contractual duties. The Demanding Members further reserve the right to (a) seek Davenport’s removal because he engaged in misconduct and (b) file an action against certain Board members for breach of their fiduciary duties, either directly or derivatively.

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Please do not hesitate to contact us at [e-mail] [e-mail] if you have questions about this Inspection Demand.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Erin Sweeney
Mike Klisch

[Anonymous]

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Attachments

MEMORANDUM
TO: Northwest Washington Little League Board of Directors
FROM: Mike Klisch (Majors Comissioner)
Kelly Cummins (Secretary)
DATE: May 3, 2022

BOARD MEETING ON MOTION TO TERMINATE CERTAIN UMPIRES IMMEDIATELY
SUBJECT: ___________________________________________________________________________________
This memorandum concerns the umpire situation in the AAA and Majors divisions. Specifically, four umpires who have been severely underperforming for years, i.e., Marcellus and Gerald’s crew. While the primary authors of this memorandum are Mike Klisch (Majors Commissioner and former AAA Commissioner) and Kelly Cummins (Secretary), with significant input from Ben Black (AAA Commissioner), the data for this memorandum is derived from input provided from dozens of parents, coaches, commissioners, former commissioners and umpires.
During the February 2022 board meeting (“Meeting”), the NWLL Board (“Board”) discussed the umpire situation and provided concrete examples of conduct that we agreed required immediate change. Because the conduct at issue had been ongoing for years, and these specific umpires have been warned many times, some Board members recommended termination at the Meeting, but compromised in favor of one last final warning.
About two years ago (before the Covid-19 pandemic), the Board had a similar board meeting led by Will Young, the Majors Commissioner at the time, during which he advocated (and the Board agreed) to start the process of replacing certain umpires. The 2020 season was cancelled, which mooted, at least temporarily, the umpire replacement effort. After a rash of complaints about the umpires since the Spring 2022 season started, Mike followed up with Will last week, who repeated his strong view that the umpires should have been terminated and replaced in 2020. Will also echoed many, if not all, of the complaints about the umpires detailed in this memorandum.
Unfortunately, since the Meeting, the umpire situation has deteriorated, including in the past week. Indeed, since opening day, members of the Board have received a steady stream of the same complaints that the Board has received for many years. The complaints have come from nearly every coach, as well as parents and players. Some of the Board members and volunteers, including Ben, Kelly, Molly and Mike have experienced the problems firsthand.
In sum, the complaints are that the umpires (a) disregard the rules of baseball, sometimes in favor of their own rules, (b) do not know the Little League rules or NWLL local rules (or refuse to apply them at all -- or consistently), (c) scream at, berate, belittle and/or threaten, parents, players, umpires, bystanders and coaches, (d) refuse to reverse calls even after acknowledging the umpires were wrong, (e) have a very rude and abrasive attitude and make it painfully obvious that the umpires do not want to be there, (f) shorten games in violation of NWLL rules, and (g) engage in outright insubordination, e.g., refusing to put two umpires in the field, not going behind home plate to call balls and strikes and forfeiting games long before the 15 minute grace period passes -- even after being reminded many times -- including at the time of the forfeit -- that the umpires cannot do any of these things.

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Ricky has repeatedly told the umpires what the correct rules are and NWLL’s expectations, e.g., both umps must take the field for the entire game. Yet, these umpires ignore him, and ignore the coaches and commissioners when they ask the umpires about the rules -- or try to enforce them. Indeed, just last night (May 2), the first umpire did not take the field for the Majors game until 6:14 p.m. (which had to be umpired by Mike and Marty Saad until then). When the second umpire arrived and took the field at 6:33 p.m., the first umpire sat out the entire game (on the picnic table) until finally walking back onto the field in the 6th inning. Parents and coaches are so tired of this that several of them asked Mike to keep umpiring and send them home and noted that these umpires are quick to forfeit a game if the eighth player shows up a few minutes late, yet the umpires believe they can show up late, not show up at all, or show up and not take the field themselves.
Mike reports that the amount of time he spends listening to complaints about umpire behavior has become overwhelming. Ben has had to regularly field umpire complaints on these topics since becoming AAA Commissioner. Neither Mike nor Ben recall receiving complaints against the Joe and Nate crew, who refuse to pair with the Marcellus and Gerald crew. Rather, the Joe and Nate crew constantly receive positive reviews from parents, coaches, players, commissioners and board members.
We believe that NWLL is at a crisis point with the underperforming umpires, as the situation is (a) continuing to tarnish the NWLL reputation, (b) damaging its mission and (c) making the game experience miserable or unenjoyable for almost everyone involved. Players pay money to the league to play full games, not to be cut short and treated rudely. Coaches are dismayed at these additional, unnecessary hurdles, undermining our volunteer backbone.
Accordingly, on April 25, Kelly, Mike and Ricky discussed the situation, including terminating one crew (“Gerald Crew”). The next day, Ricky suggested a Board vote, which Kelly and Mike believe is warranted on an emergency basis. Since then, Mike, Kelly and Ben learned that the other umpire with whom there have been serious issues (Marcellus) has been screaming at, and berating, coaches and players. This has been a problem for years and Ricky has given him several warnings, the last of which included an ultimatum that he would be terminated immediately if he engaged in this conduct again.
Because of the foregoing, and the representative examples detailed below, Mike and Kelly, with Ben and Erin’s support, move for a board vote to terminate (immediately) the Gerald Crew and Marcellus. Coaches have offered to ump games themselves instead of keeping these umpires or delaying their terminations. NWLL could also have one umpire for AAA games if it does not have two umpires for every game. Max, a new umpire, is available as a replacement. Mike is hopeful that the nephew of the Gerald Crew continues to umpire. Mike has agreed to help subsidize the additional cost of replacement umpires and Ben believes that some commissioners, coaches and parents would also contribute.
While there a 100+ examples of incidents prior to -- and after -- the Meeting, the following is a representative sample of relatively recent examples of misconduct and poor umpiring. Please note that this is not about a few bad calls here and there, which we all realize are part of the game.
Representative Examples (Gerald Crew):
• April 2 (opening day): Refused to take field as a two-umpire crew or go behind the plate. They said their equipment was locked in the shed (but didn’t tell anyone that). The umpites then refused to go behind plate after we confirmed the shed was unlocked. Ricky called

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them after the second game and said, in sum or substance, “why are you making this so difficult.” These umpires have, for years, given various excuses for not going behind plate and having one umpire sit out at all times.1
• April 2 (opening day): Showed up at 12:20 p.m. (20 minutes after game time) claiming they were told the game started at 12:30 p.m. (the other crew showed up by 11:45 p.m.).
• April 9, 2022: Called the batter out for having his foot on plate when he hit a home run despite that (a) there is no such rule and (b) his foot never touched the plate (video).
• April 23, 2022: Called a forfeit at 5:01 p.m. in violation of the 15-minute local grace period rule and refused to take the field even though the team already had 8 players and another one in traffic -- and despite that Ricky and Mike reminded them of the local rule at 4:45 p.m. In fact, when reminded of the rule, the umpires stated “we don’t care”, packed up and walked out at 5:05 p.m. in front of 50+ people while the coaches umped the game. Despite this, NWLL paid them for umpiring a game that they left after 5 minutes.2
Note: On April 9, 2022, the Gerald crew waited 15-20 minutes for Ricky’s team to get 8 players. This, among other incidents, including going behind the plate for only Ricky’s games, have resulted in numerous complaints of favoritism, e.g., a recent email after a game against Ricky’s team that these umpires are constantly “making calls at the behest of other coaches comments/irritations.”
• April 26, 2022: After a legitimate appeal, the umpire “made subtle remarks out on the field” as the coach was walking to his first base coaching position, including that “you should teach the boys how to play baseball instead of worrying about the call ... not once but twice while the boys were on the field.”
• April 26, 2022: After a legitimate question from a coach, one umpire yelled from his field position at shortstop to the home plate umpire that “we don’t have to explain anything to them.”
• April 30, 2022: Tried calling a forfeit at 2:34 p.m. in violation of 10-minute interleague grace period rule. When the coach showed him a text from Majors’ Commissioner saying there was a grace period, the umpire responded that “Mike is the AAA Commissioner, we don’t listen to him” and “there is only a grace period for the first game.” The umpire was wrong on both counts and had been reminded of the NWLL local grace period rule just a few days earlier after calling a forfeit (wrongly).
• May 2, 2022: The first umpire arrived at 6:11 and took the field (behind the pitcher’s mound) at 6:14 p.m. The second umpire arrived at 6:33 p.m. When the second umpire arrived in the second inning, the first umpire left the game and sat on the picnic table the
1. Ricky reports that the umps never do this for his games, which Mike noted at the Meeting.
2. The NWLL local rule reads “Teams unable to field the minimum of 8 players within 15 minutes of the scheduled start time will automatically forfeit the game.” The umpire ignored this rule and told Ricky they didn’t want to favor a commissioner’s team by staying.

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entire game -- until the top of 6th, at which time he walked back out onto the field during the inning (while the pitcher was pitching) and umpired in the field. Mike and Marty Saad started the game at 6 p.m. and umpired until the first umpire took the field.
• April 2-April 30, 2022: Complaints from most coaches that umpires call outs that are not outs when they want to end or rush the game (problem has existed for years).
• April 2-April 30, 2022: Complaints from most coaches that it is painfully obvious the umpires do not want to be there, have no interest in the game and are looking for any excuse to end games, rush games, end early or call forfeits (problem has existed for years).
• April 2-April 30: Demanded a “sun break” for ten minutes when sun is supposedly a problem and then rushed to end the game soon thereafter (problem has existed for years). They seem to be the only crew that does this.
• April 2-April 30, 2022: Complaints from most coaches that the umpires are unapproachable, combative and rude to coaches and parents (problem has existed for years).
• April 2-April 30, 2022: Complaints from most coaches that the kids do not want to play when these umpires are umping games (problem has existed for years).
• April 2-April 30, 2022: Complaints from most coaches about an abnormally high number of very bad calls (problem has existed for years).
• April 2-April 30, 2022: Steady complaints about not knowing the rules, strike zone being significantly enlarged, e.g., “ears to ankles”) when they want to rush the game, being out of position to make calls, making calls at the behest of other coaches comments and irritations, unwillingness to explain rules, too immobile to effectively umpire and telling coaches they do not have to explain anything to the coach (problem has existed for years).
• Spring 2021: Threatened to eject a coach for asking both umpires to ump.
• Spring and Fall 2021: Repeatedly refused to go behind the plate or put two umpires on the
field (problem has existed for years).
• Spring and Fall 2021: Hid in shed while coaches called commissioner asking for umpires. Representative Examples (Marcellus):
• April 26, 2022: Called game at around 2 hours (no game behind it) after 3.5 innings despite that the home team was down (problem has existed for years). See footnote 5 for NWLL local rule.
• April 26, 2022: Yelled at coach, causing the player in the play to cry (problem has existed for years).

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• April 26, 2022: Called game at around 2 hours (no game behind it) after 3.5 innings despite that the home team was down (problem has existed for years). See footnote 2 for NWLL local rule.
• April 27, 2022: Repeatedly yelled at -- and argued with -- the home plate umpire about calls he (Marcellus) didn’t understand and/or was wrong about. Refused to accept home plate umpires calls and twisted them to others afterwards to justify his view (problem has existed for years).
• April 27, 2022: Told coaches that throwing bat anywhere near him was an automatic out. Home plate umpire disagreed (problem has existed for years).
• April 28, 2022: Yelled at a player for stepping into batter’s box before umpire announced that it was ok to do that.
• April 30, 2022: Berated catchers -- one to tears -- such that no player on one team wanted to catch. Also provoked a coach (Molly Quigley) by saying “Is there something you want to say to me?” – “Why are you looking at me?” – “Why is she looking at me?”3
• April 30, 2022: 5 p.m. game called after 3 innings -- at about 1 hour and 50 minutes -- and declared an unofficial game despite there being no game scheduled after that.4
• Spring 2022: Called a player out for not sliding at home even though he avoided contact with catcher (problem has existed for years).5
• Spring 2022: Repeatedly tells coaches the last game of day ends at the two-hour mark (problem has existed for years).
• Spring 2021: After Ricky informed umpires that throwing bat was not an automatic out, umpire called a player out on the grounds that the bat hit him and complained he (umpire) was hurt. The boy, thinking he hurt the umpire, started crying. The umpire screamed at the coach for appealing. When Ricky asked Marcellus the next day if the bat hit him, Marcellus said “almost” (confirmed by video that bat was slid and didn’t hit him).
• Spring and Fall 2021: Constantly screamed at, berated, belittled and/or threatened, parents, players, umpires, bystanders and coaches (problem has existed for years).
3. Molly Quigley’s email documenting this incident is attached. Note that, like many other coaches, she has, until now, largely given up lodging complaints. We have received feedback that there is a general belief that nothing ever changes
4. The NWLL local rule reads “If there is no following game scheduled (i.e., it's the last game of the day), there is a 2.5 hour time limit from the scheduled start time.”
5. The NWLL local rule reads “A base runner advancing from third base to home plate must avoid contact with the fielder whenever a play at home plate is occurring or likely to occur. A runner failing to avoid contact will be called out by the umpire. Sliding is one way of avoiding contact, but not the only way.”

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• Spring and Fall 2021: Takes over game and other umpire’s calls and yells at -- and loudly disagrees with -- other umpires (problem has existed for years).
• Spring and Fall 2021: Refuses to reverse calls even after acknowledging they were wrong (problem has existed for years).

[Anonymous]

IMHO it’s surprising that some people here are more worried about kids being named (for a matter of explanation, haven’t read any accusation towards them personally) than the kids being hurt by the scandal itself.
So basically what you’re saying is that it’s ok to cheat, exclude, harass, retaliate, ruin a whole sports experience for ten times (at least) the number of the kids that were named in this letter, if you keep it quiet.
That explains why this corruption has been going on for so long in DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IMHO it’s surprising that some people here are more worried about kids being named (for a matter of explanation, haven’t read any accusation towards them personally) than the kids being hurt by the scandal itself.
So basically what you’re saying is that it’s ok to cheat, exclude, harass, retaliate, ruin a whole sports experience for ten times (at least) the number of the kids that were named in this letter, if you keep it quiet.
That explains why this corruption has been going on for so long in DC.

Not to diminish what happened to the players and families, there are also accusations of financial mismanagement by Davenport. The Board has a fiduciary responsibility to answer those questions to the NWLL community.

[Anonymous]

Dear lord.

End it all. Now. You are hurting all these children

[Anonymous]

Yall made the Post.
Sounds about white.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/08/18/dc-northwest-little-league-cheating-allegations/

[Anonymous]

Look at how Davenport created fake tryouts scores for a kid in order to sneak him on his team!!

[Anonymous]

Post article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/08/18/dc-northwest-little-league-cheating-allegations/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yall made the Post.
Sounds about white.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/08/18/dc-northwest-little-league-cheating-allegations/

Well played!