Despite last year’s bombing incident that frightened visiting Little League junior and senior teams, their entourage and parents, Jakarta will be hosting the regional tournament again.
And this time, the Little League member-country will be hosting a much bigger event because aside from the baseball this year’s regional softball tournament will also be held at the said Asian country.
Some parents however, seem to remain haunted by last year’s bombings that claimed the lives of 50 people including seven from Australia and one from New Zealand.
Members and entourage of NMI All-Stars teams were too lucky that the twin bombings in JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton Hotels in Jakarta took place one week after they left the city.
A parent of one of the NMI All-Stars team recalled one of the hotels where the bloody incident happened was just a stone-throw away from where they stayed during the regional tournament.
Still alarmed by continuous attacks by terrorists on Westerners in many countries, some parents aired concern about this year’s host of the regional tournament.
But NMI Little League district administrator, James Ada said the Williamsport headquarters in Pennsylvania has not received any advice of security threat in the regional tournament. If there is, he said, the responsible US government agencies would surely have advised Williamsport which will then, inform the participating teams from the U.S., including CNMI.
So far, he said they haven’t received any advice of security threat from the headquarters, so he can say that there should be nothing to worry about this year’s regional tournament.
In fact, he said most of the Asia-Pacific Little Leaguers, including Taipei’s junior division which will be participating for the first time, will be showing up this year.
Everything is okay and almost all the teams are ready to go, he said.
Ada also said that they never received from any of the parents of NMI All-Stars of such concern.
