There has been a lot of discussion about Little League Baseball transitioning to a new date for determining a player's league age and eligibility. Up until now, a player's age on April 30th was used to determine his or her league age. Beginning with this coming season, Little League is beginning to use December 31st as the determination date.

Before becoming confused or too concerned about this process, the first thing to know is that most players will not be affected by the change. If your child was born in 2005 or prior, there will be no affect on their status this year. Also, if your child's birthdate falls in January through April of any year, there will never be an impact for them either.

Kids who will be affected are those with May through December birthdays AND who were born in 2006 or later. For those children, if they played last year, they will be advancing two years in league age in 2015. For example, if a player was born on May 1, 2007, they would have played in 2014 as a 6-year-old, but will play in 2015 as an 8-year-old. This does not mean your child will necessarily play in a different division than you previously expected. Players will still be evaluated to be placed in the level most appropriate for their skill and social development.

Little League's goal with this transition is to eventually simplify the age determination process, as everyone born in any one calendar year will have the same league age. Also, this change is an effort to keep kids from "outgrowing" the field dimensions that they play on. Our board members will be happy to answer any questions you have about this change when you come to registration.