LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- It has been 20 years since the Valley Sports Little League players sparkled as Louisville’s Boys of Summer.
“Seems like it was yesterday,” said Zach Osborne, one of the team’s stars. “The camaraderie we had. As a a team, we put so much hard, hard work in.”
A time of amazing innocence and joy. Ask Osborne.
“I think at the time we were kids whose school had started and we just wanted to keep playing and stay out of school and not have to do homework and go back to every day life,” he said, with a laugh.
“There really wasn’t any pressure. Our goal was to win state. Everything else was kind of icing on the cake.”
And, of course, a time of unforgettable achievement — as the Valley Sports guys first proved themselves the best team in Kentucky, then the best in the Great Lakes region, then in America and, finally, beating Japan for the world championship.
“Looking back, it was a very special time in my life,” Osborne said. “And helped me kind of mold the person that I am today.”
A group of Louisville kids, led by Osborne and Aaron Alvey, both of them star pitchers, shortstops and home run hitters, achieved the improbable dream of every 12 year old — winning the 2002 Little League World Series at historic Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
They roared into Williamsport. They played six games over nine days. They won all six games by a combined score of 17-4, defeating a powerful team from Sendai, Japan, 1-0, for the title on Aug. 25, 2002.
“We got to do unbelievable things, not only winning the World Series and going through all that but afterwards … we got a lot of stuff,” Osborne said. “That trophy was two-feet taller than we were at the time …”
Twenty years after they were congratulated by President George W. Bush with a tour of Air Force One and honored with a community celebration at old Cardinal Stadium, the Valley Sports Little League players are now grown men.
Only one, Osborne, is chasing another baseball dream, the major leagues.
Not as a player. As a hitting coach.
“The dream is to make it to the big leagues and have your dream come true,” Osborne said. “That’s what you work hard for. And I got close but it didn’t happen.
“I found a new passion in coaching and I love it.”
Osborne works for the Colorado Rockies Class A farm team in Spokane, Washington. His job is to help the hitter he coaches to make the improvements they need to get to the big leagues.
After starring at Pleasure Ridge Park High as well as the University of Tennessee, Osborne played five seasons in the minor leagues. He advanced through five levels of pro baseball, getting to a Triple A affiliate in Albuquerque, New Mexico, one step below the major leagues, before Osborne retired in 2016.
These days he splits his year between teaching hitting with Rockies during the baseball season and working as a realtor in Louisville in the off season.
His big-league dream has not been realized — yet. But with the Little League World Series underway this week, late August is when the memories percolate.
When Osborne talks hitting, the guys he is coaching love to ask about that magical summer in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
Osborne does not go out of his way to tell people what he and his friends achieved 20 years ago. But Scott Little, manager of the Spokane Indians, discovered Osborne’s background. He likes to share it with people, especially this time of year.
“I mean, I don’t bring it up, really, myself,” Osborne said. “But there are a few guys that know. Like our manager (Little) found out this year and he just thinks it is the coolest thing.”
Of course he does — because it is the coolest thing, first to get to Williamsport and then to win the championship, while hitting baseballs out of that park as a 12-year-old on national television.
Across the world, more than 2.5 million kids play Little League baseball. In 2002, the team from Valley Sports was the best.
They’re recognized at the Little League Hall of Fame with teams from Warner Robins, Georgia and Toms River, New Jersey and Chula Vista California and River Ridge, Louisiana and Taylor, Michigan as teams who have celebrated with a dogpile at that historic site in north central Pennsylvania.
“That’s always kind of the first question (people) ask, ‘What was it like?’ ” Osborne said. “Because they were in the same shoes. Like you said, millions of Little Leaguers want to go play there and win.”
Osborne and his teammates did win. He said there have not been many reunions or celebrations, that the group needs to work on that.
But Osborne said that several years ago, in the middle of winter, he drove to New York with one of his teammates from the University of Tennessee. The journey took them through Pennsylvania. They wound their way to Williamsport. They had to. Wouldn’t you?
“There was snow on the fields,” he said. “We took a picture of it, high up on the hill in the outfield. I definitely want to get back.”
Get back and remember. Get back and celebrate the Summer of 2002 and what an incredible achievement that was.
“We were a bunch of grinders from the South End of Louisville,” Osborne said. “We pulled it together and pulled it out and did a special thing that year.”
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