WILLIAMSPORT, Pennsylvania (KTRK) — The dream gets real Wednesday night for Needville Little League.
The boys from Fort Bend County will play their first game of the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, against the de facto home team from Media, Pennsylvania, at 6 p.m., which will air on ABC13’s sister network ESPN.
“We actually did a coin flip for sides, and we got visitor, so we thought that was pretty fitting,” joked Needville manager Andy McRae in an interview with ABC13 on Wednesday.
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Needville will be representing the Southwest Region after sweeping through the regional in early August – the 16th team from the Houston area in the long history of the Little League World Series.
SEE Needville Little League completes undefeated Southwest Regional run to earn trip to Williamsport
After a parade in Fort Bend County, another in Williamsport, and a frenzied week of travel and media engagements, they’ll take the field tonight in front of an expected crowd of more than 15,000.
“Our kids will enjoy it, honestly. There will be a few minutes of some nerves, but every time they’ve had that, we shut the gate, we have a little talk, and they just buy into baseball,” McRae said.
Win or lose – it is already the experience of a 12-year-old’s lifetime.
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“They’re living the dream. Every kid that plays baseball growing up in youth sports – they’re getting to live it. They’re superstars for the week. They’re eating it up. It’s great to watch,” McRae said.
For updates on this story, follow Jonathan Bruce on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
A police officer on a local tactical team assigned to former President Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, said there was no contact between their SWAT team and the U.S. Secret Service before Trump was shot.
“We were supposed to get a face-to-face briefing with the Secret Service members whenever they arrived,” the Beaver County team’s lead sharpshooter Jason Woods told ABC News. “That never happened.”
Woods told the outlet that the lack of communication was likely part of the critical failure in planning that ended with 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks wounding Trump, killing spectator Corey Compartore and injuring two others before he was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper.
TRUMP SHOOTING: TIMELINE OF ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT HOW GUNMAN EVADED SECURITY
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Donald Trump, with blood on his face, is surrounded by Secret Service agents as he is taken off the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13, 2024.
“I think that was probably a pivotal point, where I started thinking things were wrong because it never happened,” he continued. “We had no communication.”
In the wake of the assassination attempt, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has resigned, and a series of law enforcement and congressional probes have been announced.
READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP
Woods told ABC News that he and his team were in position hours before Trump took the stage at the Butler Farm Show, but his team’s first communication with the Secret Service was “not until after the shooting.” By then, he said, it was “too late.”
TRUMP CAMP QUESTIONS WHY THEY WEREN’T ALERTED OF SUSPICIOUS PERSON PRIOR TO ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
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Former President Trump reacts as multiple shots ring out during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13, 2024.
WATCH: THOUSANDS DESCEND ON MICHIGAN TOWN FOR FIRST TRUMP RALLY SINCE FAILED ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
One of the Beaver County snipers took pictures of Crooks and called into command about his suspicious presence at the venue – but the 20-year-old gunman was still able to position himself on the roof of the building, ABC reported.
Meanwhile, members of Trump’s Secret Service detail and his top advisers have questioned why they weren’t told that local police had spotted a suspicious person who turned out to be a would-be assassin.
Trump’s advisers thought that the sounds of shots, which they heard from a large white tent behind the stage, were fireworks, according to the Washington Post.
SECRET SERVICE WILL AMP UP SECURITY AT UPCOMING PENNSYLVANIA TRUMP RALLY DUE TO ‘COPYCAT’ FEARS: EXPERTS
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Two advisers, who were not named by the outlet, said they did not understand why the alert had not been passed on so that they could consider delaying Trump’s speech, a sentiment the GOP nominee echoed in an interview with Fox News.
“Nobody mentioned it. Nobody said there was a problem,” the former president said in an interview with Fox News’ Jesse Watters on Monday. “They could’ve said, ‘Let’s wait for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, five minutes,’ something. Nobody said — I think that was a mistake.”
Beaver County Chief Detective Patrick Young, who runs the Emergency Services Unit and SWAT team, said the group “did everything humanly possible that day.”
“We talk a lot on SWAT that we as individuals mean nothing until we come together as a team,” Young said.
In a statement, the U.S. Secret Service wrote that “as it relates to communications on that day, we are committed to better understanding what happened before, during, and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure that it never happens again.”
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“That includes complete cooperation with Congress, the FBI and other relevant investigations,” the statement continued.
Original article source: Pennsylvania SWAT officer says team had no contact with Secret Service before Trump rally shooting
Olympic swimmer Ivan Puskovitch (West Chester) was profiled in The Philadelphia Inquirer on July 27th. In the profile we learned that his idol is Fran Crippen, a record-breaking swimmer from Conshohocken who passed away in 2010. From the article:
Crippen remains the most famous open-water swimmer in the world … nearly 14 years after his death. He grew up in Conshohocken, was a star swimmer at Germantown Academy and the University of Virginia, and at 26 drowned amid dangerously hot weather conditions during a 2010 race in the United Arab Emirates. His sister Maddy competed at the 2000 Games in Sydney. Fran never qualified for the Olympics. Puskovitch never met him. A generation separated them. That distance didn’t stop Puskovitch from idolizing him. A giant poster of Crippen hangs on his bedroom wall.
“I was very much aware of who he was because I saw his name all over the record books,” Puskovitch said. “Pennsylvania swimming is really rich in history. It’s a rich history of success, rich in tradition of love and passion for the sport. Fran was this incredibly admired athlete and ambassador of the sport across all of Pennsylvania. In the country and the world, he’s a symbol, and he’s a symbol I think of regularly.”
You can read the full article here. You can read a profile of Crippen and learn about the Fran Crippen Elevation Foundation here.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – It’s been more than 20 years since a Pennsylvania Governor has been strongly considered for the Vice Presidency. Now Governor Josh Shapiro is in the national spotlight as a possibility, if not a front runner, to be Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate this fall.
Shapiro has repeated talking points this week regarding the Vice Presidency, saying Harris has a “personal” decision to make, one that she’s gone through prior to President Biden selecting her in 2020. On Friday the Governor said he had not personally talked to Harris since last Sunday when Biden dropped out and endorsed her.
In the coming days, Shapiro will begin a stronger public campaign for Harris that includes an event with Michigan Governor Gretchen Witmer on Monday, reportedly in the Philadelphia area.
Should Shapiro be Harris’ pick for the vice presidency, it’ll likely be announced before an August 7 virtual meeting of Democrats ahead of the Democratic National Convention.
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Every week, This Week in Pennsylvania gives a comprehensive look at the week’s biggest news events in Pennsylvania, provided by the abc27 News team, along with the latest updates on local stories.
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