You occasionally hear about faked birth certificates being used to get over age players or foreigners (Cubans) on a team. There is enough money at stake for these kids at the national level for a few people to try it. Cheating is almost minigame inside of baseball at this point.
I don’t know if requiring three forms of ID/residency is the right solution, but I at least understand the motivation. They are probably operating under the assumption that it’s harder to fake three government documents than it is to fake one. It’s definitely more time consuming and expensive, and that alone will deter some cheaters.
> They are probably operating under the assumption that it’s harder to fake three government documents than it is to fake one.
While there are government documents in all three categories, none of the categories requires government documents. Or documents which have much verification behind them.
You could, but it would be a real mess if a state champion team got checked before a national level tournament and the league found out they had ineligible players that they used to qualify for the tournament. You could just kick those individual kids out, but who’s to say that the team would have qualified without them? You could DQ the whole team, but that is going to remove honest kids that had nothing to do with the cheating, and probably would have played for a non-cheating team if given the choice. Plus, if you DQ the whole team, what is the best way to find a replacement or should you just give their first opponent a bye? Once you start thinking about how to handle cheaters that make it most of the way through the season, you realize that it’s way simpler to catch them during registration so you’ll have fewer tough decisions to make later on.
I don’t support collecting a treasure trove of personal information, but I do support fairness in sports and there is probably a “correct” solution to this problem if the right people put their minds to it.
I don’t know if requiring three forms of ID/residency is the right solution, but I at least understand the motivation. They are probably operating under the assumption that it’s harder to fake three government documents than it is to fake one. It’s definitely more time consuming and expensive, and that alone will deter some cheaters.