PONY Baseball and Softball

American non profit organizing baseball and softball for youth
the youth organization

PONY Baseball and Softball is a non profit organization with headquarters in Washington, Pennsylvania. Started in 1951, Membership is open to children and young adults from age 4 to 23 and the leagues are organized in two year age brackets with "and under" programs. Hundreds of PONY players have gone on to Major League Baseball careers, including Hall of Fame inductees Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr.

In the 2023 Pony Asia Pacific Zone Championships held in Fukushima, Japan, a controversial decision was made, where the Japanese officials unilaterally revoked Taiwan (Chinese Taipei)'s Pony League World Series qualification after losing to Taiwan in the championship game. The reason for disqualification was the alleged use of unapproved bats by the Taiwanese team. However, the PONY league pre approved the bats prior to each game with stickers. There have also never been complaints from other teams prior to the championship game. In the end, despite Taiwan gathering supports from the majority of the teams, including Hong Kong (1 team) and Mainland China (3 teams) who protested against the decision to disqualify Taiwan, the complaint was overruled by Japan, Philippines and Australia, where the two decision making officials were from Japan and Philippines. The incident attracted widespread media attention in Taiwan due to the perceived lack of transparency and fairness. The Taoyuan City Government and Taiwan's Sports Administration immediately filed an official complaint to the PONY Baseball and Softball organization headquarters, and are waiting for a reply.