Hollister Little League welcomed 46 youth tee ball and baseball teams and more than 550 players to the 2023 season at the March 4 Opening Day festivities at Veterans Memorial Park.
Before the season’s first games started, the celebration included live entertainment, refreshments from the park’s Snack Shack, a singing of the national anthem by Tenille Ramirez and the ceremonial first pitch thrown by former HLL President Damon Felice.
The league this spring is welcoming perhaps its largest roster in history, according to HLL Director of League Information Brandon Silveira. The numbers of youth ball players ranging from age 4-12 has grown steadily since the pandemic started in 2020—a season that was wiped out due to public health concerns related to Covid-19—to the point that teams are now at full capacity.
There are currently families on a waiting list to find out if their kids will be able to play in HLL before the spring season is over, Silveira said.
Silveira expressed HLL’s thanks to the community for the continued and foreseeable growth of the successful league, which fielded three all-star district champion teams from the 2022 season. He called HLL “one of the best little leagues in the region.”
“That doesn’t happen without supportive parents and the support of the community as a whole,” Silveira said.
The next league celebration is the Bat-A-Thon, scheduled for March 25, where individual players compete for sponsorship funds in a homerun derby-style distance hitting contest, in addition to many other activities for kids and parents throughout the day, Silveira explained. The Bat-A-Thon will take place at Veterans Memorial Park in Hollister.
