More than 60 children participated in the Haines Little League this season.
Games ran from May to July at the Southeast Alaska State Fairgrounds. The Braves and the Reds competed in tee-ball for ages 5 to 8 and the Red Sox and Yankees clashed in baseball for athletes up to age 12.
“We just try and make (the teams) even, ability-wise, so that no one team wins all the time,” said Ashley Sage, league president. “Actually, it worked out pretty well this year, in the big guys, anyway. Tee-ball, you don’t keep score.”
The boys and girls learned from coaches Ray Chapin, Matt Davis, James Sage, Liana Shull, Ross Silkman, Gary Stigen, Ralph Swinton and Nishan Weerasinghe.
This year, the baseball games no longer used a pitching machine and instead relied on the kids to get the ball over the plate. Sage said she was “pleasantly surprised at how well it went.”
After a stretch of Thursdays and Fridays with the Red Sox and Yankees facing off at the fairgrounds, 10 youths will represent Haines at a Juneau tournament starting Monday, July 18. Sage said games are scheduled to run through the following weekend, and a Haines Little League team has not entered a tournament in a few years.
“I think it will be great for them to see other kids play and to play other kids,” she said. “Around here, you just play the same old kids over and over, and you kind of know where they’re going to hit or how fast they can run.”