Daily Sitka Sentinel

Little League, Big Hearts: Sitka LL Opening Ceremonies Fill Moller Field

By KLAS STOLPE

Sentinel Staff Writer

There is no requirement for playing Little League baseball or softball – you just have to have a big heart. And roughly 300 local youths brought their pedigrees to Moller Field on Saturday.

“Welcome to the opening ceremonies of the 2018 Sitka Little League season,” the voice of long-time Sitka sports enthusiast Keith Perkins proclaimed. “Where are the cheers?”

Lorelai McLeod playing for Spendard Builders is introduced Saturday, one of some 300 softball and baseball players who took the field on opening day. (Sentinel Photo by Klas Stolpe)

With that request Moller Field erupted in whistles and applause and Perkins, a baseball player, coach and umpire for more than 40 years, began an annual ritual of spring repeated on grassy fields, or rocky back yards, or rainy flats, or artificial turfs world-wide: Little League Opening Day.

“Yeeaahh,” Perkins’ miked voice echoed from behind the home plate fencing. “This is always a fun time of the year here in Sitka. We love our baseball.”

Taylor McCarty, 7, was doing splits on the warning track in center field.

“I don’t know,” McCarty answered when asked what part of baseball she likes. “But I like gymnastics. Sometimes Mom forces me to play baseball, but it is fun I guess.”

McCarty, a Coastal Excavation player, skipped away, a winter hat with animal ears bouncing along on top of her head.

Miles Brown, 6, plays for AC Lakeside. His great-great-uncle Charlie Gehringer, a 1949 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, played for the Detroit Tigers. Brown plays the game well, and he will tell you so.

“Well, I am just five and three-quarters years old,” Brown said, grasping a brand new white baseball in one hand and a new Rawlings mitt in the other. “Well, I haven’t played yet but I think I’m going to like it. I think I will play just fine.”

When told he looked good in his uniform Brown replied, “Well, thanks!”

Teammate Keian Young, who turns 4 in July, said he liked baseball but he was going to be a better basketball player than his dad Archie, the former Wrangell star and current Mt. Edgecumbe coach.

“Hitting,” Young said shyly when asked his favorite part of the diamond game.

Twenty-six baseball and softball teams were represented among T-Ball, AAA, Minors, Majors and Juniors Divisions. Each player’s name was announced as they ran on the field.

Justin Kitka,  9, wore the shiny black uniform of Stedman Insurance.

“I look pretty sharp,” Kitka said. “I like playing baseball, it’s my favorite sport. I like batting. My best hit was a triple.”

Standing along the base paths from first to third, the players from all 26 teams said together the Little League Pledge:

I trust in God.

I love my country and will respect its laws.

I will play fair and strive to win.

But win or lose

I will always do my best.

Delayna Barry, 9, is a Ben Franklin mound guru.

“I have played about three years,” Barry said, adjusting her pink hair barrette. “I like to pitch and be in front of a bunch of people and try my hardest. My best pitch is a change-up, it is my favorite one. I kind of strike out people sometimes.”

The parents and volunteers present also had a pledge to say aloud:

I will teach all children to play fair and do their best.

I will positively support all managers, coaches and players.

I will respect the decision of the umpire.

I will praise a good effort despite the outcome of the game.

“I like baseball,” Dan Etulain, age 80, said. “I was a catcher in high school. My legs don’t take standing like it did anymore, so I find a chair pretty quickly now.”

Etulain played in the diamond hotbeds of Ellensburg and Moses Lake, Washington. Now his field is local television. He filmed the state tournament in Sitka a few years ago and a game against South Anchorage.

“The field had been finished one year and the next year they brought in South,” Etulain said. “The Wolves had only one practice on it that year. The snow had cleared enough for them to have one day. Sitka trounced South. Baseball and softball are sports that bring a town together.”

Many of the Sitka town-folk were at the field on Saturday.

“It has been a very emotional day,” SLL President Karen Case said. “So much work goes in to pulling this off. So when it all comes together like this it is emotional. I want the kids to have a great time, a lot of fun, and learn a lot of life lessons.”

Adding to the emotion was the honoring of departing board members Chip and Caldwell Lewin, who were given gifts and joined on the field by two of their three children, Cooper and Hunter, dressed in their Little League uniforms.

The morning had included a prayer by pastor Ryan Gluth, the singing of the National Anthem by Heather Gluth, and a Coast Guard helicopter fly over.

The ceremonies ended with the official opening day pitches.

Sitka High School senior softball pitcher Whitney McArthur laced a fast ball to teammate, and sister, junior catcher Kyleigh.

“I remember this,” Whitney said. “It is feels great to see everyone out here. I have never seen this many players, even when I played, which is really nice to see.”

This was the second time Kyleigh has caught the season’s first throw.

“It’s really fun, it brings back a lot of good memories,” she said. “I’d like to tell the kids good luck, keep playing, and have fun!”

Last season’s state high school championship battery, Wolves’ senior pitcher Camden Suarez and junior catcher Morean Simic, did the honor for the baseball side.

“It’s great to see all these kids out here,” Simic said. “And to see them develop to a bigger scale.”

Various shades of Little League uniforms filed past them, the players glancing up at the legendary Sitka duo’s red jerseys trimmed in blue and white.

“I remember all the times I came out here and watching all the bigger kids throw the first pitch,” Suarez said. “I remember when the 2014 guys won state and they were standing by the dugout. I remember thinking ‘wow, I really want to be right there with them someday.’”

Caleb Calhoun, age 10, plays for Halibut Point Marine. As the field cleared of little league players following their sun-cast giant shadows off the diamond, Calhoun paused.

“I like pitching and hitting,” he said. “My best pitch is the fast ball. And in all-stars I hit a home run to center field, against Juneau.”