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West Tampa Little League

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24

Feb, 2024

Opening Day Recap

West Tampa, Florida - 2/24/2024

The West Tampa Little League held their opening day for the spring season on February 24th, 2024. Spring Baseball in Little League is the main season within the organization, where most teams gather and the competitive divisions play tournaments within their district, where the road to Williamsport is on!

It took some time and consideration to prepare for this day, West Tampa first organized registrations, held tryouts, started practices and most importantly started preparing MacFarlane park with what has become West Tampa's 62nd season in Little League, we want to give a special thanks to Manny Martinez, who has put a lot of time and effort to have our park in a presentable condition. The Little League succesfully signed up 186 players and organized 16 teams, a sign of growth and success to all the stakeholders, especially the kids who call West Tampa home.

The morning started at 8 am, where families gathered to meet up with their teams and other parents of the park to enjoy doughnuts and coffee, the little league strives to create a community and place for the local kids. By 9 am the opening ceremony started with the national anthem sung by Susan D'Angelo, Chorus Instructor at Tampa Catholic High School, along with a special speech from Councilman, Luis Viera, who grew up playing Little League baseball too. Courtney Burt of The American Heart Association of Florida gave special thanks to the park's commitment to safety with a presentation of a brand-new safety kit for the concession stand. The ceremony quickly shifted to the many thanks that needed to be held such as Leo Alvarez of BayFirst Financial and The Krewe of West Tampa for attending. After all teams were announced and waved to the crowd, the park announced that there was a special gift of fun to raffle off, an end of the year bowling party at Splitsville! A player from the Majors West Tampa Mets was called up to pull a team out of the hat and the party went to the Minor A Thunder!

To cap off the ceremony the park held a first pitch which was thrown by current MLB Player Mychal Givens, who played at West Tampa Little League, as expected he threw a strike to the catcher, Jonathan Perrone, secretary.

After the ceremony ended, the games started where there were 9 games organized throughout the day lasting until 4:30 pm.

A special thanks to all the board members of WTLL who made this day possible can be found here, and to Bryan Palacio, president for taking the microphone to facilitate the ceremony.

Site Links

West Tampa Little League

2000 N Jamaica Street
Tampa, Florida 33607
Phone : 813-355-9761
Email : [email protected]