The West Tampa Little League held their opening night for the spring season on February 21st, 2025. 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 63rd season in Little League, we want to give a special thanks to all our board members, who has put a lot of time and effort to have our park ready. The Little League successfully signed up 285 players and organized 25 teams, a sign of the growth and positive direction occurring in the neighborhood of West Tampa.
The evening started at 5:30 pm, where families gathered to meet up with their coaches to get ready to line up. By 6:30 pm the opening ceremony started with the national anthem sung by Isabella Smith, a student at Tampa Catholic High School, immediately following the anthem, special guests Cole Ayers and Jarrod Cande, professional baseball players in the Colorado Rockies and Yankees organization threw out the first pitch. After the ceremony, Park President Bryan Palacio invited former softball player Isabella “Bella” Roman to share a few words of thanks to the park and the impact it created on her. Bella is a current Senior and captain on the Jefferson High School softball team. The ceremony quickly shifted to the many thanks that needed to be held such as Jessica Fernandez Law, 5 Star roofing and The Krewe of West Tampa for attending. After all teams were announced and waved to the crowd, the kids were invited to the back of the fields to enjoy pizza and get autographs from Jarrod Cande and Cole Ayers, who invited many of his other teammates to sign autographs for the kids. This included Adam Stone, Baron Stuart, Matt Keating and Mason Vinyard. The park produced special note cards with the park logo to commemorate the moment and opportunity for autographs.
As the ceremony ended the park held a special player interview with Cole Ayers, along with some kid interviews by Matt Keating who was interviewed by Aurora Dent in Minor A softball, Jarrod Cande by Justice Graham and Baron Stuart by Sincere Holloway.
The night was completed by the first game of the season, a tee-ball match up between the West Tampa Tampenos and the West Tampa Bananas at 7:30 pm.
The park held an opening night fundraiser raffle, which included an entry for a team party to Splitsville, which was won by the Minor B Noles Softball Team! Managed by Daryl Bellucia.