Fields across the Bay Area are ready for Little League Opening Day on Saturday. Kids are ready, too, even if fewer players will take the field with them. “Opening Day, in the words of Bart Giamatti, he says everything starts in the spring when everything is growing and it blossoms in the summer . We’re on the cusp of that,” Omar Gutierrez said. Baseball is back; the bleachers across the Bay Area will soon be filled with parents and grandparents, cheering on their little sluggers. “It’s really exciting, so much fun,” Denise Iida, with Evergreen Little League, said. “I can’t wait. We’re ready to kick off the season.” “I still get butterflies,” Tiffany Holseberg, a Little League mother, said. “Get into mom mode.” For the Holsebergs, it’s a family tradition: Little Trey is their third son playing at Evergreen Little League this season. “To see him following in his brother’s footsteps, it means so much,” Tiffany added. But it seems many people are breaking with the tradition. The last couple years have been an eye-opener for the Evergreen Little League, with enrollment to play America’s pastime down by a third. “The whole state is being hit by this,” Gutierrez said. “We have lower enrollment in schools. Lower enrollment in sports programs. It’s a challenge. We know during COVID, we took a downturn. We’re not at the numbers that we were in 2019.” Adding to the decline, the LA Times reports that some children prefer to stay home and play baseball and other games on their computers. The growth of other sports like soccer and skateboarding are also factors. Still, at Evergreen Little League, they’re not giving up on the game. “The baseball field offers a lot of opportunities,” Gutierrez said. “You get to build camaraderie. You get to build teamwork and build community. Because it’s not just about the players; it’s about the families coming together.” ...read more read less