| | |  News from Around Banderas Bay | March 2009 
Play Ball! PV Little League Opening Day a Success
 Bob Cohen - PVNN
Opening Day for the Puerto Vallarta Little League, held Saturday, February 28th, couldn't have been a better day for close to 150 kids if one had scripted it for a Hollywood movie. In fact it was quite a day for the league organizers, team sponsors, families and all that were at the Sports Stadium for the festivities.
We can look back only two months and see how impossible it would have been to even get a few teams with bats, balls, gloves and uniforms together. Miguel Vargas, the League President and co-founder, along with Oscar Mercado had been dreaming of starting a Little League for well over a year, but lacked funds to do more than dream. But Miguel did talk about it to everyone that would listen.
One that listened was Carlos Contreras, a sportswriter for the Tribuna newspaper (in Spanish), and when I asked Carlos two months ago if he knew anyone that was in need of donated baseball equipment, he immediately hooked me up with Miguel. You can read about the first donation and catch up on past happenings by clicking HERE - but in this article we will fast forward to February 28th.
At 5 am the company that made the uniforms (at half the price that the league would have paid in Puerto Vallarta,) called Miguel and said they had just arrived from Aguascalientes, a ten hour drive, to deliver the uniforms so they would get here on time. Needing as much financial support as possible, the fledging league needed to spend frugally and wisely, and we all thank Jesus Gonzalez for designing and driving the uniforms all this way in order to have them for opening day. Miguel met them at the stadium at 8 am.
At 9 am, Jerry Bianchi, who was the second donor of baseball equipment (and he drove it all the way down form Denver, Colorado) and I arrived to lend any hand necessary to assist. Jerry has been in Puerto Vallarta since late January and has been working daily on the formation of the league. He will be leaving to go home after the second week of play, but will be setting up a donation station in Denver for next season and those that want to send donations for next year can send it directly to him as he will make the long drive down again next winter. Those that want to help can reach Jerry at JerryBianchi(at)gmail.com.
The opening ceremonies were to include the Marine Band, a city official to open the league and season with a short speech and throw the opening pitch and the 150 kids were to be in uniform, but at 9:30 am we only had a few teams - and no dignitaries.
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