Mission Statement

In January of 2008, while playing softball in Puerto Vallarta, I met Miguel Vargas, the president of Ligas Pequeñas who played Little League himself, during his youth. Miguel now wanted to start an official Little League in Puerto Vallarta after a fifteen-year absence.

My 12-year old grandson played on a team that was invited to participate in the Cooperstown "Field of Dreams" tournament. I showed Miguel the web site my son created to raise funds for the team's long trip to New York. Miguel was impressed with the web site and a local Puerto Vallarta resident is in the process of creating a similar web site for the new league.

In October the official documents from Little League were in place, but now they needed equipment. My intent was to help these south-of-the-border kids see the league come to fruition. After contacting several sporting goods stores, flea markets and garage sales, I amassed enough gloves, bats, catcher’s equipment and balls to equip four teams. In January of 2009 I transported the equipment in my van to Puerto Vallarta. When I arrived, a few local newspapers were on site for the delivery. One of the sports writers, Bob Cohen, of Banderas News, and I talked at length regarding the league's progress; and we realized at that moment our work was not completed. We needed a lot more equipment, local sponsors and uniforms. The next weeks were filled recruiting sponsors, umpires, coaches and creating league banners, while at the same time coaching 150 kids, many of which had little previous experience. A week before the start of league play we ordered uniforms for 150 players, as well as coaching staff even though we were short of funds.

The league inauguration was set for February 28th with ten teams. Miraculously, we had the funds the day before and the uniforms arrived at 5:00 am the morning of the inauguration. Was it all worth the stress and effort? Well, one look at these kids grinning ear to ear while donning their brand-new uniforms made it all worthwhile.

However. our work is still unfinished as we have many players sharing equipment and many more kids looking forward to playing next year. We also sponsor a traveling team of 15-16 year-old players who competed in the regional playoffs in Guadalajara and are proud to announce they made it to the semi finals losing to Guadalajara’s last-years co-champions. We also plan to support a team to participate in the Triple Crown Sports baseball tournament in November of 2010.

We now have interest coming from many of the local towns in the area that would like to have a team represented in the league, so the challenge for upcoming season is even greater. Frank Torres, from Union City California, who coached the Los Camerones team and Dave Mariner, PV Yankees sponsor from Calgary Canada, recognizd the value of this project have also joined the effort with Donation Stations.

This is where you, the individual Little League baseball fan, can help make this dream come true to so many great kids who only want to play baseball. Your help goes beyond the glove or bat you donate. It not only provides a kid with the opportunity to play baseball, but helps him develop interpersonal skills, teamwork, commitment and responsibility that will help each and every one of these kids in their adult life.

In essence, what started out as a one-time commitment, turned into a full-time mission to promote support for these less fortunate kids.

Jerry Bianchi