Homer Little League celebrated their 2026 opening day at the Karen Hornaday Park on Saturday May 30th. Opening Day ceremonies were held on the upper softball field at noon and was followed by a barbecue attended by about 260 local youth and their families. Shelby Hagen is the Homer Little League President and explained some of the structure of the program for the participants:
“We start at T-ball, four years old, and because of the age cut-offs, we actually have three year olds out here starting in T-ball all the way up to 16 is is our seniors team, and they've, they've been a lot of them have been in the league, and our program is actually growing. So we have six tee ball teams this year, we've had three or four in years past,” Hagen said.
Hagen says the league has 6 t-ball teams, four minor A teams, three double A teams, two majors teams, a seniors team, and three softball teams altogether. The league practices and plays at the Karen Hornaday Park as well as the 10 acre Jack Gist Park on East End Road.
“We have a hard time being able to start up here because of weather, and our fields get so mushy. We usually have about a month and a half of our regular season. We'd love to start earlier. We've been having some conversations about what it would take to get turf fields out here, so that the kids can start earlier and have a longer season,” Hagen said.
The opening day event include a pitch from Homer mayor Rachel Lord who also provided some comments: “it was such an amazing showing of community, and all the families, and all of the kids, and volunteers, and business support. It was really, really cool.”
Following the opening day events, several games were held with teams in the organization.
This is not just any year for the Homer Little League, it is the 50th anniversary of the organization. One of the early families participating in the organization was Kathy and Erling Hofseth who moved to Homer from West Garden Grove, California in 1978 and joined Homer Little League in 1979. At that point the rules of the game were very new to the youth who wanted to give it a try:
“At that point, Little League in Homer, Alaska was very, very crude. It was just getting started, we had players that would hit the ball and run to third base first. We came from West Garden Grove, which at the time in California, was the largest little league organization in the nation. We were used to kids that had been playing T-ball since five. We came up here and players didn't even know where to go on the field, they didn't even know where a shortstop was, or a left fielder. It was really chaotic,” the Hofseths said.
After the initial challenges, the organization added a score-keeping clinic to help the parents keep scores, a “ladies” clinic, and various league settings of majors and minors.
“We saw a lot of changes while we were there,” Kathy Hofseth said.
Long time Homer resident Kristin Metz was involved with Homer Little League for about 14 years when her children were growing up in Homer and had these memories to share:
“I was a new resident to Homer, Alaska from Missouri. Homer Little League was one of the very first organizations that I was involved in because I wanted to get my kids involved. I said, “let's play, let's play Little League,” and so my son started. I ended up being a volunteer and then on the board. I was involved for 14 years because of my son and my daughter. It was an integral part of my life here. I feel like Little League brings the community together in the summer and it's incredible. It's like the neighbors and the grandparents and the families and all the local businesses. It was just such a wonderful feeling for that every summer. Couldn't wait for it to happen again.”
The 2026 schedule is available at homerlittleleague.org.
Reporting from Homer, this is Emilie Springer.
