RESERVE — Although delayed a few days by rain to May 5, the St. John the Baptist Parish Recreation Department’s baseball opening day was indeed a celebration.

More than 200 youths ages 5 through 12 signed up to participate in this year’s summer league, an increase from about 160 players last summer.

“It’s a big jump,” Parks and Recreation Director Kerry Watkins said. “Even the coaches. We have a lot of new coaches, a lot of new volunteers.”

Watkins said the increase is the result of a long, hard push by the department.

“It was the marketing, getting the word out,” Watkins said. “People want to be a part of it.”

Watkins said it also helped that the department lowered the fees for all sports over the past year. It used to cost $35 for a child to play baseball. This year the cost is $15 per child.

“That helped a lot,” Watkins said. “It was a combination of that and the staff working hard to get the word out to the school systems, working closely with the schools.”

Now that school is out, the fields at Regala Park in Reserve are regularly filled with youngsters practicing or playing baseball in the evenings. Games are held every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

Watkins said he has seen a steady increase in recreation participation in all sports over the last year. The basketball league saw a huge increase from 2014 to 2015 of more than 100 children. It even caused a few problems because, at first, there weren’t enough coaches for the number of children.

“We worked it out,” Watkins said. “We still would like to have more coaches so we can have more teams.”

That doesn’t seem to be a problem in baseball, though.

“We’ve always had enough coaches in baseball,” he said.

Watkins said he was somewhat disappointed in the numbers for the older players, however. There weren’t enough players to form a league for 13-and-over players.

West St. John baseball coach Greg Joseph said he tried to get his players into a 13-year-old league as a team to get them some playing time this summer.

“I was hoping to get my kids to play recreation but they didn’t have enough players,” Joseph said.

Said Watkins: “We’d like to increase those numbers. We struggle with that age group because of the middle schools. They have their own teams.”

Watkins also would like to see more girls participate. As of now, there are no girls softball teams in the department, but there are a few girls playing on the boys teams.

“We’re still working on that,” he said.

The Recreation Department offers several other programs this summer, including soccer, gymnastics, a summer camp, water aerobics, swimming, swim lessons and other exercise programs.

For more information and for a complete list of activities, contact the Parks and Recreation Department at 985-652-9569 or visit sjbparish.com/parks_index.php.