Little League baseball has always been as much about fundraisers and concession stands as about balls and strikes. This year, Patterson Little League’s teams had to scramble to get a sponsor’s name on the back of their jerseys.

Registration was also down, a trend local Little League representatives attribute in large part to cash-strapped parents worried about their pocketbooks during the recession.

“This league can’t rely on the same people year in and year out if we want to make it,” said Brandon Jack, the league’s president. “My job is to get this league up and running, and I plan on seeing it through.”

The league slashed registration fees to boost enrollment. However, that means raising more money through sponsorships and donations, already a major slice of the Little League budget.

Such revenue is especially important in smaller areas, but finding more money is tough everywhere in a stormy economy, as local business owners — the league’s potential sponsors — tighten their budgets, too.

“We’re grateful for the sponsors and volunteers that we have, but right now, it’s just not enough,” Jack said.

One potential solution is expansion.

Recently, Jack sat down with board members to discuss chartering leagues in both Crows Landing and Newman. If successful, the effort to expand could add a wave of new players and volunteers to Patterson’s second-year program.

“Within a month, we would like to have a meeting with Newman and Crows Landing,” Jack said. “We’d like to see if we can join forces and become one league.”

Scrambling for cash isn’t entirely new for Little Leagues. But worries about enrollment come as Little League has seen a 13 percent decline in the number of children playing baseball over the past decade, from nearly 2.6 million worldwide at its high point in 1997 to about 2.2 million in 2008, according to Little League International.

In Patterson, football and soccer draw children away. Other Little Leaguers lose interest as they age, though Jack remains optimistic that attention will eventually spike as the city’s recreational basketball program moves from a summer to a winter schedule.

“Next season, we are hoping to get more players from the recreational basketball program,” Jack said. “Now that (the basketball league) is moving to December, there will hopefully be 200 to 300 more kids interested in playing baseball in the summer.”

Jack and other Little League fans also see expansion as a way to supplement Patterson’s league and offer more boys and girls chances to participate.

“We really are doing the best we can with what little we have,” Little League coach Jeff Gonzalez said. “We have a few parents that are here for us and whatever we need. It’s a trend we’d like to see continue to grow.”

While some parents have lost their jobs and homes amid the nation’s economic woes, the families of Patterson’s Little Leaguers kept the aluminum bats swinging and the sparse crowds roaring.

Not a single game was missed because of hard times.

“Even though we are in bad times, it still brings out something good,” Jack said.

In Patterson, the parents of roughly 300 kids will turn to fundraisers both new and old, from cars washes to candy and candle sales.

Jack anticipates that interest from the surrounding West Side communities, coupled with fundraising efforts and better administrative planning, will help keep the league above water and ready to go again by February.

“If we can’t meet that February deadline, the district will reject us and we’ll have to search for places to play,” Jack said. “We’re going to start the ball rolling early in December and hope for the best.”

• Contact Marc Aceves at 892-6187 or marc@pattersonirrigator.com.