NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The North Adams Little League is no more, but rather than let it go away completely, its leaders decided to take the city's youth baseball program in a different direction.

 

And they found a new home in Cal Ripken Baseball.

 

The newly formed North Adams Cal Ripken League will play its inaugural season this spring. Moving from Little League to Baltimore-based Cal Ripken Baseball has a couple of advantages for local ballplayers, according to league President Marc Field.

 

But the chief advantage is that it allows North Adams youth baseball to survive and rebuild at a time when membership numbers are not high enough to sustain membership in Williamsport, Pa.'s, Little League Baseball and Softball International.

 

"Basically, what's happening is our numbers are dwindling," Field said. "We can probably field four teams this year. Next year, we're losing another 20 kids.

 

"Little League needs four teams to have a Little League charter. So next year, we probably wouldn't be able to have a league."

 

Field, the president of the North Adams Little League Board and the newly formed North Adams Cal Ripken board, said the former voted 10-1 last November and again this month to make the switch to Cal Ripken.

 

The North Adams Cal Ripken board will hold a community meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 13, at 6 p.m., at the Northern Berkshire YMCA to talk about the switch from Little League to Cal Ripken.

 

One of the big changes will be keeping the big kids separated from the little ones. In the Cal Ripken setup, 9- and 10-year-olds will play together and 11- and 12-year-olds will play together, Field said.

 

"Nine-year-olds don't have to face 11- and 12-year-olds anymore," he said. "I think the kids can develop better that way instead of 9-year-olds facing 12-year-old all-star pitchers. Some kids start the first two years sitting on the bench waiting to turn 11.

 

"Now, the 9- and 10-year-olds will play a full game ... and get to learn the game of baseball a little better."

 

And the 11- and 12-year-olds will develop their game a little more on the larger field used by Cal Ripken.

 

"The advantage is [the older teams] play on a field half the size of a Major League field," Field said. "They get to learn to pitch from the stretch, lead off a base, stretch their arm a little more throwing across the bigger diamond.

 

"It's really beneficial for everybody — beneficial for our league, beneficial for kids. Williamstown and Lanesborough have had Cal Ripken for 10 years now, and look at the baseball teams at the high school. Not that that's all [because of] Cal Ripken, but we're trying to follow that model."

 

One more advantage for the players is variety. Instead of playing the same three teams over and over, North Adams' players will face teams from Williamstown, Lanesborough, Pownal, Vt., and South County, Field said. To help ease the transition for North Adams families, the Steeple City teams will play mostly home games in 2016.

 

Registration cost will be the same for players in Cal Ripken as it was for Little League, Field said. For the same money, organizers hope to provide a better on the field experience — and to be able to continue to provide that experience for years to come.

 

"Little League has become more about bigger communities, bigger cities," he said. "It's modeled more toward Texas, California, Florida communities — not little North Adams with four teams.

 

"The sponsors are the same, the the uniforms are the same. They'll just have a Cal Ripken patch instead of a Little League patch."