The ping of the bat and the shouts of excitement from local youth league baseball parks is now on your radio dial.

River 101 (FM 101.3) and B104.5 Classic Hits are teaming up to give radio coverage of Vicksburg’s youth league stars.

River 101 will broadcast a &#8220Game of the Week” from the Culkin Baseball League. B104.5 FM will do the same for the Vicksburg Baseball Association.

Operations Manager Ron Anderson is excited about the new local progaming and feels it will definitely be a hit with local baseball fans, parents, and most of all the kids.

&#8220We’re doing this because we’re a community station,” Anderson said. &#8220It’s fun for us to put a kid’s name on the air.

&#8220Vicksburg has had some great players come through like a Brian Pettway who’s now in the pros. This will let us get a head start on who could be next,” Anderson said.

Sam Shea, program director for B104, agrees.

&#8220No one else is doing this. And we want to be the station that supports kids in our community. And I know the parents are going to enjoy hearing it.”

Anderson said the stations had no problem in finding sponsors to help cover the cost of the broadcasts.

&#8220We found 10 sponsors for each league. With the growth out by US 61, businesses are popping up around the Culkin area,” Anderson said.

The Culkin League broadcasts started Saturday with a 9-10-year-olds’ game. Tonight, the 13-14-year-olds get their chance.

&#8220Culkin has four leagues and we’ll rotate the broadcast around each league and spread it out. Next week, we’ll probably do the 5-6 year-olds,” he said.

The VBA broadcasts are scheduled to begin Thursday night from Halls Ferry Park.

&#8220We’ll pick a game from one of the eight leagues and rotate it around,” Shea added.

Handling the play-by-play call for both broadcasts will be Dailon Husky.

&#8220We’ve only got the one play-by-play guy and that had a lot do with how we’ve set the schedule,” Anderson said. &#8220Culkin plays its games on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday while VBA plays on Thursday and Saturday. If we have a rainout on Tuesday, we’ll have time to move the broadcast to the next playing date. That way, we still have a game a week from both leagues.”

Rain aside, the schedule will have River 101 broadcasting Culkin League games on Tuesday at 6 p.m. until June 5.

B104.5 FM will carry VBA games on Thursday at 6 p.m.

But there’s more.

&#8220We’re also going to do the Culkin Shootout and we may do something with the Governor’s Cup,” Anderson said. &#8220That’s something we’d like to do since its such a big thing for Vicksburg.”