At 9 a.m. Saturday morning Jay Napior arrived at Penn Field for the Little League championships, wearing a Mets T-shirt and hat. Six hours later Jay walked to his car and did a wardrobe change, emerging with a Cubs T-shirt and hat.

So did his wife, Jill.

The Napiors are not fickle fans, prone to switching allegiances. They have two sons, both of whom were in the finals: Leo with the minor league Mets and Cam with the major league Cubs. Jay played a key role for both teams, as assistant coach of the Mets and head coach of the Cubs. He had a very long day on Saturday, as did many others as the minor league game was postponed for two hours due to driving rain and thunderstorms. And then, due to the vagaries of double elimination, the minor league teams had to play each other twice in succession.

Many were at the ball field from 9 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. Parents huddled around the grill during the rainstorm trying to keep themselves and their players fed, then swigged Kombucha or other personal elixirs as the day kept going and going. Eventually, the hard rains gave way to a blazing sun.

In the minor league, many of the players are just eight years old. Hamburgers, cookies and sunscreen were the order of business to keep the players vertical.

The Mets were coached by Jed Smith, who, incidentally also had a son playing in the major league championship game. But for that game Jed could sit in the bleachers and just be a fan cheering on his son Clyde.

The Mets played the Rays, the regular season champs, coached by Jeremy Light, a seasoned coach and recent transplant to the Vineyard who made his baseball bones down in Florida as a high school coach. His Vineyard minor league team won the championship last year, and he was hungry for more.

When asked what secret coaching sauce he brought up from Florida, Coach Light did not hesitate. “Aggressive baseball and base running,” he said.

Sounds rather universal, but he also had a few more aces up his sleeve, something that could have turned the tide on such a long day. Three of the four coaches for the Rays work at the Charter School — Jeremy teaches history, Ken Vincent teaches art and Bob Moore is the head of the school (the fourth coach is Caleb Nicholson). Ken Vincent said he thought the coaches’ experience with kids in the classroom definitely helped.

“It’s a weird advantage for us,” he suggested, acknowledging how much time they spend with kids on and off the ball field.

The Rays thumped the Mets in the first game, 15-4, with Broden Vincent (Ken’s son) at the mound for the entire game and notching six strikeouts. For the second game, which would decide the championship, Eli Bryant took the mound for the Rays and Jackson Munson started for the Mets.

The Rays jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second inning, where the score stayed until the fourth inning. That’s when Jed called his team together.

“It’s time to start hitting,” he said, with such definitiveness it seemed preordained. It was now 2 p.m. After five hours at the ballfield, Jed had decided it was time to unleash the dragons. And the kids listened. Leo Napior led off with a single and Claus Smith (Jed’s son) doubled him home. Claus then stole third and home to bring the score to 3-2.

Fa Fa was on the mound for the Mets.

Fa Fa’s real name is Fletcher Zack. At the ballpark it sounded like only his mother Patricia called him Fa Fa, but she was energetic and drowned out any acknowledgement of her son’s real name. Fa Fa received his nickname before he could talk, she said. He had a habit as a toddler of pointing at dogs and saying Fa Fa. Then he decided to just call everything Fa Fa.

When asked if eight-year-old Fletcher had shown any signs of wanting to retire his nickname, Patricia shook her head vigorously.

“He will be Fa Fa when he’s six foot four,” she said, citing parental privilege in the naming department.

In the bottom of the fourth inning, the Rays answered with five runs of their own, including a huge, inside the park home run by Avery Mulvey. Her long pony tail waved back and forth from underneath her hat like a metronome as she circled the bases with blinding speed, a testament to the fact that Little League is not just a sport for boys.

In the end the Rays prevailed with Jacobi Light (Jeremy’s son) on the mound, shutting the Mets down in the last two innings.

Final score Rays 8, Mets 4.

And then, finally, it was time for the major league championship, a rematch of the Cubs and the Pirates, along with a rematch of the two starting pitchers from last year, Cam Napior and Toby Roberts, and two coaches from last year, Jay Napior and Chris Roberts. The previous year Cam and the Cubs prevailed, with Cam pitching five scoreless innings to secure the win.

Cam and Toby are excellent pitchers. Both are fast and accurate, but when Cam pitches the sound of the ball hitting the catcher’s mitt can be heard deep in center field. It is a sound that strikes fear in the hearts of batters, coaches, parents and player’s little sisters watching from the stands.

Toby is fast too but utilizes a variety of pitches, some off speed stuff and the occasional curve, to keep batters guessing.

The first two innings were scoreless and the crowd settled in for a true pitcher’s duel. Then in the third Cam proved that his prowess is not limited to the mound. Up at bat, he knocked in two runs and stole home to make it 3-0.

The Cubs added two more runs in the fifth, with a leadoff single by Cam and then an inside the park home run by Latham Higgins to make it 5-0.

Cam pitched the entire game except for the last batter, when his pitch count had been exceeded. In the end, he had 14 strikeouts and gave up only three hits — to Toby Roberts, Devon Saunders and Hardy Eville. He was flawless for the second year in a row, helping to bring home another championship for his father, Jay.

The day finally ended around 6:30 p.m. And yet, after the kids shook hands and the trophies were awarded, the ballfield did not empty out. Instead, parents and players mingled, hesitant to say goodbye after another season, one that seemed to start years ago, when the cold winds of March kept everyone in down coats and blankets. In truth it had started years ago, back in T-ball or Farm League. For many players on the Cubs and Pirates this was their last Little League game. Kids age out at 13.

Baseball is not over, of course, as many players will move up to the Babe Ruth League, a mysterious land filled with teenagers, whiskers and deep voices. But on Saturday, as the sun cooled and the fans mingled, one could still cup a hand to the ear and hear the shouts of joy, ranging from the high pitch of the eight year olds, to the somewhat deeper voices of the 12 year olds, to the sighs of the parents.

Each voice said the same thing: one more game, just one more game.

More Little League Photos.