CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Trevi's Winter World Series is officially underway.
The weekend-long event is filled with action on the baseball and softball diamonds.
At Portland Municipal Park, teams from across the state converged on Friday for a tournament that lasts through Sunday. There are multiple age groups, including about 10 teams in the eight and under bracket.
One of those teams is Texas Elite 8U, which is from San Antonio. Head coach Eric Huerta said that they worked hard to earn their spot in the tournament. He talked about how special it is for his players to see professional players like New York Yankees catcher Jose Trevino making it happen.
"They love to play ball, but once you have somebody like Trevino giving back to the community and putting things together like that, it not only brings the kids out to play and together but the parents as well," Huerta said.
There are 12 players on the Texas Elite 8U team. Huerta said that there were 13, but one of them passed away from cancer and they now play in his honor. Andrew Weikel is an eight-year-old infielder and was at batting practice on the U.S.S. Lexington on Thursday. He talked about how he ended up with one of Trevino's bats.
"After the practice, he came out and then he was giving away his bat and he came to the section that I was in, and then he was just holding it up and then whoever got it, it's like there's," Weikel said.
Huerta said that he told his team if they want experiences like competing in this tournament and seeing stars in the sport, they must work hard to be invited there.
On Friday night at Whataburger Field, excited kids prepared to take the field and meet some of their baseball idols. That included Trevino, who attended John Paul II High School, and Sinton High School alumni Blake Mitchell and Rylan Galvan.
Mitchell is now a catcher for the Quad Cities River Bandits in the Kansas City Royals farm system. He said that he is thankful to Trevino for inviting him back to be a part of the celebrity softball game—a way for him to give back in his own way.
"He's a great role model, so not a better guy to look up to cause he's done great things for this community, and I want to do the same thing for Sinton and the surrounding communities as well," Mitchell said.
Galvan is a catcher for the Texas Longhorns and said that it was fun to come home to be in the celebrity game. He said that he grew up idolizing some of the other players there, making playing in the game in front of excited fans a full circle moment.
"To be somebody the kids look up to, it's fun to get out here with them. Get to know them a little bit and hopefully these kids out here watching us will do the same thing we're doing," Galvan said.
The tournament continues with different age groups playing baseball and softball games throughout the weekend. Softball will end on Saturday and baseball will wrap up on Sunday.