NEW YORK — During Saturday night’s game against the Boston Red Sox, people saw José Treviño was a little different. He didn’t smile like usual. He bowed his head longer behind the plate. And when the game ended, he refused to be interviewed, saying only one sentence:
“Today, I’m not catching for the Yankees… but for my mother’s house.”
The historic floodwaters that swept through coastal Texas destroyed thousands of homes, including the Corpus Christi home where Treviño grew up. Although his mother and younger brother escaped safely before the water engulfed the house, everything inside—a picture of his late father, his first baseball glove, and the blanket his mother sewed as a baby—was gone.
“My memories are not in my head. They’re in every corner, every peeling paint, the creaking door where my mother woke me up every morning,” Treviño said at a press conference the next morning. “Now… everything is gone with the water.”
He flew back to Texas for the next night to hug his mother and family. People in Corpus recounted him wearing a simple shirt, helping neighbors clean up mud, rebuild fences, and help install electricity at a nearby relief station.
“José didn’t come back a star. He came back a son who lost his home,” said his former neighbor, Maria, with emotion.
A quiet act that resonated:
Soon after, José Treviño announced a $500,000 donation to help families affected by the floods in Corpus Christi. The money will go toward rebuilding homes, providing food, and providing emotional support to children who lost their schools.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said:
“He had a heart bigger than New York City. And today, he left his heart in Texas.”
In the next game, Treviño took the field wearing a new glove – on which he had hand-embroidered three small words: “For Mom.”
No one was hurt. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t loss. José Treviño teaches us that a house can fall, but love can never be washed away.
“I could rebuild the house. But I want to keep this feeling, so that I never forget where I came from – from an old roof, where my mother used to pat me on the shoulder and say: ‘You will go far.’”