After historic floods, Texas Hill Country Little League is back

There’s nothing more quintessential to being a kid than playing Little League baseball, but on July Fourth, 2025, along with so much more, the Little League fields of Hill Country were destroyed, along with the innocence of thousands of kids who live here.  

With so much else to rebuild, a baseball season in 2026 seemed like more than a dream.  

But just like every other challenge, this community, with a little help from some major league friends, came together and did what some thought was impossible. They made sure that baseball was back, right on time for opening day this March.  

Fresh cut grass, chalk on dirt, and the familiar sound of strikes being thrown.

It’s baseball season in Texas, opening day in fact.

“I could not go to sleep, I was just so excited. I got up early, took a shower, did my hair,” said Lilly Wirth, a softball player. 

And with opening day comes fanfare

But nothing about this march day was promised. Just eight months prior, this beautiful ballpark simply was washed away.  

“We had our last game July 2, and we closed up shop and were like, ‘We’ll come back kind of clean up maybe this weekend,’ kind of go through stuff, and we all know that did not happen,” said Amy Barnes, a mom and the concession stand manager.

 Like almost everything else, the July Fourth flooding completely destroyed the Little League fields in Hunt.  

Barnes and Caroline Key are both moms in the Little League; Key coaches her kids’ teams. They thought they had lost their season, along with so much more.

“July 5, when we walked around, we were… stuck, we were devastated and sad and pretty bummed,” said Barnes.

“My daughter is a student at the Hunt school, and we lost two students from our community. In addition, we lost some of our friends too,” said Key.

“When we woke up in the morning, everything was wrecked. We had a pretty good view of where it happened… It was wrecked,” said Annie Key, Caroline Key’s daughter and a softball player.

When asked how she felt after the floods, Annie Key said she was sad, “Cuz I lost some friends,” she said. 

“I had three sets of little eyes looking up, saying, ‘Where are we going to play next year?’ And we said we would figure it out,” said Barnes. 

Not playing ball was simply not an option. 

And that meant getting a little help from some major league friends.

“We came over to see what we could do to help and it became immediately evident that the fields were wiped out. Looking up over the hill there was really nothing left here. So, right then, I decided whatever we got to do to figure this out and get it done,” said Jim Crane, the owner of the Houston Astros.

The Astros joined forces with the Texas Rangers, Communities Foundation of Texas and others to pitch in nearly $3 million to rebuild the fields so these kids didn’t miss a single pitch.

“This joy you feel today has been this pent-up joy this community has had for so long,” said Austin Dickson, the CEO of the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country. 

That joy was bursting at the seams; the kids couldn’t wait for the ceremonial ribbons to be cut. They just wanted to play.

“Cut the ribbon, cut the ribbon, cut the ribbon,” the kids screamed.

“Because of the people of what we had during the flood, I knew, I didn’t expect this, but I knew something would happen,” said Barnes.

And with every pitch thrown and ball hit, these kids are getting something back that was ripped away from them.

“If we can get a hot dog to a little kid, I mean, what else do you need besides baseball and hot dogs, right?” said Barnes. 

A chance to just be kids and play a little ball.