Evan Tavares throws a ball on Sunday at Maehara Stadium. Tavares is the left-handed ace of the Central East Maui Little League team that has been to back-to-back World Series. HJI / ROB COLLIAS photo
Thirteen-year-old pitcher Evan Tavares was surrounded by Maui-grown major league talent at Maehara Stadium on Sunday morning, but it was the pros who came away impressed.
“He stands out, man, and the ones that stand out are usually the ones that catch your eye and the ones who you hope stay successful throughout their careers,” said Kanekoa Texeira, the 39-year-old former major leaguer from Kula and current AAA manager in the Atlanta Braves organization. “I said instead of us giving him our autographs, we should take his autograph. He’s going to be good one day.”
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The respect was mutual as Kanekoa and fellow former major leaguers Shane Victorino, Torii Hunter, Latroy Hawkins and Kenny Lofton put on a free baseball clinic for Tavares and over 150 youth players.
“It feels great to see all these major league guys that I never met before and it also feels great to play with the little kids, too,” said Tavares, an 8th-grader at ʻĪao Intermediate School. “I’m learning a lot about how everybody plays and how everybody coaches.”
Kanekoa Texeira (left) works with young baseball players on Sunday at Maehara Stadium. HJI / ROB COLLIAS photo
Tavares is the ace left-handed pitcher for the Central East Maui Little League team that has been to back-to-back youth World Series — the traditional Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa., in 2024 for 11- and 12-year-olds, and the 2025 Intermediate 50/70 World Series in Livermore, Calif., for 13-year-olds where they won the national title before falling in the world championship game in August.
Tavares said 12 of the 13 World Series teammates from Central East Maui Little League were at the free clinic that was held in coordination with the Shane Victorino Foundation, Still Got Game Foundation, and the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation.
The event came one day after the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa baseball team held a separate youth clinic at Hitter’s Paradise Indoor Training Facility in Kahului that featured 120 youth players.
University of Hawaii baseball player Ben Zeigler-Namoa works with young players on Saturday at a baseball clinic at Hitter’s Paradise. HJI / ROB COLLIAS photo
Baldwin High School graduate Ben Zeigler-Namoa is now in his senior year as a first baseman/outfielder for the Rainbow Warriors. His mom, Kim Zeigler, helped organize the event at Hitter’s Paradise.
Zeigler-Namoa remembers being one of the kids at similar clinics when he was growing up while living in Napili.
“Oh yes, 100% I remember being one of these kids,” he said. “It’s a good outreach program for these kids. They get to have some fun, get to experience what it’s like as a Rainbow Warrior, kind of like a day in the life.”
At one point in the early part of the clinic for players ages 6 to 9 years old, Zeigler-Namoa spotted a youngster named Johnny who was crying off and on. Zeigler-Namoa knelt down and spoke softly to Johnny and got him to join the station that Zeigler-Namoa was running on learning how to throw a baseball.
University of Hawai‘i baseball player Ben Zeigler-Namoa works with a youngster named Johnny on Saturday at a baseball clinic at Hitter’s Paradise. HJI / ROB COLLIAS photo
“I mean, as a Lahaina kid for Little League, getting put onto random teams and just having fun … They’re living the dream we, or the life I once lived,” Zeigler-Namoa said. “It’s kind of unreal to look at. I mean, this is the next generation of kids, so it’s a great way of connecting with them and seeing who becomes the next prodigies.”
Zeigler-Namoa, an unquestioned team leader for the Rainbow Warriors, added: “It’s awesome to give back. It’s awesome to have kids around, and it’s funny because you kind of learn some things from them, too.”
The University of Hawai’i baseball team works with Maui youth baseball players at Hitter’s Paradise in Kahului on Saturday. HJI / ROB COLLIAS photo
Victorino, the 1999 St. Anthony High School graduate who is a two-time World Series champion, two-time Major League Baseball All-Star, and four-time Gold Glove winner, annually holds a dinner gala and celebrity golf tournament to raise funds for his foundation to help Maui youth sports organizations. Victorino has held youth clinics here in the past, but the COVID-19 pandemic and a family illness led those events to be paused for the last few years.
A meeting in Las Vegas 11 months ago with Melissa Persaud of the Still Got Game Foundation led to Sunday’s event where some of Maui’s standout youth players and others as young as 8 years old filled the natural grass turf at Maehara Stadium.
Kanekoa Texeira (left) works with youth baseball players at Maehara Stadium on Sunday. HJI / ROB COLLIAS photo
The players were going station to station, taking pitching tips from Texeira, who played in the majors for the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Mariners before working his way through the Braves organization as a coach.
Some were taking grounds balls with Wehiwa Aloy, the former Baldwin High School and University of Arkansas shortstop who won the Golden Spikes Award in June as the best player in college baseball before being drafted in the first round of the MLB draft, 31st overall, by the Baltimore Orioles.
Others were running down fly balls with former major leaguers Hawkins and Hunter in the outfield, and still more of the players were taking batting swings with Lofton near home plate at Maehara Stadium.
“I cannot complain, it always melts my heart to see this,” Victorino said as he peered out to the full, bustling Maehara Stadium field. “Hopefully the goal is to make this an annual thing.”
The Still Got Game Foundation was launched in 2018. Through the foundation, the former players and like-minded business folks pool their resources — time, passion, celebrity and finances — to positively impact their communities, with a special emphasis on financial literacy and baseball and softball clinics for underserved youth.
Wehiwa Aloy, a Baldwin High School graduate, Golden Spikes winner at the University of Arkansas and first-round draft choice of the Baltimore Orioles, works with youth baseball players at Maehara Stadium on Sunday. HJI / ROB COLLIAS photo
Lofton, who played 17 years in Major League Baseball for 11 different organizations, is a founding board member for the Still Got Game Foundation.
“The reason why we call it Still Got Game is because even though we’re not in the game, we still got game to give back to underserved communities and whoever needs help,” Lofton said. “Shane has been asking us for years to show up to come and the time frame didn’t pan out until this year, and then we had a chance to piggyback with Still Got Game and it was a perfect opportunity to tack on to what he already has going on and we’re still doing something for the kids.”
Lofton added, “it’s all about giving back and give the kids an opportunity, especially here in Maui.”
“There’s a lot of weird stuff that’s been happening out here and now this is the time where the kids can just take their minds off of what some of them have going on and just say, ‘Hey, we have this clinic that these guys are putting on to have fun with us,’ ” Lofton said.
At Saturday’s event, University of Hawai‘i seniors Zeigler-Namoa and relief pitcher Dylan Waite both pictured themselves as youngsters growing up playing the game at similar clinics on Maui before they became teammates at Baldwin. Waite recalls attending clinics put on by former Major League catcher Kurt Suzuki, a 2001 Baldwin graduate who was recently named manager of the Los Angeles Angels.
University of Hawai’i baseball player Dylan Waite (middle) works with young players on Saturday at a baseball clinic at Hitter’s Paradise. HJI / ROB COLLIAS photo
“I’m very blessed to be here. Giving back to the kids here, it means the world to me,” Waite said. “I grew up attending Kurt Suzuki clinics, and to have the University of Hawai‘i partner up with (owner) Mike Diaz here at Hitter’s Paradise to give back to the youth, it’s awesome. It’s sweet.”
Waite added that he got more than just baseball lessons from the clinics he attended through Suzuki’s foundation.
“Growing up, I always idolized Kurt because I wanted to be like him, giving back to the community, helping out the youth,” Waite said. “And he taught us life skills that have applied to me now, especially after baseball. So, yeah, it meant the world having an opportunity to attend those clinics.”
Rich Hill, the UH head coach, said the opportunity to bring his team to Maui holds a special place in his heart.
“We’ve been coming here for years,” Hill said. “My grandparents took us here when I was 16 years old and we’ve been coming back ever since. It’s great to give something back to this community. Driving up and walking in here, seeing the keiki, their oversized baseball hats and pants and the little girls that are interested in baseball and the moms and the dads, this is amazing.”
Hill is proud to have the pair of Baldwin graduates on his team for the upcoming 2026 season. Both will see their college eligibility run out after the spring.
“Ben, he’s just a staple of our program since I’ve been here,” Hill said of Zeigler-Namoa, who was a Big West Conference commissioners honor roll in all three of his seasons in Mānoa, an all-star in the Cape Cod League in 2024, and an All-Big West second-team selection in 2025. “He brings so much on the field of play and I’ve seen him just get better and better and better, bigger and stronger.”
Hill added, “the thing that stands out about Ben is his character. Look at him right now. He’s greeting these little kids. No one told him to do this, but what he means to our program in terms of character, his representation in the community and just who he is as a person is better than he’ll ever be as a baseball player.”
Waite has twice been named to the Big West commissioners honor roll and is studying economics.
“He just keeps getting better and better and better,” Hill said of Waite. “He’s just got the guts of a burglar is what I tell him. He’s out there really competing his butt off all the time. He’s really made significant strides.”
“Monday Morning MIL” columns appear weekly on Monday mornings with updates on local sports in the Maui Interscholastic League and elsewhere around Maui County. Please send column ideas — anything having to do with sports in Maui County — as well as results and photos to rob@hjinow.org.