The Rubino Memorial Classic has featured a fair number of dominating baseball teams, but Yoris, this year’s 9u champ, was one of the few that needed passports.

The team is from San Luis, Sonora across the border from Yuma. For the weekend tournament at Big League Dreams Sports Park in Gilbert, the team had to mobilize dozens of parents and players to cross the border for the weekend.

The trip was a success on and off the field. Yoris won four straight ballgames and earned an invitation to the Triple Crown Sports World Series in Steamboat Springs, Colo.

The team had a positive impression on the Arizona baseball community.

“Really good bunch of parents and coaches,” said Conrad Topp, the head of TCS in Arizona. “They’re just outstanding people, they really are, and I’m not just saying that. I don’t say that about every team. They’re first class.”

Topp said the tournament often sees teams from a number of different areas, but entries from Mexico are rare.

“Most of the teams can’t afford to come and play in travel-ball tournaments,” he said. “There’s a lot of good baseball down there, it’s just most of the families don’t have the income level it takes to be able to travel.”

Topp said the exposure to the Yoris baseball team is good for the American kids.

“I think it’s exciting for the local kids, especially to see another team that’s good from another country and realize that baseball isn’t just an American sport,” he said.

Karla Mota, a Yoris parent, said the experience was great for the players, citing the field quality, travel, and cultural exposure as good reasons for going through the inconvenience of traveling so far.

“It’s a real good experience because they are learning so much, and the fields are a great experience,” said Mota.

Coach Francisco Villapadua likes the experience his team had, and hopes to inspire a particular message in the hometown community. Villapadua said the kids and the community need “a vision that we can win things outside of our city. It could be national, it could be state; that’s the message. We can make things different.”

For a group so large, Villapadua acknowledged certain logistical difficulties. An average trip to the sates can take an extremely long time. Villapadua said crossing the border can take an hour, and if a permit is needed, then two additional hours. Plus the travel time to Gilbert, which is more than four hours.

The team relied on its parents to help make the tournament possible.

“There are people who have to do something extra to get money to pay for the hotel, for the food for their kids, for the t-shirts, and also to travel from Mexico to here,” Villapadua said.