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In 2005, Hall-of-Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan moved the Houston Astros' Double-A franchise to Corpus Christi, Texas. They named the team the Hooks and the ballpark that was built for them agreed to a naming rights deal with the fast food chain Whataburger, which was founded in Corpus Christi in 1950.
I, too, was founded in Corpus Christi (in 1993), and I was the first fan to enter Whataburger Field on April 17, 2005, as depicted above. At the time, I was a massive fan of the Bagwell, Biggio and Berkman (and Billy Wagner) Astros, as well as anyone who played for my fantasy baseball team (also named the Astros).
Speaking of my fantasy team, I should take this opportunity to thank all of the players that contributed to my two championship-winning teams, especially the illustrious two-time winners whose irreproachable talents were only surpassed by their unwavering loyalty to my club: Alfonso Soriano, Johan Santana, Carl Crawford, Ryan Howard and Brandon Webb.
I should also mention the slick-fielding slugger Andruw Jones, who hit .341 with 7 homers, 17 RBI and 17 runs scored in the championship round to help secure my first title in 2006. And it was the crafty southpaw Santana, who went 3-0 with a 1.13 ERA and 27 strikeouts, and his nasty changeup that clinched my second title in 2008. Without them, this glorious photo would not have been possible.
My Mom, who isn't behind me in that opening day photo because she had just gone to one of the giveaway tables to get me a shirt, was also an Astros fan, and a Spurs fan and a Stars fan. She loved all sports and rooted hard for any Texas team that was involved. As a single parent of a sports-obsessed child, she was the best mom I could ask for, always willing to travel to games or put on a glove and play catch in the yard (with the palm bruises to prove it). As with all things in my life, her determination to get to the game early put me in position to be the first one through the gates.
The summer after I became the first Hooks fan ever, I had an even more special baseball experience. The 2006 MLB All-Star Game was held at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, which is where my Aunt "B" and Uncle "Me" lived. Knowing my cousin and I were big baseball fans, they bought Pirates season tickets in order to have priority ticket selection when the All-Star events came around, which is the only logical reason why anyone would buy Pirates season tickets.
While I still have clear memories of Ryan Howard launching balls into the Alleghany during the Home Run Derby and Michael Young delivering the clutch two-RBI triple in the ninth inning that would clinch homefield advantage for the AL in the World Series (remember when that was a thing?), my favorite moments from that weekend came during the Fan Fest at the Convention Center across the Clemente Bridge.
I collected a lot of great loot from the Fan Fest, including but not limited to: A Taco Bell foam taco hat, an autograph from Alex Rodriguez, a few of the awesome All-Star jerseys for my favorite players (the most random? Brewers lefty Chris Capuano) and an authenticated Johnny Damon home run ball from the 2009 World Series that my Mom won in a raffle. Mostly, though, I hung out around the XM Satellite Radio exhibit, where they hosted live shows for the MLB station. This was a formative moment for me, as it marked the first the time I thought about the idea of talking, thinking and being around sports as a career.
During high school, my focus shifted from baseball to basketball. I credit the Gold Medal game at the 2008 Olympics between the US and Spain for the sudden change. It was such a competitive game, and Kobe Bryant's takeover down the stretch, culminating in his infamous shush after his dagger 3, appealed directly to my sensibilities as a fan. Within a month of that shot, I had a website up and running called But The Game Is On, where I posted about Kobe and the Lakers and also Michael Crabtree, then a star wide receiver for Texas Tech.
As it turns out, it was a great time to get into the Laker blogging business. Los Angeles' back-to-back title runs helped me develop a sizable readership, at least for a 10th grader, and I started to find my voice as a writer (which was mostly finding new ways to praise Kobe and discredit Colt McCoy). My passion for sports writing grew quickly and organically, branching out to podcasts on BlogTalkRadio and YouTube highlight mixes of all of my favorite players.
In the summer of 2009, my naivety changed my life forever. After maybe a year of blogging, I fancied myself a journalist. I heard USA Basketball was holding a training camp during the summer in Las Vegas featuring some of the younger players in the league like Derrick Rose, Kevin Durant and Kevin Love. I was interested in covering the camp, so I Googled "Team USA Basketball Media Relations" and found a phone number for a man named Craig Miller. I gave him a call and explained to him about my site and how I'd like to interview some of the players so I could write about them.
Looking back, I realize how fortunate I was that Craig instantly approved me for a credential, but under one condition: I had to bring my Mom with me. Sin City was no place for a 15-year-old to be alone, so I gave my mom a crash course on how to work my Sony camera; she was my new photographer.
Thus began an almost annual family trip to Las Vegas with my Mom and my Aunt B, covering every Team USA training camp held in Vegas up until the pandemic. During that time, I started writing for my local newspaper as an NBA columnist, earning credentials to cover the Spurs' runs to the Finals in 2013 and 2014, and graduated from Oklahoma State University with a B.S. in Sports Media.
That credential not only altered the course of my life, it deeply enriched it with experiences that encouraged my growth as a student, writer and person. And even though I didn't think it was possible, all of those summers covering Team USA's training camps mean even more to me now.
In September of 2021, my Mom was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer called mixed acinar-neuroendocrine carcinoma. In February of 2023, she passed away. Not a day goes by where I don't think about her, and so many of my most vivid memories come from our time covering Team USA.
In 2012, my Mom, my Aunt B and I followed the US Men's Basketball Olympic team past Las Vegas for its stops in New York and Washington. Team USA's exhibition against Brazil in DC was the last stop of the tour stateside, and as we were leaving the arena after the game, we just so happened to pass by the team bus. Lo and behold, making his way down the corridor just a few feet away was Kobe Bryant, the player who inspired me to write in the first place.
Without giving it a thought, my mom approached Kobe to ask for a photo with him. I was just about to start college at the time, so I was already deeply committed to "serious journalist" mode. Knowing such photo ops are forbidden, I retreated down the corridor. I was so mad at my mom for breaking the rules that I didn't talk to her for a couple of days.
Every time I think about that moment, I laugh, if only because the person she asked to take the picture was Deron Williams, who happily obliged. And every time I look back at the photo Williams took, which featured in my mom's memorial collage, I only wish I had more photos with the both of them.
The most recent development in my sports fandom came in 2014. That summer, I fell in love with football (read: soccer), a process that involved attending a baseball game and playing a video game religiously.
After covering Game 4 of the 2014 NBA Finals in Miami, I stuck around an extra day before returning home to Texas for Game 5. I decided to go see the Pirates and the Marlins play. It was a sparsely-attended game that the Pirates won thanks to a Gregory Polanco two-run homer in the 13th inning, but the crowd was pretty raucous before the game even started. During batting practice, a group of fans covered from head-to-toe in fluorescent orange were going ballistic as the Netherlands routed defending champions Spain in the group stage of the 2014 World Cup, which was being shown on the jumbotron.
The Spurs took home the title in 2014, giving me a couple of months off before I started my first semester at Oklahoma State. I used this time wisely, by playing countless hours of Ultimate Team on FIFA 14. Putting aside the thousands of dollars this would cost me in fruitless pack openings during the next decade, this addiction developed as the knockout rounds of the World Cup were taking place. Call me a frontrunner if you must, but I swear I didn't know the first thing about Lionel Messi at the time. Nonetheless, having covered another Argentinian legend in Manu Ginobili for a few years, I found it quite easy to latch onto the diminutive playmaker, and my love for the sport grew quickly from there.
When my senior year of college came around and I had almost all of my required credits secured, I decided to spend the fall semester abroad. I "studied" at the University of Westminster for a few months, and studied is in quotes because I attended way more football matches than classes. Like, way more. This disappoints most of the people I talk to about it because one of my courses was entirely about Jack the Ripper and I am sadly not the expert on the subject that they assume I am.
I am, however, an expert on discount airlines (RyanAir and Vueling, my heroes) and the grueling process of having to become a club member in order to buy tickets to a match. I had to be the only person in London carrying around membership cards for Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea at once.
I attended 38 matches in total. A large chunk of them were at the Emirates, which was closest to my dorm and home to a pretty exciting Arsenal team featuring Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez. Most of the games I saw were at the Nou Camp, though, to see Messi.
At the start of my semester abroad, my Mom and Aunt B decided to join me for a couple of weeks to get me situated in my living arrangements and to enjoy their first Eurotrip in a few decades. We started our travels in Barcelona, given my burgeoning love for Lionel Messi, and saw the Blaugrana take on Atletico Madrid in a tense affair. As was the case many times over the course of my life, my love for a sport or athlete quickly became a mutual one shared with my Mom.
From not having watched a minute of world football in the summer of 2014 to traversing Europe, hopping from stadium to stadium to catch the biggest clubs on the continent just a few years later. My Mom always told me that there was nothing I couldn't learn if I put my mind to it, and soccer had become my latest fascination.
As such, I'd be flattered if you said I know a lot about sports, but take my natural infatuation and insane attention to detail with sports and multiply it by 1,000. That is how I felt from 2021-2023, only the topic of my obsession had become mixed acinar-neuroendocrine carcinoma.
My mom's diagnosis was a total shock, a harsh reminder of the fickle nature of life. I stopped writing about sports immediately and focused on being her caregiver 24/7. It was an intensely rewarding experience, which feels like an odd thing to say. But it was. I felt so proud to be her advocate and to digest a lot of the labyrinthine conversations about treatment options and acute abnormalities for her. Although the last two months of her life were especially challenging as the disease burden weighed heavily on her body, for 15 months she kicked cancer's ass, and I cherish every moment I spent by her side.
The last great sports moment I shared with her came in December 2022. It was the day of the World Cup Final and Messi had one last shot to capture the ultimate prize.
As you can imagine, my nerves were pretty frazzled given everything going on my life at the time, and I was extremely invested in seeing Messi win the World Cup. Only I didn't actually want to see it, at least not live. I planned on sleeping through the game. I gave instructions about not having the game playing on any TVs in the house so my subconscious wouldn't hear it and wake me up.
Well, somewhere around the 75th minute, I woke up, despite having stayed up 28 consecutive hours before kickoff to ensure I would be deep in REM for the duration of the game. I emerged from my slumber and covered my eyes as I walked into the living room, where my mom was watching the game on mute. She looked up at me and gave me a smile. Argentina was ahead 2-0. "They have been playing so well," she said. I sat in my chair and prepared to soak in one of my favorite sports moments ever by her side.
Mbappe 80' (P). 2-1. Mbappe 81'. 2-2.
I have never put my dog Angus' harness on so quickly. Out the door I stormed, off on the most necessary dog walk of all time to escape the tension and calm my nerves. According to my Apple Watch, my heart rate peaked at 183 during that walk, and that was when I was sitting down in the grass.
I had my phone on airplane mode, but I couldn't take not knowing any longer. I switched it on and checked the score.
Argentina 3-2. 117th minute. I frantically searched for the the goal scorer. It was Messi. Lionel Messi, capping off his career with the match-winning goal in extra time of a World Cup Final. Dreams do come true.
Mbappe 118' (P). 3-3.
At that moment, I hated Kylian Mbappe as much as I hated mixed acinar-neuroendocrine carcinoma.
I cracked and decided to watch the entirety of the penalty shootout on my phone. When Gonzalo Montiel's penalty hit the back of the net, Angus and I rushed home. I still regret not sticking it out to watch the entire game with my Mom, but I still cherish being able to watch the trophy presentation and ensuing celebrations with her, Angus and my Aunt B.
My Mom got to see Lionel Messi become a World Cup champion. And so much more, too.
So after taking some necessary time off from writing, Passages of Play is the new home for all of my sports musings (with a focus on basketball and futbol). I write about my Mom a lot, too, and hopefully in the coming months I will have more information to share regarding the book I am writing in her honor. I also write about movies and other cultural minutia here.
My intention is for most of the content on this site to remain free, however I will be publishing a biweekly newsletter that will be for premium subscribers only that will feature more of my longform content. The $5 subscription fee is mostly meant to cover the costs of operation for the server and site. If you would like to read the newsletter but are not able to contribute financially, send me an email and I will set something up for you.
Now that you know a little bit about me and my history as a sports writer, please enjoy Passages of Play!
