Written the week of April 27-May 3, 2026
As I watched the Hooks go into extra innings against the Travelers in Arkansas, I asked an important question. Who is the one player I want to see come up to bat? Who is our go-to guy at the plate?
I realized in that moment I had no answer. Janek, Austin, Bush, Encarnacion, Ferreras, Sacco… These names all flipped through my mind. Each had his moment, but that was the problem. Each had a moment or two, but not a consistency of rising to the occasion in many moments.
When I ask who it is I’d like to see standing on the pitcher’s mound, the list is longer and the confidence stronger.
I return to an on-going theme from week to week. It’s a long season, and players will have their moments. By June, I should have an answer to the question, “Who is our go-to guy?”
Of course, when I do get the answer, the go-to guy will be gone.
Tuesday’s game 1 against the Frisco RoughRiders held some significance for an early-season game. Win, and the Hooks are tied for 2nd place. Lose, and they’re two games out. It turned out to be the most up-and-down game I’ve watched in recent memory, a real roller coaster of an emotional ride. And by game’s end, I had surprising answers to my go-to-guy question.
We started with a deep hole dug by the rehabbing Astros right-hander Tatsuya Imai. By the time the Hooks came to bat in the 2nd inning, we were down 4-0. Our offense closed the gap to 4-3. Imai faced one batter in the 3rd and gave up a towering home run to Keyber Rodriguez, Frisco’s second baseman.
Steady Alejandro Torres relieved Imai, got the first out, gave up the 2nd home run of the inning, and finished his appearance in relief with the final two outs. Frisco 6-3.
The Hooks responded with two runs in the third, one of them a solo home run by Joseph Sullivan. After 3 full innings, Frisco 6, Corpus Christi 5.
Before the game, I’d told Sullivan, “Need to get back the pop!” In the 5th, he answered with another solo home run to tie up the game. In the 6th, the Hooks took a two-run lead.
By the 9th inning, the roller coaster had been click, click, clicking upwards. We’ve come from behind and we’re winning. Now, this is where our outstanding pitching comes into play. Only it didn’t. Two Frisco runs later, we’re all knotted up and going into extra innings.
Probably the most disheartening moment of the season happened in the top half of the inning, and I happen to have a front row seat to disaster.
Frisco right fielder Marcus Lee Sang hits a shot mere feet from where I’m sitting. Tyler Whitaker, our left fielder, gets the end of his glove on the ball, but it bounces off the glove and over the fence. My new friend Carla said that Tyler slipped a bit on the warning track gravel, which accounted for the lost inches that would have made a difference. My long-time friend Rene Rodriguez said the ball popped out when Whitaker hit the wall. All witnesses agree. It’s a home run.
The roller coaster plunges downward, but starts click, click, clicking skyward again in the bottom of the 10th. With bases loaded and no outs, I know our chances of scoring two or more runs are good. I look at the next 3 batters coming up—Sacco, Garcia, and Bush—and I believe any one of them can be the go-to guy. Bush never gets the opportunity when no outs turn quickly into 3 outs, and the game is over. Frisco 10-Corpus Christi 8.
When I talked about the game later with my wife, noting that Imai did not pitch well, she asked, “Why didn’t they take him out?”
The answer lies in the reason for and in the very nature of Minor League Baseball. Minor League Baseball exists to benefit Major League Baseball. Minor league teams prepare players for the major league parent team. Imai pitched for the Hooks to prepare him for a return to the Astros. Whether he was magnificent or awful would not change the fact that, barring an injury during his outing, he’d get his innings.
Bennett Sousa on rehab would pitch well here. Tatsuya Imai, not so much.
Two days and two losses into this 6-game series, I have noticed a few promising signs on the field. Game 1’s loss depended on some freak bounces of the ball that didn’t go our way. Defense had some spectacular plays in the late innings, but the one that would have clinched the win fell just short of dazzling, and dazzling was needed.
I relish seeing certain feats in baseball, even if it’s the opponent who accomplishes them—an outfielder’s throw to home for an out, a double play, a no-hitter, a 3-up-3-down inning. Okay that last one isn’t true. It does matter when it’s the Hooks getting set down in order, especially in a tight contest. I hate that.
Frisco accomplished something at Wednesday’s game that truly impressed me. In the 2nd inning they taught a master class on productive at-bats. Ian Moller walks. Theo Hardy bunts into an out but advances Moller to 2nd. Jake Snider singles, moving Moller to 3rd. Dylan Dreiling hits a sacrifice fly, Moller scores.
As a longtime fan, I recognized that was truly a work of art painted on the baseball diamond.
Despite the Tuesday loss, I enjoyed certain aspects of the evening. A humorous moment happened when Cisco, a guy I’ve known all of half an hour, started asking random questions of Frisco’s left fielder Keith Jones II.
“What non-baseball activities do you enjoy? Do you own a Subaru Forester? Do you Uber? What’s your favorite color? Do you like all the colors of the rainbow? Where are you going after the game? What college did you attend? Who does your taxes?”
A kid on the berm shouted, “I do!”
Over the course of a season, I end up with a lot of baseballs. This week I’ve had them thrown to me, given to me, and retrieved by me during batting practice and games. On one occasion, I saw the Frisco center fielder running back and back. I lost sight of the ball for a moment but saw it land in our bullpen. Excited, I ran to the bullpen and asked for “the home run ball hit by Luis Baez.” Trey McLoughlin looked puzzled but retrieved it and tossed it to me.
When I returned to my seat, I saw Baez standing on 2nd. It wasn’t my first home run ball of the season, as I had thought, but a ground-rule double.
I do give baseballs away. One night this week a family sat in the rockers in left field, and there was this cute little girl with pigtails. She was 3 at the most. I had several baseballs looking for new owners, so I approached the mother and asked if it was all right to give her daughter a baseball. She said, “Yes, of course.”
I held the ball out to the little girl and asked if she wanted it. She shook her head no. That surprised both her mother and me.
Undeterred, I asked, “Is it all right if I give it to your mother?”
She said, “Yeth!”
Mom had taught her well to not accept gifts from strangers.
On the same night, a player tossed a ball to a dad who bent down and gave it to his young son. The boy took the ball and cocked his arm. The dad threw up his hands and said, “No, no, no, no, no!” stopping his son just before the ball returned to the playing field.
Josh Trentadue started the game for Frisco the night of the extra-inning game. Two days later, he and I talked during batting practice about the freak home run Lee Sang hit that won the game for the RoughRiders. He said, “I’ve seen that happen maybe once when I was in high school.”
I had seen the Jose-Canseco-bounce-off-head-homer replayed on YouTube just the evening before, but I had never seen a home run like that live.
I have mentioned two bucket-list items I hope to accomplish someday—catch a grand slam ball, and retrieve a walk-off home run ball. Last home series I came close to the former on the 3 grand-slam night. This home series I came close to the latter.
Thursday night’s game was tied 6-6 going into the bottom of the 9th. Will Bush led off the inning, and I thought he might be our go-to guy this night. I said to the man sitting next to me, “I’m getting up to retrieve a home run if the Hooks hit one. If I do, I’ll be heading straight to the dugout to get it signed. Enjoyed talking with you.”
Bush hit a no-doubter right over the seat I had vacated. I did not retrieve the ball, but I do think the Hooks have their go-to guy. In fact, I think more will be cropping up in the weeks ahead.
In the middle of this series, I thought about my belief that this is the year the Hooks will win the Texas League Championship. A 5-game losing streak certainly shakes that belief. A walk-off win, on the other hand, bolsters it.
The belief, whether shaken or bolstered, remains, and it causes me to pay more attention to things I would have ignored in the past. I’m interested in the details as well as my own perceptions. What do the stats tell me? What am I seeing with my own eyes?
At the end of this series, my eyes tell me the Hooks are a better team this week than last week. Statistics back up this assertion. At the end of last week, the basement bats hit a dismal .198. This week they raised their average to .220 and moved up a spot. A similar week of hitting would move them closer to the middle of the pack.
The penthouse pitching continues to lead the league in strikeouts. Their ERA crept up a bit, but they faced the top hitting team in the league, #1 in hits and batting average, #2 in homeruns. The fact that we split with a team we hadn’t beaten in the first 5 meetings of the season speaks volumes to our overall improvement.
I have to highlight Tommy Sacco Jr. for his hitting performance in this series. His batting average remains below the team average, but prior to this week, his bat was cause for concern. That changed in this series. He went 0 for 11 in the first three games of the series, with a batting average low of .159. In the last two games, he hit 6 for 7, including 3 home runs and a double, and ended with a .216 batting average.
The last player to get my attention like that hit a first-pitch home run in his first major league at bat, Zach Cole last season. Tommy has gotten on my go-to-guy list, which means he may be gone soon.
As an author, I’ve written one novel, Dark Eyes, Deep Eyes, and have started a few storylines since. From experience, I know the characters direct the story, influencing the flow, the highs, the lows, and even the ending. Though imaginary, they become real, and those imaginary characters won’t always do what you, the writer, want them to. If you know a novelist, ask them.
My belief that this is a championship season for Corpus Christi makes this a story worth telling. It’s one that will take five months to write. My characters on each page are not imaginary, but real. They are the players and coaches of the Corpus Christi Hooks and the teams they play. Rivera, Bell, Sacco, Janek, Encarnacion, McPherson, Santos, and a host of others will be the ones writing this novel and its climatic ending. I can believe, but only they can make it happen.
April 28 Frisco RoughRiders 10-Corpus Christi Hooks 8 (10) L
April 29 Frisco RoughRiders 10-Corpus Christi Hooks 4 L
April 30 Frisco RoughRiders 6-Corpus Christi Hooks 7 W
May 1 Frisco RoughRiders 4-Corpus Christi Hooks 9 W
May 2 Frisco RoughRiders 9-Corpus Christi Hooks 5 L
May 3 Frisco RoughRiders 5 -Corpus Christi Hooks 7 W
Texas League South standings
Midland 18-9
Amarillo 14-13
Frisco 14-13
Corpus Christi 13-14
San Antonio 7-20
Baseball, Bikes, Birds and the Bible 
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