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TL1 Corpus Christi Hooks

Checkmate

May 13, 2016 - Texas League (TL1)
Corpus Christi Hooks News Release


Chess.

It's the classic two-player game. Participants match wits and strategies in hopes of knocking the opponent's pieces from the board, while simultaneously evading the threat of capture by the king, queen and their court.

Chess is the quintessential mind game, requiring tactical and a competitive flair. Players always try to be three moves ahead of the opponent. The game transcends generations, with students utilizing chess to sharpen their mental capabilities in schoolyards and homes worldwide.

Flashback to the turn of the century. In one such home in an Albuquerque, N.M., cul-de-sac, a young boy named Alex and his mother, Jackie, sit in their living room before Alex heads to bed, duking it out in a highly competitive battle to determine who wins the night.

There's little mercy for the young boy. Mom has established a lengthy winning streak, but the time will come when Alex grows to become king of the board at home and in school, where he never loses a match between sixth and ninth grade, ultimately becoming the top-ranked 15-year-old in the Land of Enchantment.

Competition flowed freely from the cul-de-sac, the neighborhood kids always involved in something, from football or baseball in the backyards to the many snowboarding trips up in the Sandia Mountains just outside town.

Within the Bregman household, however, winning never came easily. Winning required hard work, effort, hustle, and attitude. Competition thrived in the house as parents Jackie and Sam refused to allow their children to win unless they earned it. No quitting. No giving up. That training would come in handy for the eventual Astros' top prospect.

"My parents never let me win at anything and they never let me win until I was good enough to beat them," said Bregman. "My mom and I would play chess and I'd never win. It was a fun and competitive thing, just another way that I was competing."

The hard-working, blue-collar nature of the Bregman family resembles that of their hometown. Albuquerque, the city which has sprung onto the national pop culture stage with television shows "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul" filmed there, was founded in 1706 as a Spanish colonial outpost with an identity rooted in agriculture and the military.

Three hundred years later, the city has grown to become the largest in the Land of Enchantment and home to a handful of big leaguers, including Ralph Kiner, Cody Ross, Houston's Ken Giles, Jordan Pacheco (who grew up next door to the Bregmans) and Blake Swihart, one of Alex's childhood friends.

"New Mexico is a great place for me to go back to during the offseason and get some work done," said Bregman. "It means a lot to me to come from there and represent New Mexico. There's not a lot of people that come from there in professional baseball, (so) it means a lot to us that we can represent them."

Representing the state via baseball came naturally for him. Sure, there's the cool story of young Alex turning an unassisted triple play in his first game--as mom so elegantly describes even if Alex himself doesn't remember-but the roots run deeper to a pure love of the American Pastime.

"We're just a baseball family," said Bregman. My dad would bring home baseball cards when I was little and I would collect them and my grandpa was the attorney for the Washington Senators back in the day. He actually signed Hank Allen, who's now a scout for the Astros, to the largest contract in baseball at the time. It was a blast to grow up in a family that loved baseball so much."

After garnering attention from Major League Baseball scouts as a catcher at Albuquerque Academy, Alex chose to play in college rather than sign as a high-round draft pick. His family traveled across the Southern United States, exploring colleges from North and South Carolina to his hometown Lobos of New Mexico.

Just as Alex was narrowing his decision to Texas, UNM and Arizona State, childhood hitting coach Jason Columbus threw in a good word about his alma mater, suggesting Alex and his family check it out.

It was checkmate for the Bregmans.

The people of a certain Southeastern Conference city 1,076 miles away in the bayou would greatly benefit from this move.

"There's 12,000 screaming fans that live and die LSU baseball," said Bregman. "You walk outside at 6 a.m. on a gameday against whoever and there's 1,000 people tailgating for baseball. There's a certain level of pride that they take in their athletics that's different than anywhere I'd been before and that's what made me fall in love with it.

"You walk into a restaurant after the game and you're taking pictures with 30 people and holding their kids and talking to them. It's a blast."

Like any effective combination move, sacrifice on the part of the player is usually required. In Alex's game, that sacrifice moved him from behind the plate to the middle infield.

"I got to school and Coach (Paul) Maineiri said 'Hey, we need a shortstop. We just lost ours. Can you do it?'" said Bregman. "I took ground balls every day all fall and was not very good at it. I was still trying to get a little bit better each day, each time I'd go out there. They were nice enough to keep the lights on (at Alex Box Stadium), and when they didn't, we still went to get some work in. It was an everyday thing.

"I loved catching. It's what I did for a while, (but) I think it was the best move I made. Catching is tough on your body. Hitting catchers are hard to come by, so I think it was a good move, especially to keep my bat."

Alex's game came with a few decoys, however. During his breakout freshman year, the Tigers advanced to the College World Series in Omaha in 2013, where they faced UCLA in the opening round. With two outs in a 1-1 eighth-inning tie, Alex booted a ground ball, allowing the eventual game-winning run to score and put the No. 2 Tigers in the loser's bracket, where they would bow out one game later.

During the ensuing offseason, Alex received a picture of the error from an opposing team's fan. It hung in his locker the entire next season, acting as added motivation for a guy who doesn't need much.

"If that didn't happen, I don't know if I'd still be playing shortstop today," said Bregman. "Every single second of every single day that I had, I'd work at getting better at shortstop. I figured how to fight through adversity and it definitely helps for times in the future. I'm just the same guy that shows up to the field each day. I don't worry. I don't panic. I know that if I just trust my preparation and my work that I'll get through it."

The endgame is near. Rated among the top three on multiple prospect lists for Houston, Alex has played his way into the conversation, forcing the MLB to make a move that will result in the ultimate checkmate for any minor leaguer.

The pressure to perform is omnipresent, but Alex has always embraced it since his childhood chess days in the cul-de-sac.

"I like the pressure," said Bregman. "I put pressure on myself in practice. Since I was very little, it was said that pressure is a privilege. I like playing in pressure situations because that's when the best come out."

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