THINKING ABOUT THE NAME BIGGIO
As I write this, the Toronto Blue Jays are preparing for its first postseason appearance since reaching the American League Championship Series in 2016. I have to remind myself that Josh Donaldson and Jose Bautista will not be hitting a monster home runs. Still, in a season where the team played all its home games at Buffalo’s Sahlen Field, there is excitement about the current group. Even having the misfortune of drawing the №1 seeded Tampa Bay Rays, baseball fans are twitching with anticipation over what the squad of young bucks might do.
Since the middle of the 2019 season, the young stars on the Blue Jays roster have captured the league’s imagination. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, Lourdes Gurriel, all sons and/or brothers of major league stars looking to cement their own legacies. With 2020’s funky playoff format, the Blue Jays are crashing the postseason ahead of schedule. They are the first team with a shot of pulling off a March Madness style upset. Yet I will be paying close attention to Blue Jays second baseman Cavan Biggio.
Everyone in Houston, even those with the barest sports knowledge, know the name Biggio. Cavan’s dad Craig was a perennial All-Star with the Astros for almost two decades and led the franchise to its first World Series appearance in 2005. Astros fans likely remember the image of Cavan, then a ball boy with his older brother Connor, jumping into his dad’s arms after his 3,000th hit. Cavan is grown now and is already making a name for himself in the big leagues, hitting for a cycle in his freshman campaign in 2019 (Craig Biggio didn’t hit for a cycle until his 15th season). Yet when I think of Cavan, the first thing that comes to mind is, “I went to high school with this guy.”
Biggio follows in father’s footsteps with cycle
I graduated from Houston’s St. Thomas High School in 2015. Cavan preceded me in 2013, graduating with two state championships in baseball to his name and earning a scholarship to play at Notre Dame. I would never claim to have been close friends with Cavan, but I knew the name and respected the accomplishments. This game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon got me thinking about the legacy that is the Biggio family.
I got quick responses from friends and family alike when asking who their favorite baseball players were growing up. My uncles told me about the Red Sox’s Carlton Fisk and the Cardinals’ Lou Brock, consistent dangerous hitters, my mom loved the Cardinals’ Bob Gibson for his dominant pitching, but my Houston friends consistently brought up Craig Biggio and former Astros first baseman Jeff Bagwell. The two Hall of Famers left an imprint on an entire generation of baseball fans in the Houston, Texas area and beyond. I knew that, but I never saw them play.
I didn’t play sports as a kid, I didn’t care about sports. My mom took me to baseball practice once and I held onto a pole, screaming, until she took me home. But at the same time, I knew the names Biggio and Bagwell. Even if I didn’t know their faces, I knew their names carried weight and notoriety. The only other person I can compare it to is former Texas Longhorns quarterback Vince Young. If you were a kid growing up in the early 2000s, you knew who these people were cause everybody from your parents and uncles to your classmates and friends were talking about them.
That aura we as a society place on athletes lingers with me to this very day. When I was told to interview Jeff Bagwell at the Ronald McDonald House of Corpus Christi charity event in 2019, I had to force myself to calm down because I couldn’t believe the assignment. There was the legend, in the flesh, two feet in front of me, and I had to figure out what to ask.
Which leads me to Cavan Biggio and the 2020 Toronto Blue Jays.
The kids watching baseball right now only know of Craig Biggio through old highlights, if at all. When they hear the names Biggio, Guerrero, Bichette, etc., they’re probably thinking about the current Blue Jays roster. So, win or lose, I’m daring Biggio to go out and make a fan for life. Find a way to capture the attention of whoever might be tuning in to watch the Wild Card games. Go out and perform so that down the line, people remember this crazy one-of-a-kind playoff series that is about to begin. The young buck Blue Jays have already crashed the party early, now it’s time for them to make a scene.
This article was originally published on Sept. 29, 2020.
