The Where I Live series aims to showcase our diverse city and region by spotlighting its many vibrant neighborhoods. Each week a local resident invites us over and lets us in on what makes their neighborhood special. Have we been to your neighborhood yet? Get in touch to share your story. If your story is selected and published, you will receive a $250 stipend.
I moved to San Antonio in 2006 from Mission, Texas because my company asked me to transfer to a local office. I moved into an apartment in The Quarry, so I could get familiar with the entire city. Later, I moved into a house in College Park by UT San Antonio.
I found my “hometown love story” at Cowboys Dancehall one Valentine’s night. I asked a girl to dance and she said yes. As we were dancing, I asked her, “where are you from?” She said, “a small town you’ve never heard of.” I said, “me too.” We were from neighboring small towns between Austin and Houston.
Eighteen months later we were married. Now, 16 years later, we have one son Kaleb, who is 13 years old.
We bought a house in Stonewall Ranch and Kaleb was attending Leon Springs Elementary. Our long-term plan was to get him into Boerne ISD; we just planned to do it around his fifth grade year or so. When the pandemic hit, Northside ISD was going to be virtual at the start of the 2020 school year, and that didn’t work for our then-second grader.
When we found out that Boerne ISD was going to be in-person, we put our house on the market, sold it in two days, bought a house in Fair Oaks Ranch, and got Kaleb into Fair Oaks Ranch Elementary to start his second grade year.
We joined the Fair Oaks Falcons, a local select youth baseball team that same fall, and continued to support Kaleb playing sports. Many of our neighbors commented that they would see us on evenings and weekends on the baseball field at Fair Oaks Elementary.
We fell in love with Boerne. It’s a quaint town with German heritage, which both my wife Betty and I share. Our hometowns Brenham and Burton are very German as well. It’s got a small town feel because everyone knows each other, and it’s a lot of fun to go to the local football and baseball games and see the town show up.
The Boerne Little League has hundreds of players every season, which requires hundreds of volunteers from the community. This brings everyone together for family and baseball.
In the fall of 2023, Boerne Little League manager Justin Newson called and asked if we would play with the league in spring 2024. He wanted to get a bunch of really good baseball players together and try to make a run for the Little League World Series in the summer of 2024.
Justin’s son, Kole was 12 years old, as were the majority of his teammates. Kaleb was only 11 years old, but Justin said he was a fantastic player and would be an asset to the team, even being a year younger.
We played Boerne Little League all spring, a total of 14 games, and then went to All-Star tryout day. At the end of All-Star selections, our team was set: Julian Hurst, Ben Burkhart, Doc Mogford, Kole Newson, Caden Guffey, Gage Steubing, Gray Collins, Jett Matthews, Cooper Hastings, Aiden Munoz, Dylan Burke and my son Kaleb Christ.
What many people don’t realize is just how high the mountain was to climb to make it to the Little League World Series, which took place in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. We are the 29th team from Texas to make it to Williamsport in 75 years. Texas has only won the championship game twice, in 1950 and 1966.
Our historic summer took us to Ingram for both District and Section tournaments. Then we travel to Abilene and Waco for the State and the Regional championship tournaments.
Finally, we headed up to Williamsport for three weeks in August and it was pure baseball heaven! The Kentucky bluegrass was lush without a blade out of place. It was warm during the day, and cooled off quickly in the evenings, so it was a nice respite from Texas summers.
We went 3-2 in our games there, including the US Championship game against Florida (Southeast). It was the most watched Little League baseball game since 2015, with over 4.4 million viewers watching it live on ABC and ESPN+. We went 17-2 for the entire summer.
Most importantly, however, is that our experience with the Boerne Little League showed a community and the world what can be done if you are willing to invest time, energy and effort into your child’s athletic interest from a young age.
None of our kids are “special” or any type of freakishly-good “natural” athlete. They are all simply normal kids with parents who have been intentional about their athletic development over a number of years. We are incredibly thankful to a number of Boerne and San Antonio residents for contributing donations to help fund that summer. The total cost was about $200,000, and without the support of our community, it wouldn’t have been possible.
We are also very fortunate to have former MLB player Jeremy Affeldt in our community — he was very vocal in his support of our team that summer.
I wrote a book called “How Boerne Made History and Played on their Field of Dreams” to commemorate our summer which was published this month.
It’s modeled after the baseball book, Moneyball and tells the story of how parents and coaches turned ordinary kids into extraordinary athletes that go to compete on a global stage by 12 years old.
The book includes the play-by-play of all 19 games that summer, and provides a lot of behind-the-scenes moments that were not captured on TV. In case you haven’t seen it, ESPN also made a documentary of that summer, called “Big Dreams: Little League World Series 2024.”
We want to inspire future generations of Boerne and San Antonio youth athletes to dream big, put a plan together to work toward those dreams and strive every day to reach them.
One of my favorite quotes is, “If you shoot for the moon and miss, you’re still among stars.” While your dreams might not work out exactly as you dreamed them, if you put in this level of effort and persistence, then you are still in a much better place than never starting at all and you will be forever changed as a person.
Anyone is always welcome to come practice with us — we’re all neighbors, and we all want the best for our kids and our community.
