It was Sept. 3, 2020, and the phone rang in the away bullpen at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. Chicago White Sox bullpen coach Curt Hasler answered the call and, as he hung up, looked in Bernardo Flores’ direction.
“Hey, Flo,” he said. “You’ve got the eighth.”
Flores’ face lit up with a smile he couldn’t hide.
“No way,” he thought. “This is about to happen.”
Thoughts and memories rushed through his mind as, moments later, Hasler signaled for him to enter the game. Every single moment, everything he had been through, led to this: the chance to make his way to a major league mound for the first time. He had overcome all the hard times and proved the naysayers wrong.
“My younger self would’ve been shocked,” Flores said. “But at the same time, it wouldn’t be a surprise because it was going to happen … I pictured myself, like every kid, in the World Series in Game 7. Pitching a shutout in Game 7 about to clinch the World Series. That was me. I was that kid.”
Flores, a 25-year-old Baldwin Park, California native, fell in love with baseball at age 3. When his dad, a construction worker in Orange County, had the games on TV, Flores’ eyes were glued to the screen. He couldn’t look away. Every time someone changed the channel, he cried. And back on it went.
With time, his passion for baseball only grew stronger.
Flores has been playing baseball for as long as he can remember. He gravitated toward reading books about the game and its long history. If you asked a young Flores which team won the World Series in a given year, he’d give you the correct answer without hesitation.
But despite his curiosity as a young boy to learn everything there is to know about baseball, school was not his thing.
He got into trouble beginning in kindergarten, but it was never anything serious. He would find small objects in class and just start throwing them. He was a natural pitcher.
“He did break a lot of windows at the school area in elementary school and middle school,” his mother, Rosio F. Canchola, recalled. “And they were all [broken] with baseballs.”
But, Canchola said, her son was always a good, lovable kid. She worked as an instructional aide at the elementary school and middle school he attended and said Flores always kept to himself on the playground.
“He was very special,” she said. “And I don’t think he was very liked with other kids. So, he had a hard time bonding with them.”
When Bernardo Flores was born on Aug. 23, 1995, in Pomona, California, doctors and nurses immediately had to resuscitate him. This impacted his early development. He was slower to catch onto things than others his age and had difficulties learning. This, his mother said, didn’t help him during his school years, both socially and academically.
Classmates saw him as someone they could pick on: a goofy-looking kid with goggles, his mind often occupied by an unquenchable love for baseball and its history.
The amount of bullying he received as a child amplified his dislike for school. Classmates would take away his baseball and throw his backpack in trash cans.
In sixth grade, the bullying reached an all-time high.
Canchola was still at work at the middle school when her son and his three friends were at the community center hanging out after school. Flores’ friends ran to find her and let her know Bernardo was being choked by another sixth grader.
As soon as she found out, she ran across the street. Canchola didn’t tell her supervisors — or anyone — where she was going. She had to protect her son.
She called the police and pressed charges against the student. It made a point that children shouldn’t be treated that way.
Canchola spoke with her son after the incident to find out what happened. He said he didn’t do anything wrong. He said they were just picking on him.
It took Flores considerable counseling and many conversations with his mother to get past this.
He barely qualified for promotion to high school with a 1.8-grade point average, just 0.3 points above the requirement.
It was then his mother knew it was time for a change of scenery. A fresh start at a new school.
Instead of enrolling in South El Monte High School, which he was assigned to, he attended Baldwin Park High School where his three best friends and teammates were headed.
Flores met Carlos Hernandez, Jonathan Huerta and Daniel Escobedo in middle school and they played baseball together through the end of high school. They stuck by Flores’ side as he grew and developed into the player he is today. They are all still friends to this day.
Going into the school year, Flores’ father told him he needed to shape up when it came to academics. If he didn’t, then he wouldn’t be able to play baseball or achieve his dream of becoming a major league ballplayer.
It was one of those moments where a light bulb went off — it finally clicked in Flores’ mind. He needed to work hard to make his dream a reality.
Flores improved to a 2.0 GPA his first semester.
When the varsity baseball coach, Jake Barendregt, saw him throw for the first time, he knew there was something special there. And he was going to personally see to it that Flores would be set up for the best.
Barendregt placed him on the varsity team freshman year so he would be forced to keep the ball tight in the zone and improve his stuff overall. Once Barendregt saw his work ethic, he knew this talent could be something special.
“I’m thinking big things for you,” Barendregt told Flores during his first high school season. “You may not know it yet. But I really do believe you have a good future in this game.”
One afternoon Flores walked into Barendregt’s history classroom and saw him shuffling through letters for some of the older players. The letters were from big NCAA Division I baseball schools — UCLA, USC, Oklahoma, the list went on. Seeing these letters made Flores excited for what could be if he kept up all the hard work.
And it made him realize Barendregt could help him achieve his goals.
“That’s when everything started coming together,” Flores said. “Everything this man is gonna tell me to do, I’m gonna do it … If he tells me to jump, I’m going to tell him, ‘How high?’”
On the baseball field, Flores was determined to reach the next level. His teammates and coaches noticed he was the hardest worker on the diamond. Even when the rest of the team was taking some time off from training, Flores kept working.
There was one evening where Barendregt and the team were eating at their favorite pizzeria, Baldwin Park Pizza Company, when mid-meal, the team noticed Flores through the window. He was on a five-mile run, even though they got through their conditioning at practice earlier that day.
“You’re kind of a maniac,” Barendregt told Flores. “But that’s a good thing.”
Every time Flores messed up in practice, he wanted to redo it. If he felt like he had a weakness, he leaned on his coaches and teammates to help him get through it.
But even though Flores was on track to play baseball at the college level, people still doubted his talent.
A high school teammate, in fact, didn’t think Flores had what it took to make it past high school ball. And an athlete at a rival school took his criticism to Facebook, saying he didn’t think Flores would ever make it to the professional level.
This doubt and criticism were challenging for him to get over at the time, and his three best friends were there for him through it all.
“We, as a team, would do our best to help him get over that,” Hernandez said.
Now, Flores and his friends look back at this situation and laugh.
Flores also made sure to work hard in the classroom, improving to a 4.0 GPA by his senior year. It was something he had never accomplished before, and it felt so good to finally be on track to make it to a big-time baseball school.
“He was always studying and doing the extra stuff that teachers would give,” Hernandez said. “[And] taking the classes he needed to take, passing it with better grades as the years went on in high school.”
Beginning Flores’ sophomore year, Barendregt started calling schools. Florida International, Long Beach State, Cal State Fullerton, USC and Fresno State all showed interest in a young man who was growing into a 6-foot-3 left-handed pitcher.
Ultimately, USC prevailed.
It was the perfect fit for him — it wasn’t too far from home but far enough to have a college experience, the education was top-notch and the program had a good track record of getting its players to the professional level.
He spent three years at USC and his main goal was simple: he was going to work hard to get to the majors. He was thankful to be at a program like USC, but he wasn’t satisfied.
“I’m not done yet,” Flores thought to himself. “I want bigger. I want better. I want to strive for more.”
The MLB draft process began in the fall of his junior year. He played baseball in the fall, where major league scouts could check him out.
He had meetings with the Chicago White Sox up until the draft on June 9, 2016. Flores was at his house with his family and Barendregt that day, waiting to be picked up.
That’s when he got the phone call — the White Sox were going to draft him in the seventh round. And five minutes later, the scout confirmed he would be a professional ballplayer.
They finally called his name on TV and he got to celebrate with all his loved ones.
“Congratulations, welcome to the organization,” his scout told him over the phone. “We’re thrilled to have you here. Be ready to go.”
Three days later, his bags were packed and he was off to Arizona for spring training.
Before his first year at USC began, though, Flores made a promise to his mom. He is going to get a college degree.
“I still have that promise,” Flores said with a smile on his face. “I’m going to get a college degree and I’m going to feel really good about myself when I get that USC degree in my hands.”
He doesn’t yet know when this will happen, but he and Canchola both know it’s in his future.
He made it to Double-A by the end of his second year and was called to the White Sox alternative training site for the 2020 season.
Then, on Sept. 3, 2020, his dream came true. He made it to the MLB. But Flores looks at every accomplishment as a stepping stone to reach his next goal.
“I’ve got to the big leagues,” Flores said. “OK, now what? Starting pitcher. OK. Now I want to win five games in the major leagues. OK. Now I want to win 10 games. 15 games. I want to be an All-Star.”
Despite all he’s achieved this early in his career, Flores hasn’t let the success change him.
“Bernard has been humbled by it,” Hernandez said. “He knows there’s still more work to do.”
Whenever Flores goes back home to Baldwin Park, he and his three best friends make sure he spends as much time at BPHS as possible. He wants to help Barendregt and his baseball team excel.
The students, Hernandez said, are still star-struck when Flores visits.
“I’m just Bernardo,” he tells the student-athletes. “I am here … Let’s do what we could to help you guys out and move forward to make you the best player as possible.”