When Cavan Biggio steps to the plate this afternoon in Houston, he’ll see a familiar face in the crowd: his mom, Patty. He’ll likely be wearing a bracelet she got him, an ID bracelet he wears daily with the words “Gratitude, Fortitude, and Kindness” engraved on the back. Those three words have guided Patty and the Biggio family through marriage, three kids, and not one, but two major-league careers.
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Mother’s Day is a time to celebrate the women who’ve literally raised a nation, to acknowledge all the unpaid and unheralded work that goes into bringing up the next generation. The impact mothers have had on athletes’ lives, in particular, can’t be overstated. Having grown in Major League Baseball alongside her husband, Patty Biggio is now watching her son walk a similar path.
Patricia Egan grew up in New Brunswick, N.J., the youngest of four. With three older brothers, she was constantly surrounded by sports, and in high school, she was a cheerleader and gymnast. By the time she entered the nursing program at Seton Hall, she had already worked at her local hospital for years, starting as a waitress at St. Peter’s Medical Center’s coffee shop at just 11 years old and working her way up. “I have a real passion for helping others. I loved nursing, I loved the patient care, the patient contact, the family contact,” she told The Athletic. “Nursing was always in my blood.”
While studying to pursue her career in nursing, she met a wide-eyed kid from Long Island with a great smile and dreams of being a ballplayer. She was working as a bartender at the student pub on campus her junior year when Craig Biggio walked in. Some of her friends were dating his teammates, and though it wasn’t exactly love at first sight, Patty knew immediately there was something there.
“Adorable, first of all. Very cute,” she said. “Great smile, and he was just a really nice person. You just knew it right away. And he was very determined to date me.” They started as friends, but Craig persisted in asking her out; their college friends still joke about his pursuit of her to this day. “He was just so kind and easy to be with, and just really fun,” she said.
Dating a college athlete didn’t change much in Patty’s focus. She remained committed to nursing, juggling her new relationship with her class load and working three nights a week at the hospital. “I honestly didn’t go to a lot of his games,” she said, though the few times she did see him play left an impression. “I did recognize that Craig was an extremely hard worker,” she said. “And extremely fast. I remember first watching him play and saying he was like lightning.”
Upon graduating in 1988, she went to work as an ER nurse at St. Peter’s. Craig had been drafted in the first round by the Houston Astros the year before and was assigned to Single-A Asheville. They started a long-distance relationship her senior year, no easy feat when you’re dealing with a minor-league travel schedule and 12-hour nursing shifts. But according to Patty, the excitement of that time, of working in an ER and of being young and in love, superseded any difficulties. “I wouldn’t describe it as difficult. I would describe it as exciting,” she said. “All I wanted to do was be with Craig. … We were very happy, planning to get engaged. And also, I loved what I did. I knew so many people because I’d worked in so many areas of the hospital. And so that was exciting to achieve this goal. I loved nursing. I was excited to go to work every day.”
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She likened the rigors and unpredictability of the ER to those of sports. “I think that’s what I liked about the ER. You never knew what was coming in the door,” she said. Moreover, the human connections she made were invaluable. “I really loved my patients. I remember so many of them,” she said. In college, she worked as a nursing assistant in an ICU on the Jersey Shore, where many of her patients were young victims of car accidents, and that left a lasting impact. She recounted the time a 15-year-old girl came in after crashing in the mountains. The girl was in a coma and wasn’t expected to live. Patty, a devout Catholic, remembered praying with the girl’s family, who had peppered the hospital room with Blessed Mother statues and rosary beads. The girl remained in a coma that entire semester.
Fast forward two years, to Patty’s senior year, when she was working rotations in hospice and physical therapy. “And lo and behold, this girl comes into occupational therapy, and it’s her,” she said. The girl’s parents immediately recognized the kind nursing assistant who had prayed with them years before. “I remember a lot of those patients, and they really had a big impact on me,” she said.
As an ER nurse in the late ’80s, Patty also dealt directly with AIDS patients, an experience she relates to what frontline workers have faced in the past year of the pandemic. “I had nightmares because of AIDS,” she said, noting she had “post-traumatic issues” and would experience the same nightmares for years. “They (the patients) suffered so tremendously, and a very close friend of mine died of AIDS,” she said. “They didn’t know what was going on and people were truly suffering and dying. So I can kind of relate that to the (COVID-19) health care workers for those kinds of challenges. And I pray for them a lot. And I’m so grateful they’re here.”
In 1988, while Patty was working in the ER in New Brunswick, Craig was playing in Triple-A Tucson before being called up to Houston that summer. The pair still weren’t married at that time. “I didn’t have the minor-league experience as a wife,” she said. “Which is challenging, and I have a lot of respect for the girls who go through that because a lot of them work while their husbands still do all that crazy travel, and raise children.”
For Patty, the biggest shift upon getting married and moving to Houston in 1990 was leaving her family in New Jersey. She had grown up in a very tightknit, typically East Coast Irish and Italian American family. She was very close with her parents and had remained at home; her grandmother lived next door; her great-grandmother lived down the street; and she was constantly surrounded by cousins. “I think I cried all the way to spring training,” she said. “Being away from my parents, and being alone when he was on the road. I wasn’t used to living alone.”
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On top of that, Craig’s newfound stardom took some getting used to. Patty did apply for a nursing job at Houston Methodist, but by that point, she couldn’t walk into a job interview without someone recognizing her suddenly famous last name. Though Patty had achieved her dream of becoming a nurse, giving up her career made sense for her, even if it wasn’t easy.
“First of all, I worked really hard to get there,” she said. “And like I said, I just loved patient care, and I missed that. I missed my friends at the hospital. Working night shifts in an ER, I don’t want to call it a fun job, but it really was a job I loved, and I loved my co-workers. But at the same time, I’m here with my love and meeting new friends, and his career is taking off. So although I missed it I was also embracing my new life and my new challenges.”
Though many athletes suffer from a profound loss of identity upon retiring from the game (Craig, for his part, still works as a special adviser to the general manager of the Astros), Patty soon found her new calling: motherhood. “I had my first child three years into our marriage. And that was my job. That was who I am,” she said. “I took motherhood and loved every minute of it.”
In a lot of ways, Patty’s experience as a nurse overlapped with her new role as mother, knowing what was happening to her body during pregnancy and beyond — though she does acknowledge that her level of medical knowledge probably made her a bit more paranoid when her kids got sick. “But motherhood became my life’s work, and I say that all the time to my family,” she said. “They’re like, ‘Oh, you worry too much,’ and I’m like, ‘Listen, you’re my life’s work.’”
The Biggios’ first son, Conor, was born in January 1993. “The most happiest time of my life was when Conor was born,” she said. “That first time becoming a mother was just so magical. And then the journey began.” Craig had to leave for spring training just a month after Conor was born, leaving Patty to take care of her new baby until they joined him that March. By then, Patty had become close friends with Nancy Caminiti, whose husband, Ken, was Craig’s teammate on the Astros. (Nancy Caminiti is Cavan’s godmother, and Patty is godmother to Nancy and Ken’s kids.) They formed a community of other new families at Astros spring training. For her part, Patty said “it actually wasn’t that hard” given the support she had, noting that Craig would check in whenever he had a moment free from the ballpark.
The regular season, of course, is a whole different animal, with the rigors of a long season, late nights and travel. Add to that one of the foremost crises baseball would ever see: Patty was pregnant with their second child when the strike began in August 1994. The sport was plunged into uncertainty, and suddenly Patty found herself at home with a 2-year old bundle of energy and a nearly 30-year-old bundle of energy as the days turned into weeks and months of no baseball. “We didn’t anticipate it lasting that long,” she said. “A lot of disappointment as it didn’t get settled, and here we are in what would’ve been World Series time, still not settled, Christmas, still not settled, we’re coming on spring training, still not settled. And now I’m two weeks due, and they’re starting negotiations.”
On April 2, just 10 days before Patty’s due date, the strike officially ended. Craig left for a shortened spring training, and Patty was once again on her own. Ken Caminiti had been traded to the Padres, so Nancy was getting ready to move the family to Arizona and wouldn’t be around for the birth, and at this point, most of the couple’s friends were still mostly from within baseball. “That was tough. That was a really challenging time,” Patty said.
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Craig flew back to Houston from Florida the day before Patty went into labor. On April 12, 1995, she gave birth to their second son. A little more than 24 hours later, Craig had to get back on a plane.
On top of everything else, the Biggios hadn’t picked out a name for the baby yet. They had some on a shortlist, but Craig had reported back that none of his teammates at spring training were fans of those names. “And here I am with this little, beautiful baby, and this adorable 2-year-old, and no name,” she said. Conor referred to his brother as “Baby” for two weeks until they finally chose a name from the list that had been pooh-poohed by some Astros players. “We wanted an Irish name, and we settled on Cavan, and we really love it,” Patty said. “It’s been a great name.”
Normally, players would be able to take a couple of days for the birth of their child, but because it was a strike year, the condensed schedule didn’t allow for that. There was also added pressure on this Astros team to make up for lost time; Jeff Bagwell was having an MVP season when the strike started, and Craig had led the National League in doubles and stolen bases. “There wasn’t that luxury back then. He had to get back, had to start preparing,” Patty said. “And that determination, put it right back, that game face on.”
That game face was a hallmark of Craig’s career, even as he tried to spend as much time with his kids as possible. “Craig was extremely focused,” Patty said. He’d get up early to have breakfast with the family, and meet the kids at school for lunch whenever he could. “But when it got to 1:30, 2 o’clock, he was out the door, game face on,” she said. “The way he turned on that drive was really, really fun to witness.”
Patty gave birth to their third child, a daughter named Quinn, in 1999. All three of the Biggio children took to sports. Conor and Cavan played soccer and Little League at a young age, then went on to play football and baseball in high school. Quinn, meanwhile, played soccer and basketball and swam until eighth grade, and played volleyball and softball in high school. “Quinn came out playing sports,” Patty said. With Craig on the road and three kids in school and organized sports, Patty was tasked with juggling everyone’s busy schedule. “Even going to the grocery store is one of the biggest challenges,” she said.
“There’s a lot of guilt, too,” she added, particularly when she had to miss one kid’s game to attend another’s, or when she was stretched too thin to help all three of her children with their homework. She recalls one night when she was helping Conor with his history homework and Cavan had asked her for something, and by the time she was finished with Conor she found Cavan already asleep in his bed, with his homework done and his clothes laid out for the next morning. “And I just remember feeling that guilt, this poor little boy,” she said. “Though that was a good example of him always being prepared, which I think he’s carried that through college athletics and his pro career, for sure.”
While all of the Biggio kids played sports, it was clear from an early age that Cavan was different, more singularly focused on T-ball and baseball. “Cavan would just be there, putting the ball on the tee and hitting, putting the ball on the tee and hitting,” Patty said. “We have videos where I’m actually videoing Conor playing, and you can see Cavan in the background nonstop: ball on tee, hit. Ball on tee, hit.” Then the practice moved inside the house, where Cavan would come home from school and throw a ball to himself or hit one repeatedly against the wall in the family room. According to Patty, she had to replace the paint in that room every six months.
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“At a young age, he just stood out,” she said. “He was a very calm player. He gets mad when I say that now, ‘Oh, I’m poised,’ but it’s true. The way he plays now, he was like that as a child. I never noticed him being anxious or nervous.”
Cavan, Conor, and Quinn would all be forgiven if they did have any anxiety about playing sports in the shadow of their future-Hall of Fame dad. As Patty describes it, they were labeled as “Craig Biggio’s kid” from a young age, as early as 8. “They were always the focus at some point, or always pointed out,” she said. Conor has talked publicly about being mocked in Little League, with kids saying he would never be as good as his dad. When Patty told Craig what was going on, Craig came home and sat Conor down to give him a pep talk. He assured him that kids develop at different ages, and said he had a secret weapon, pointing to himself. “He said, ‘I’m always on your side. I’m always there for you.’ And I think the boys always knew that,” Patty said.
All in all, the Biggio kids grew up relatively normal — as normal as can be expected with a major leaguer for a father. Patty made sure they always did their homework and their chores and attended church. Of course, they spent an inordinate amount of time at the ballpark, with Conor trying mercilessly to get on the giant video screen while Cavan sat studiously on his foot studying every minute of the game. Both brothers would hold pretend postgame news conferences in the clubhouse after everyone cleared out. They worked as bat boys on the team and got to spend time with their dad in the dugout. They found a secret spot in the outfield where they would watch games. Memorably, the whole family was in the stands when Craig notched his 3,000th hit in 2007.
Patty surely provided a stabilizing presence for three kids whose dad wasn’t always at home, but she said that was never truly an issue. “It just was natural to them. It just was their life from the beginning,” she said. “That’s what their dad did. It never really had to be explained. I’m sure there were times when they wished Craig was there, especially when they were learning the game. They really didn’t have an on-hands teacher during the season.” Patty would, however, toss the football around from time to time.
Though she credits Craig with the athletic lineage that has clearly been passed down to her kids, there’s a lot of Patty in them as well. They all love food and cooking, in the tradition of the Italian grandmother Patty grew up next door to. They all love the beach. They’re all committed to their faith and spirituality. They all love Broadway. “I hear my words in them,” she said.
In 2012, Conor moved out to attend Notre Dame, where he played baseball and studied communication and media. The next year, Cavan was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 29th round but chose to go to college instead, joining his brother in South Bend. Patty was heavily involved in that decision. “I was very determined that they were gonna go to college,” she said. “And I think Cavan would agree it was the best thing he could have done.” Patty credits Cavan’s college experience with teaching him discipline, focus, prioritizing academics, building a social life, and other skills he’s taken with him to the pros.
When Cavan was drafted by the Blue Jays in the fifth round in 2016, Patty got her first taste of being a baseball mom in the minors, having not yet been a baseball wife when Craig was coming up through the system. “Being a wife to a baseball player and being a mother to a baseball player are two different things,” she said. “When it’s your child, it’s much different. You’re more emotionally tied to it.”
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“With Craig, I don’t know if it’s just the way he went about his business, or I was too busy with kids, but I never was caught up in his performance or what he was doing or stressed out that he wasn’t hitting,” she said. “I always thought that everything will be OK, as long as we’re OK, health and family. My focus was always really at home. … I was always supportive, but it was never what controlled my emotions that day.”
With Cavan, it’s different. “As a parent … you have a responsibility to make sure that you give them all the tools. Not just physical, but the emotional tools and support they need to become the best person they can be,” she said. “You want them to have the best opportunity that they can make for themselves, you want to guide them through the rough times. You’re a mother through it all, that’s just the best way I can describe it. When you’re a mom, everything about your child is more emotional and important, and you’ve a sense of responsibility.”
She added that when you’re married to a ballplayer, you’re growing within the game alongside him, learning along the way. Now, she’s equipped with all that knowledge and experience to pass on to her son. “Craig never worried what anybody else was doing or getting in baseball,” she said. “It was always about the win, and being prepared, and being the best teammate you could be. And I feel like Cavan is like that. I’m always saying to him, ‘Don’t look left, don’t look right. Don’t even look behind. Just keep looking forward.’”
As Patty noted, you never quite know how much your kids are listening to you, or how much advice you throw at them that they’re truly absorbing. But some things clearly stick. One piece of advice Patty has always given Cavan is to “keep making your way.” “‘Making your way’ is a really common thing that I would say to him, and I never thought he ever really picked up on it,” she said.
You never know. Two years ago, before the start of the season, Cavan scribbled an inscription on the inside of his belt to honor his grandmother Yolanda, who had recently died. The inscription read, “Yo knows.” It wasn’t until midseason that he shared that with Patty, who took the death of her mother particularly hard. “It was so emotional for me,” she said upon learning about the belt.
This season, Cavan has a new inscription in his belt: “Making my way.” “You think they’re not listening, and you don’t know the impact you have,” Patty said. “But they do.”
The Biggio kids have continued to make their way. After graduating from Notre Dame, Conor got his MBA from Rice University and is working in marketing at NRG Energy in Houston. Quinn is a junior at Notre Dame, where she plays softball, and she wants to go to law school and work in real estate. Cavan, of course, has made it to The Show, where he plays alongside two teammates with former ballplayer fathers: Vladimir Guerrero Jr., son of Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero Sr., and Bo Bichette, son of All-Star Dante Bichette.
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This Mother’s Day weekend in Houston must have been special for the Biggio family — they remain prominent members of the community, and Saturday, Cavan hit his first career home run at Minute Maid Park, with Patty, Craig and Conor in attendance. Family memories can be made in any ballpark, however, as was the case at Camden Yards in 2019. Cavan hit for the cycle, joining his dad to become just the second father-son duo to accomplish that feat in MLB history, and Patty was in the stands. “I was shaking from head to toe,” Patty said at the time. “I see so much of his dad when he played. Doing it again as a mother, it’s a little bit different. It’s more emotional. It’s more exciting. I’m just so happy for him.”
The bond between Patty and her kids is undeniable, even as they grow into adulthood and become big-shot ballplayers. Last year, after the Blue Jays made the playoffs, The Athletic’s Kaitlyn McGrath asked Cavan whom he would call after that game. “It’s my mom,” he said. “My dad has been my hero since day one. Going to Astros games as a kid, I always wanted to do what he wanted to do. But having a father in the big leagues for 20 years, you know, when I was 12 years old he retired, and that portion of my life, he wasn’t around that much. And my mom was always there. Me and her, we have a special connection. She’s always the go-to on my phone, and she knows me the best out of anybody in the world. She’s always my go-to.”
(Top photo of Connor Biggio, Craig Biggio, Patty Biggio, Cavan Biggio and Quinn Biggio: Bob Levey / Getty Images)
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