The allure of Ole Miss Baseball: how a team binds an unlikely friendship
the story of California brothers Peter and Mark Ortega and their friendship with Clinton, MS, native Jim Flanagan.
It was the first time a conversation between the two ever abruptly came to a halt.
In the 22 months they’d known each other, the dialogue always flowed like water, with Ole Miss Baseball usually at the epicenter of its substance. Peter Ortega couldn’t recall a time in which he didn’t know what to say next to his friend Jim Flanagan, but this phone call one day in late January featured a jarring pause.
This unlikely friendship between Jim, a 69-year-old man from Clinton, Mississippi, and 25-year-old Peter, and his brother, Mark (19) — both from Pico Rivera, California — began just over two years ago. You might remember Peter and Mark and their unlikely Ole Miss Baseball fandom that began via YouTube and exploded after they saved up for over a year to buy plane tickets to fly to a series at Swayze Field in April of 2019. That’s when they met Jim. The Ortega brothers bought general admission tickets to Ole Miss’series opener with Florida on April 5, entered the stadium, flocked to a couple of open seats down the third-base line, and unknowingly sat where Jim held season tickets. A baseball-infused friendship was born that night, one that helped spark a second chapter to the brothers’ fandom — thanks to Jim and some help from the Ole Miss community — as Peter and Mark made a return trip to the Oxford Regional in June of 2019.
It’s also a friendship that’s withstood the test of time over these last two years, despite the 1,800 miles between them, the age difference and the backgrounds that shaped these men, and a world that’s changed drastically since they last saw one another. They’ve kept up thru phone calls ever since. Sometimes once a month, sometimes a month or two in-between, on holidays and birthdays and various other dates of significance. Ole Miss Baseball usually drives the conversation.
Peter called Jim that January day to formulate a plan to come back to Oxford. But this call quickly turned into something much different. The vibrant energy Jim usually emits was undetectable and the enthusiasm in his voice was nonexistent. Peter sensed it immediately. Neither man knew of the struggles the other endured over the previous six weeks. Jim and the two brothers boast scars from this remorseless pandemic that’s changed the world so drastically since they last met.
They each broke the news of lost their loved ones, which initiated the awkward pause, and then learned the stories behind them. Jim’s wife, along with Peter and Mark’s aunt, uncle and grandfather were all killed by COVID-19 in the span of a month. Ole Miss Baseball was no longer the only predominant thing they had in common.
Jim and his three children never thought they’d lose their wife and mother.
Even after her final breath it still didn’t feel real. Brenda Flanagan died in the early hours of December 18, 2020, at the age of 67 after succumbing to a 42-day battle with the virus. She spent 27 days in the intensive care unit at St. Dominic hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, and 23 days on a ventilator.
Jim and Brenda were married for 45 years. Ole Miss fans since they were toddlers, the two went to games together for four decades, and eventually brought their three kids, Beth, Kellie and Matt, along with them. Jim’s a boisterous fanatic, and though Brenda was a little more reserved, you’d be unwise to mistake that for a lack of passion and knowledge. The two shared a passion for Ole Miss, and on a sunny fall or spring day, there’s no place they’d rather be than Vaught-Hemingway Stadium or Swayze Field. Arthritis plagued Brenda as she got older. Even until the end, she’d grit her teeth, trudge through the pain and make it to the games, but those trips eventually got fewer and farther in-between.
As the kids got older and started families of their own, Jim found himself going to game alone more often. While he obviously preferred going with his family, he hardly minded being alone. Jim is good at making new friends. That is how he met the Ortega brothers, after all.
“I’ve never met a stranger. I’ll know your life story if you give me a few innings,” Jim said.
Jim owns a family business called Better Marketing Konnection (named after Beth, Matt and Kellie) that sells office supplies in Jackson. Beth and Matt work with Jim at B.M.K. and Brenda did too. Kellie lives in Tupelo with her husband. The Flanagans are a tight-knit unit. They quite literally see one another every day. They took every precaution to avoid catching this virus and were especially worried about Brenda. Jim never gets sick but came to work feeling crummy on November 6. He took a COVID test later that day and was positive. He immediately had the entire office tested too. Beth and Matt were positive. Brenda initially tested negative, a huge relief to all of them, given she was the most compromised. They sent her to their condo in Oxford to quarantine.
“She didn’t want to go, but we told her she cannot catch this,” Beth said. “We weren’t taking any chances.”
Unbeknownst to them, Brenda did in fact have the virus, and her decline began in those 10 days in Oxford. Her breathing slowly deteriorated. She returned to Jackson and was hospitalized on November 20. Three days later, she was moved into ICU. The Flanagans knew what loomed and feared she’d need to be intubated. Two days after entering ICU, that’s exactly what happened: Brenda went on a ventilator on November 25. The Flanagans’ world was flipped upside down.
“It’s the most bizarre thing ever to take a family member to the hospital, not be able to be with her, not know exactly what is wrong, and then she’s just gone,” Brenda said. “We knew if she went on a ventilator we likely wouldn’t ever get her back.”
The Flanagans tried to remain strong. Jim never missed a day of work. He managed to impossibly shoulder the weight of running his business while his wife was dying 13 miles away with no way to see her. Beth says Jim is filled with piss and vinegar, and grits his teeth to get the job done no matter what. Jim snuck up to Brenda’s room two days before she went into ICU. He had Beth on the phone with a Bluetooth earpiece while he did this. It’s the last time he ever saw his wife awake. As any family that’s had a loved one battle COVID-19 can relate to, the Flanagans spent the next three weeks on a rollercoaster ride, a mostly unpleasant one fueled by updates from doctors and nurses on Brenda’s positive-end-expiratory-pressure (PEEP) level and various other readings. PEEP is the amount of force needed to open a person’s lungs. Fluid build-up makes this more difficult, and in turn, makes breathing harder. Doctors took 16 liters of fluid off of Brenda’s lungs before she died and had an estimated seven or eight more to go before it resembled anything close to normal functioning.
The thing about this virus is that there is often no rhyme or reason to any of it. No one really knows what part of the body it will attack next. It slowly shuts down your organs until there aren’t enough left functioning to sustain life. The good days aren’t as good as they seem and the bad days aren’t always an indicator of imminent death.
“It’s such a balancing act,” Jim said. You’re trying to find some optimum setting that doesn’t really exist. It’s like it’s not going to let you win. . . it’s just not going to let you win.”
An agonizing 26 days passed. The Flanagans couldn’t go see Brenda and their only source of hope to cling to was a phone call from one of the many nurses they made friends with throughout this ordeal. On December 16, as the virus consumed Brenda, a fill-in pulmonologist (not Brenda’s regular one) and a couple of nurses pulled some strings to allow Beth, Kellie, Matt, and Jim to come visit. Brenda was in a fully-sedated state. Her body was merely being maintained by modern medicine rather than treated by it. They sat in her room for two hours, crying, praying, cracking jokes and playing the Beatles and worship songs — Brenda’s preferred music. Before they left, they rest their hands on her and prayed. The next day, December 17, a nurse called with the morning report. Brenda’s body was fighting back. It was the first genuinely positive report they’d received since she was admitted to the hospital. Jim memorized the times that doctors ran tests on Brenda and made it a habit to call shortly after, every single morning and every single night. He was so overjoyed by the news that he didn’t find it necessary to make his normal calls that day.
Brenda died less than 24 hours later. Jim got a call just after 1 a.m. with the news. He then made the three hardest phone calls of his life to tell his kids.
“To this day, we have a ton of questions and have gotten precious few answers,” Jim said. “It slaughtered my wife.”
Around this same time, on the other side of the country, Peter and Mark dealt with this remorseless virus too, unaware Jim was simultaneously grieving the loss of his wife 1,800 miles away.
In their conversations during the pandemic, Jim pleaded with Peter and Mark to wear a mask and take all necessary precautions, which they of course did.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you guys,” Jim told them.
If you’ve ever spent any time around these men, you’d think they’ve known each other for decades, despite only meeting in person twice. There are more similarities between the sons of two first-generation Mexican immigrants and a born-and-bred Mississippian than you might think. Jim values the same qualities in them that other people see in him: a tireless work ethic, genuine and friendly. That’s the scouting report on the Ortegas to a tee. They own and operate their own car detailing business called M.P. Auto. It’s grown so quickly that it’s now both their full-time occupation. Their cousin, Greg, who accompanied them on their two most recent trips to Oxford, helps out too.
“You’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind to not see that they’re quality individuals,” Jim said. “They’re exactly who you’d want your son to be. They’re smart, kind, courteous and hardworking. What else could you want?”
Peter and Mark met Brenda in their return trip to the 2019 Oxford Regional and describe her as “kind, energetic, and well, just perfect for Jim, if that makes sense.” The Ortegas look at Jim and see a kind man who was warm and inviting when they were in a place that was so foreign to them, it might as well have been another planet. Jim could’ve booted them out of his seats that spring day in 2019 and gone about his business. He instead invited them to hang around for a while. Asked what significance this one-time stranger from Clinton holds to them, they blurted out “family,” simultaneously.
“Jim helped us out and was welcoming when he had no reason to be,” Peter and Mark both said. “He will always be family to us.”
Unfortunately, Peter and Mark’s immediate family is a bit smaller today than it was six months ago. Their aunt Sahara and uncle Guillermo caught COVID in late December, just days after Brenda died. So did their grandpa Pedro, who was 99. Pedro is Peter Sr.’s (Peter and Mark’s dad) father. Peter Sr. died of cancer in January of 2009. Since his death, Peter’s utmost priority in life is providing for his younger brother Mark. He’s used baseball as a tool to do this. It’s forged their indestructible bond and is why he saved money to fly them to Mississippi in 2019 to see the high-energy team in baby-blue uniforms, that Mark discovered while watching Youtube videos, in person.
Much like those treacherous times in 2009 after their father’s death, Peter and Mark had to be strong as a trio of loved ones withered away. Grandpa Pedro died at the age of 99 on January 4 after a short battle with the virus. Peter got the call moments after he died and was tasked with breaking the news to his mother. He never expected this conversation to unfold as it did.
“Have you heard?” Peter asked.
“Yeah, they told me. It happened around three or four in the morning,” his mother, Ana, said.
“What? No, it just happened now,” he retorted.
“No, Peter, it happened at three or four in the morning.”
“Wait what are you talking about?”
“Peter, your aunt died at three or four o’clock this morning.”
“No, mom, I am talking about Grandpa. He just died.”
Sahara and Pedro died within hours of each, other on the same day, so close that Peter and his mom unknowingly informed one another of each death.
Pedro was buried on January 13th. Due to pandemic-induced backlogs, the Ortegas had to wait a month to bury Sahara in her native town of Montebello, Mexico. During this time, her now-widower husband Guillermo tested positive too. The goal was for Guillermo to recover enough to be able to attend his wife’s funeral, but eventually, they couldn’t wait any longer or they’d miss the opportunity to have it altogether. Peter rented an Airbnb in Montebello. He wanted his family to have a place to gather together, celebrate Sahara’s life and momentarily alleviate the sense of grief. Sahara was buried on a Saturday.
“I just wanted to get everyone’s mind off things for a while,” Peter said. “I knew it wasn’t necessarily going to be a good time, but I wanted all of us to be together.”
The family ate and drank at the rented house and made the best of the situation. Peter went to bed that night, only to be woken up to crying at around 4 a.m. A relative called. Guillermo was dead, just hours after his wife was lowered into the ground.
“It was awful,” Peter and Mark said. “I don’t really know how else to describe it.”
Peter made the call to Jim that day to hatch a plan to come back to the place he and his brother have grown so fond of.
The words after that awkward pause were surreal, much like those gauzy few days after you lose a loved one. Perhaps the conversation stopped out of the shock of learning they shared similar scars. But Ole Miss Baseball catalyzed its resumption as they talked about a subject that brought them both joy. This plan was a continuation of a 2020 return trip thwarted by the very virus that’s cost them so much. Peter and Mark, along with Cousin Greg, wanted to come back for the Vanderbilt or LSU series. At the time Jim, a season ticket holder, was only guaranteed tickets for half the season due to COVID restrictions. Once the capacity limits were lifted, the plan was cemented.
Peter and Mark called Jim one day in late March to finalize the itinerary. The Vanderbilt series was the choice. Beth was with Jim when the phone rang. The sense of joy in Jim’s voice stopped her in her tracks. It was something she hadn’t heard in the months since her mom’s passing. Jim sounded like Jim again. The Ortegas brought it back out of him.
“He was like a kid on Christmas,” Beth said. “They just seem to get him. They understand him like they’ve all known each other for years.”
Jim told them not to worry about tickets or a place to stay. He had his stadium buddies covered. The Ortegas showed up at the Flanagans’ condo on the afternoon of May 14. A fully-vaccinated Jim gave them a bear hug. They walked around the condo, which the boys describe as a shrine dedicated to Jim’s family and Ole Miss sports history. Pictures and artifacts litter the walls. One in particular stopped them in their tracks. Jim framed a 2019 story written on him and the boys, with photos to go with it. Peter and Mark knew Jim was their friend but were still somewhat unsure of exactly how this man they’ve seen three times in person felt about them. This picture hanging in the Flanagan Museum changed that.
“Jim’s condo is like a museum of his family and Ole Miss,” Peter said. “Every single thing has its place and is a part of the history. We didn’t know how Jim felt about us when we came back the second time until we saw this hanging on the wall. That’s when we knew. We knew we had our place in his family.”
The guys talked baseball for over an hour, about Gunnar Hoglund’s injury, Doug Nikhazy stabilizing the team, and the challenge Vanderbilt posed, until they realized they had to leave for the ballpark in order to not be late. They made their trek to section O, row 6, on the third-base side of Swayze Field, to the very same seats in which this improbable relationship began. A lot has changed since they last sat together, but their mere presence in these seats was a testament to the strength of their baseball-infused bond.
The sun began to set behind Swayze Field on a picturesque Friday evening as the action got underway. Over 10,000 people packed the stands to comprise a collective slice of normalcy that we’ve all sought for over a year now. In the bottom of the second inning, Jim heckled Vanderbilt ace Kumar Rocker as the right-hander spiked a pair of fastballs in the dirt. Peter and Mark grinned in amusement as Mark convinced Jim it was working and that he was in Rocker’s head. Two pitches later, T.J. McCants demolished an elevated fastball over the right-field wall. All four men, ranging from 19-69 years of age, leaped to their feet and high-fived each other.
“Look at this day,” Jim said. “We’re all here. Can this get any better?”
As this world inches back toward looking more like the one we once recognized before, souls are healing, too. The Ortegas are part of the prescription for Jim, and a splash of baseball mixed in makes for quite the serum on the heart and mind. Not long ago, the seats in this ballpark were filled by people that are no longer on this earth, and many that sit in them today are trying to fill a cavernous void. As people reconcile and cope with everything that’s transpired since the last time they sat there, it only seems fitting that the remedy to a catastrophe that kept us apart for so long is fellowship.
Ole Miss won on this Friday night and went on to take a series against the No. 2 Commodores that changed the trajectory of its season. Nestled down the third base line, the Ortegas and Jim cheered on their favorite team.
The source of their unlikely friendship brought them together once more.
Thank you so much for the second chapter in this story. I hope there will be many more.
Thanks Gentlemen for sharing your story-I can't wait to share it with my Daughter in LA