TEXAS \u2014 Every weekend, games of handball are played at Escobar Park on San Antonio\u2019s West Side. The blue rubber ball used in the game reverberates when crashing into a wall.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like a haven, an outlet somewhere you can put your energy into,\u201d Sonny Estrada said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Estrada said it\u2019s an opportunity to be productive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople think it\u2019s a prison sport, but it\u2019s actually not a prison sport,\u201d Estrada said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people that I know that I\u2019ve met in other states\u2026that have never been to prison and they play great. I\u2019m like what the heck.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Estrada used social media to turn this hidden gem into a handball destination in Texas, where players from Dallas, Austin, New York and Corpus Christi come to play.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But their biggest opponent on the court isn’t always other players \u2014 it’s the summer heat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The park has two walls surrounded by large fences and one tree to keep shade in the triple-digit temperatures. Those were the conditions Estrada and other handball players felt for decades. Now they have a canopy shade over both handball courts paid through a San Antonio Parks and Recreation bond.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNow it\u2019s the best courts in Texas,\u201d said Corpus Christi resident Randy Ramirez.<\/p>\n
Ramirez travels from Corpus often to play handball at Escobar Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sun was out but it wasn\u2019t affecting me at all. You can feel all of the wind, it was great,\u201d Estrada said. \u201cThe way the City (of San Antonio) has helped us out has been a blessing. Them putting it up for us and lights too.\u201d<\/p>\n
More parks in San Antonio are seeing shade structures like this over playgrounds. The city is spending $19 million over five years to build shade at 61 parks \u2014 keeping families cool in the summer.<\/p>\n
Across Texas, parks and recreation departments are working to make public parks more enjoyable.<\/p>\n
In El Paso, the city is rolling out new shade canopies using money from a 2022 bond.<\/p>\n
The City of Plano is even going as far as launching a interactive map that tracks the shade throughout the day, so visitors can better plan to beat the heat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ramirez hopes a canopy can hover over the handball courts in Corpus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be amazing. \u2026 We spoke to the parks and recreation folks, they said we can adopt a park and then we can take steps,\u201d Ramirez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Estrada says it\u2019s a process that can be pricey but worth it to play the game that gave him a second chance at life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took us a while to petition and talk to people,\u201d Estrada said. \u201cIt\u2019s been great that it\u2019s actually worked out for us and everything.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014 Every weekend, games of handball are played at Escobar Park on San Antonio\u2019s West Side. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[3564,5201,3565,1570,138,140,139,6294,223,82,27,1569,835,172],"class_list":["post-357737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-app-community","tag-app-weather","tag-community-news","tag-ctv","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-jose-arredondo","tag-news","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-vod","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}