Sports & Recreation

Dallas hasn’t been home to a world champion boxer since Curtis Cokes won the world welterweight title in ’66. But a 27-year-old boxer from South Dallas looks primed to put Dallas back on the map in the sport. Mo Hooker started fighting at 13, competing in 100 amateur bouts before he went professional in 2011. In his pro career he’s undefeated. He’s knocked out his opponent in 16 of 23 bouts. Last June he earned the WBO NABO super lightweight title and in December he was signed with Jay Z-owned sports management company Roc Nations Sports. Keep an eye out for Hooker, who’s sure to compete in a championship fight soon and be on HBO himself.

Tucked into an Oak Cliff neighborhood, backing up to an apartment complex, the Oak Cliff Nature Preserve is a gem in a city often accused of not having enough nature. Miles upon miles of trails perfect for mountain biking, hiking and cross-country jogging twist through hills and trees and a small creek. Pick your trail based on your desired mileage and difficulty and forget you’re in Dallas. On the edges of the preserve you might hear a car in the distance, but the loudest noise will be coming from the birds or the cicadas.

Readers’ Pick:

Cedar Ridge Preserve

Want to practice mindfulness? Looking for that lithe body hiding beneath a beer belly? Need a workout that won’t add to the ache in your joints? Want to get your therapist off your back? These are all good reasons to find a yoga studio, especially one like SYNC Yoga & Wellbeing. Located in the Austin-wannabe development at Sylvan Thirty, the studio straddles Ten Ramen and Juiceland. And with instructors this patient and attentive, you’ll be straddling the mat in no time. Classes range from traditional flow to yoga for healing to match with your priorities. Want to try a meditation class? They’ve got that too. If you’re new to the studio, the first 30 days cost just $30 – a deal that’s hard to beat for an unlimited month of yoga.

Readers’ Pick:

SunstoneFIT

Sure, the city renamed the Continental Avenue bridge this year for former Mayor Ron Kirk, the driving force behind the plan to build a high-speed tollway underneath the pedestrian bridge/park. But let’s not hold grudges and rather celebrate the fact that Dallas has this fine amenity over the Trinity with a peerless view of downtown and the Trinity River. Not only that, but every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, weather permitting, V12 Yogo offers free community yoga classes on the bridge known as the gateway to Oak Cliff. So go, stretch out and bask in the feeling you’re in a cool, human-friendly city. Do your downward facing dogs while contemplating the irony of being in a pedestrian park named for a man whose vision was to turn the Trinity into a highway. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Readers’ Pick:

White Rock Lake

REI has always offered the most complete inventory of high-quality outdoor gear and clothing in Dallas, but the problem in the old days was its location in a place reachable only by an almost inaccessible LBJ Freeway service drive. Now in their second year in a sleek new store on Northwest Highway, across Shady Brook Lane from Half Price Books, REI is easy for most city-dwellers to get to and well worth the effort. Prices are competitive on tents, packs, bags and all kinds of gear for a wide variety of outdoor pursuits from climbing to paddling. You can also spend a fortune here, if you’ve got one to spend. This is one of those stores where the problem is never finding what you really need. It’s finding what you don’t really need but buying it because it’s cool.

Readers’ Pick:

REI

Basketball, dodgeball, kickball, volley ball and something called pickleball (a mash-up of tennis, pingpong and badminton), Dallas’ recreation centers have all your balls covered with their free to low-priced leagues, and not just for seniors or kids. Regular adults can join in too. Since these are city leagues, don’t expect the free-flowing booze you might get in private intramural groups, but on the other hand, you don’t have to get the boozing expected in some private leagues. Team sports not your bag? The city’s rec centers also offer a full schedule of classes at various level in the martial arts, yoga and assorted fitness classes. Prices range from free to $180 for league entries.

Readers’ Pick:

Dallas Sport & Social Club — Sand Volleyball

Color runs, cancer runs, beer runs, meat runs (that last one is an actual event, not an intestinal disturbance, at least not intentionally) — Dallas has runs and races of all length and themes, but we’re giving the nod this year to the traditional Dallas favorite. Why? For several reasons: It supports local YMCAs and their programs; it’s not in the heat of the summer; it’s a good excuse to get out of the house and away from the family for at least part of Thanksgiving; and a 5K run burns roughly the number of calories contained in a slice of pumpkin pie. We can walk the 5K with our dogs and burn about the same calories. If we’re ambitious (we’re not) the 8-mile course in the Turkey Trot bags us TWO pieces of guilt-free pie, and a little light warm-up and cool down means we can toss on some whipped cream, too. Some run for competition, some for health. We run for pie. We win.

Readers’ Pick:

YMCA Turkey Trot

Located on the northeast side of downtown’s central business district, Dallas’ T. Boone Pickens YMCA has used the oil baron’s money to become the nicest Y in the country. Top-rate exercise equipment, an Olympic-size pool, rooftop track and cheap rates for families, young people and people with lower incomes allow the downtown Y to take much of the edge off of dragging yourself to do that workout you just really don’t want to do on a Wednesday night.

Readers’ Pick:

SunstoneFIT

Michael Tepid writes about baseball with the passion of a fan and the perspective of someone who knows as much or more about the Texas Rangers’ farm system than anyone outside of the organization itself. Using the moniker Tepid Participation, Tepid, especially through Twitter, is DFW’s best guide to who’s a dude (going to make the big leagues someday) and who isn’t on Rangers’ farm. Follow him on Twitter and know more than any of your friends about the team.

Readers’ Pick:

Tim Cowlishaw, The Dallas Morning News

Offering retro bowling at its finest in a funky warehouse space, Bowlounge offers 12 authentic wood bowling lanes, vintage ball returns and a 75-foot bar crafted from an old bowling lane where a selection of 40 beers on tap, scotch, whiskey and bourbons await the most thirsty bowler. Coin-operated pool tables and popular video games such as Street Fighter, Buck Hunter, Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga make the small vintage bowling alley feel as if it were a place out of time. “It has a really nice old school feel to it,” one customer claimed. “It’s 10 times better than any other bowling alley I’ve ever been to.”

Readers’ Pick:

Bowl & Barrel

The Rangers signed Ian Desmond as an afterthought. It was Feb. 29, just before the start of spring training, and the former Nationals shortstop hadn’t yet found anyone to give him a chance to resuscitate his career — on life support after a career worst season in 2015. The Rangers thought Desmond might be able to provide league-average production in left field, and Desmond placed a bet on himself by signing a one-year contract for just $8 million. After a slow start to the season, Desmond has been an MVP candidate, taking over center field from a flailing, demoted Delino Deshields and playing one of baseball’s most important defensive positions while learning on the fly. He’s hit, too, mashing his way to being among the Rangers’ team leaders in home runs and slugging percentage.

For a moment this spring, the hearts of Dallas sports fans belonged, for the first time in a long time, to the Dallas Stars. The Rangers’ season hadn’t ramped up yet, and the Mavericks were quickly dispatched in the first round of the playoffs by the Oklahoma City Thunder, but the Stars had attained the top seed in the NHL’s Western Conference and taken down the Minnesota Wild in the first round of the playoffs. The Stars ended up losing their next series, a seven-game classic against the St. Louis Blues, but their run served as a pleasant reminder of the team’s success in the late ’90s and early ’00s, when they were the hottest ticket in town. With stars like Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin slated to be around for years to come, there is hope that the Stars’ next glory days might be just over the horizon.

Eric Nadel’s voice sounds like summer in North Texas. The Rangers play-by-play announcer, winner of the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Ford Frick award in 2014, has been with the team for 38 seasons and is consistently recognized as one of the very best radio broadcasters in the game. Nadel rises to the moment without overselling his call or the occasion. His signature, “that. ball. is. history.” home run call is, for Rangers fans, one of the happiest sounds in the world. Whether the Rangers are good, as they are this year, or bad, as they were in 2014, Nadel is an essential guide to their journey.

In May, the Rangers and the city of Arlington announced plans to hold an election to finance a new stadium for the Rangers, despite the venue currently know as Globe Life Park being just over 20 years old. The problem with the Rangers’ current stadium, as it’s been since it opened, is the park’s lack of a roof. July and August games can be completely miserable, the team’s owners say, so the Rangers need a stadium with a roof. And the city of Arlington needs to pay for half of it. The Arlington City Council quickly moved to put the stadium measure on the November ballot, where it is sure to be approved. Arlington residents will keep paying the tax that is currently helping finance AT&T Stadium and all of us who happen to live elsewhere will continue to reap the benefits. Bring on the climate-controlled bliss.

On May 15, Rougned Odor landed one of the best shots you’ll ever see in a baseball fight. During the eighth inning of a Sunday afternoon rubber match between the Rangers and the Toronto Blue Jays, Blue Jays right fielder Jose Bautista slid in hard in an attempt to break up a double play. Odor took exception and threw a right hook to Bautista’s jaw, solidifying Rangers-Blue Jays as one of MLB’s best and most unexpected rivalries. Bautista lost his helmet and sunglasses; Odor became a folk hero.

DFW Gun Range offers not only a place to practice the craft of gunmanship but also one where anyone can train with highly credentialed trainers to learn the art of gun protection. Since 1995, the gun range has been training not only private citizens but also law enforcement and security companies. It took only one businessman and two Dallas police officers to pull it off. Besides a 2,000-square-foot training gymnasium, they also offer 17 electronic indoor shooting lanes in an environmentally controlled space with shooting distances varying from 3 to 20 yards. The lanes also accommodate most caliber weapons, including your AR-15.

Readers’ Pick:

DFW Gun Range

After a spate of attacks on Dallas LGBT community in Oak Lawn, the Dallas Mavericks owner gave the Dallas Police Department $1 million to pay for overtime in the affected area. That’s enough to get him the best owner title, even if his Mavericks are struggling.

Fabian Castillo is one of FC Dallas’ biggest development success stories. Head coach Oscar Pareja brought the attacking midfielder to North Texas from Colombia in 2011, even briefly letting Castillo stay on his couch. Castillo blossomed for FC Dallas, turning into one of the most dynamic offensive players in the MLS, culminating with his being named the league’s best player under 24 following the 2015 season. Buoyed by the award and playing his first match for the Colombian national team, Castillo decided to take his game to Europe, traveling to Turkey in July to sign a contract with Trabzonspor. All of that would’ve been well and good except for one thing: FC Dallas hadn’t let Castillo go. While essentially AWOL from the team that held his rights, Castillo was pictured at the airport, taking a physical and in a Trabzonspor jersey with team officials, all without FC Dallas having agreed to his transfer. Eventually FC Dallas agreed to loan Castillo to Trabzonspor for the Turkish league season with an option to buy.

Texas state Senator Royce West was brought in to help Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant navigate through the fame and cash that come part and parcel with being one of the NFL’s best wide receivers. Bryant relied on West for legal and public relations advice, even renting his DeSoto home from the senator. Early this year, however, Bryant decided to move out of the house. Bryant left the property basically destroyed, West says, with more than $60,000 in damages including broken windows and feces-stained carpets. West sued Bryant, Bryant counter-sued West and the whole thing turned into a big, juicy, legal mess that’s still unresolved.

When the Rangers traded for Jonathan Lucroy on Aug. 1, they knew they were getting one of the three or four best-hitting catchers in baseball and a guy who could control the opposing running game. They knew they were getting a catcher whose pitchers loved him, too, but they couldn’t have imagined what he’d do for the Rangers staff. Thanks in large part to Lucroy’s pitch-calling, the Rangers’ starters, Yu Darvish and Cole Hamels, have never been better and Martin Perez, who looked like he might be broken before Lucroy’s arrival, has flashed the form that made him the inspiration for so much hope in 2014 and 2015.

Unlike the big leagues, which are best enjoyed with minimal accoutrements, minor league baseball works as a spectator event because of the bells and whistles — the goofier the better. Frisco’s Rangers affiliate, the RoughRiders, embraces this philosophy wholeheartedly. From the team’s goofy Teddy Roosevelt mascot to its Taco Tuesdays and Thirsty Thursdays, the RoughRiders get it. The best, most ridiculous and wonderful example of the team’s commitment to fun above all else is its 2016-installed outfield lazy river, which can be rented for events during non-Thursday home games and is open to the public on Thursdays. Fans can have a few beers, a couple of hot dogs and float for a couple of hours to even everything out. Throw in some baseball and that’s pretty close to nirvana.

Consider this an aspirational pick, a word of encouragement. At 2.5 miles in length and with a ton of grade-level street crossings, Northaven Trail is not much of a draw for the spandex-clad speedsters whipping their two-wheeled poor man’s Porsches around White Rock Lake. And since it is the epitome of what Dallas calls a “trail” — i.e. a cement one-lane street — it won’t appeal much to those muddy madmen at the Dallas Off-Road Bicycle Association, who do yeoman’s work supporting countless off-road trails tucked around the city. We’re giving Northaven Trail the nod this year for what it will, God and transportation budgets willing, one day be: a vital east-west link in Dallas’ growing system of hike-and-bike trails. Anyone who’s biked any distance in Dallas can testify to the shortage of paths linking the trails that flow north and south, leading eventually to downtown. When it’s finished, the plan is for Northaven Trail to help link up Campion Trail in Irving to the west to White Rock Trail in the east, giving easy access to DART rail and allowing riders in North Dallas to hit White Rock Trail without having to defy death on Forest Lane or other major surface streets. It won’t be a speedy ride, and it won’t be a technical challenge, but the dream for Northaven is that it will be a useful cornerstone in making Dallas a more bikeable city.

Readers’ Pick:

White Rock Lake