Viva Beisbol
by Bruce Baskin
Published on March 25, 2006 under Mexican League (ML)
PUEBLA - A three-run homer by shortstop Javier Robles in the eighth inning gave the Angelopolis Tigres a 7-6 victory over the Mexico City Diablos Rojos in front of 12,112 fans in Puebla Tuesday night. The game was the season opener for the 2006 Mexican League season, and the matchup between the 50-year rivals was the only game on the schedule.
Mexico City had built a 5-0 lead earlier in the game by scoring once in the top of the third inning on Manuel Velez' homer, adding three more in the fourth on Roberto Mendez' three-run shot and one more tally in the fifth when Daniel Fernandez came in from third on Victor Bojorquez' 6-4-3 double play grounder.
The Tigres closed the gap with a four-run outburst in the bottom of the sixth as Robles stroked a two-run single to center field and Jorge Alberto Vazquez launched a two-run circuit clout over the left field wall. At that point, Diablos reliever Salvador Robles was pulled for Jorge Castillo, who induced an inning-ending ground out by Adan Munoz.
Mexico City was able to stretch their lead to 6-4 in the top of the seventh when a sacrifice fly to left by Mario Valdez plated Fernandez, who was able to beat the throw from Luis Suarez to catcher Munoz. Javier Robles' heroics one inning later gave Angelopolis their first lead of the night, and reliever Adrian Manzano was able to save it for the defending Liga champions by holding the Diablos scoreless in the top of the ninth.
Javier Robles ended up going 2-for-4 with five RBI's, while Luis Carlos Garcia and Matias Carrillo each had two-hit nights as the Tigres collected 11 hits. Mexico City also had 11 safeties, including two apiece from Velez, Fernandez, Valdez and Carlos Valencia, who came to the Diablos from Tijuana in an off-season deal after setting a Liga record for homers by a second baseman with 32 for the Potros.
Baudell Zambrano earned the win out of the bullpen for Angelopolis, while Randy Galvez took the loss for Mexico City after allowing Javier Robles' game-deciding blast in the eighth. The loss wasted a solid outing by Diablos starting pitcher Victor Alvarez, who have up just two hits while striking out five batters in five shutout innings.
The rest of the LMB swung into action Wednesday night to fully launch the Liga's 110-game regular season schedule.
MEXICAN LEAGUE Schedule (March 28-April 2)
MARCH 28-30: Campeche at Aguascalientes, Mexico City at Monclova, Poza Rica at Monterrey, Puebla at Oaxaca, Saltillo at Veracruz, Tijuana at Angelopolis, Laguna at Tabasco, Yucatan at San Luis.
MAR 31-APR 2: Campeche at San Luis, Mexico City at Monterrey, Poza Rica at Monclova, Puebla at Angelopolis, Saltillo at Tabasco, Tijuana at Oaxaca, Laguna at Veracruz, Yucatan at Aguascalientes.
GUEST COLUMNIST: Johnny McReynolds
One of our VIVA BEISBOL subscribers, Johnny McReynolds of California, recently attended games in the World Baseball Classic's Pool 1 schedule in Anaheim. Johnny, who recently retired from work as a newspaperman, had the opportunity to interview a pair of media members from Mexico covering the WBC. The following is a column he has submitted to us, which we gladly reprint:
WBC & MEXICAN BASEBALL
Mexico ousts USA...Not in soccer, but baseball
After disappointing showings in the past, finishing 10th in both the Intercontinental Cup in 2002 and the IBAF World Cup in 2003, not to mention so-so records at pre-Olympic qualifying last November and in the Serie del Caribe in February, Mexico's showing at the World Baseball Classic was a giant step up.
The green-clad Mexicans won Pool 2 in the first round and played South Korea tighter than a telenovelista's skirt in losing 2-1 in the opener of the second round in Anaheim. Then Oliver Perez and a regiment of relievers pitched a three-hitter to send Roger Clemens, Chipper Jones, Derek Jeter and company home 2-1.
In Anaheim, writer Hector Meza of El Debate of Culiacan, a hotbed of
Mexican baseball, and broadcaster Francisco X. Rivera of Latino Sports, a native of Mexico City now based in Los Angeles, discussed Mexican baseball. Both were optimistic about the WBC's impact in a country which is widely considered to be soccer territory.
Meza referred first of all to media coverage of the WBC. "All you see on TV is soccer," he said. "Who's playing, who's not. Even to their fingernails.
"Televisa has the contract for major league baseball but they don't use it. For this WBC, ESPN is broadcasting the event to Mexico. Universal, the nationwide newspaper, showed in a poll that even soccer fans will watch. Good ratings could bring back baseball on a regular basis."
Rivera also jumped on the TV ratings theme. "We used to have great MLB coverage," Rivera added, but the ratings were not high enough. Televisa seemed to signal its interest in baseball when it too decided to broadcast the WBC.
"A lot of the money the organizers get is going to fund baseball," he noted, adding that in the past, the National Sports Commission has not given sufficient support to baseball.
Meza then pooh-poohed the prospect of commissioners developing a fruitful strategic plan. "The head of baseball is the head of all sports, and he's incompetent and not respected," he summarized, after a recitation of failures.
Regionalism is one of the root causes of baseball's weakness. The sport is more popular than soccer in the northwestern states of Sinaloa, Sonora and Baja California. Eighteen of 30 players on Mexico's WBC roster came from those three states. Six more came from the northeast. Veracruz, on the Caribbean coast, is another hotbed.
Meza illustrated the hold baseball maintains in its northwestern heartland. "We have a new first division soccer team in Culiacan, the Dorados. They might draw 10,000. But if they were playing at the same time as the Tomateros (the Mexican winter league team), their attendance would be cut in half and baseball would have maybe 8,000. For that reason, the two teams try to avoid scheduling conflicts."
But the center of the country, including the major population centers of Mexico City and Guadalajara, is soccer country. "Chivas of Guadalajara is the most loved team in Mexican history, so they take the bulk of the sports fans there," Rivera said, though he insisted Mexico City is open to all sports. "Look at the NFL exhibition. They drew 100,000."
From the point of view of a nationwide television network like Televisa, or a public sports commission, numbers count and soccer has more of them. Alone among the Latin American countries, Mexico has a summer professional league, the AAA Mexican League. The league can be an obstacle to players' advancement, both agreed. According to Meza, only four teams in the 16-team LMB have solid major league connections.
"The agreement with the National Association requires that Mexican players turning pro sign first with a Mexican League team. Then, if the major leagues want a player, they have to buy his contract from his Mexican League owner.
"Francisco Campos on this WBC team was the Mexican League MVP two years in a row, but only last year finally got a tryout with the Mets. Willie Randolph said he would get a chance, but no. Before long he was back in the minor leagues. Faced with the choice of Indianapolis or the Mexican League where he can make more money, he chose Campeche."
Rivera agreed. "Oscar Robles, for example, with the Dodgers. The owner of the Mexico City Red Devils didn't want to let him come because he was such a big part of the team. If players are not seen, there's no way scouts are going to bring them over. It's actually not a baseball-only problem. It's also a soccer problem. Economics are a big part of it. There are a lot of players who could be playing in Europe but owners want too much money for them."
Despite the obstacles, Meza pointed to three future Mexican stars he
predicted will star soon on U.S. fields: Arnold Leon, a 17-year old pitcher for Saltillo; 22-year old infielder Luis Alfonso Cruz, a San Diego Padre property who was loaned to the Red Devils in 2005; and Ramiro Pena, a shortstop in the Yankees organization.
MEXICAN LEAGUE STANDINGS
NORTHERN ZONE W L PCT. GB SOUTHERN ZONE W L PCT. GB
San Luis TUNEROS 3 0 1.000 - Poza Rica PETROLEROS 1 0 1.000 -
Monterrey SULTANES 2 0 1.000 1.0 Campeche PIRATAS 2 1 .667 -
Monclova ACEREROS 2 1 .667 1.5 Mexico City DIABLOS 2 1 .667 -
Puebla PERICOS 2 1 .667 1.5 Tabasco OLMECAS 2 1 .667 -
Saltillo SARAPEROS 1 1 .500 2.0 Veracruz AGUILAS 2 1 .667 -
Tijuana POTROS 1 2 .333 2.5 Angelopolis TIGRES 1 1 .500 .5
Aguascalientes RIELEROS 0 3 .000 3.0 Oaxaca GUERREROS 0 2 .000 1.5
Laguna VAQUEROS 0 3 .000 3.0 Yucatan LEONES 0 3 .000 2.0
MAESTROS of MEXICO: Teddy Higuera, pitcher (1979-99)
If you ask people who the first Mexican pitcher to win 20 games in a major league season, most would answer Fernando Valenzuela. They would be wrong...It was this guy, who beat Fernando to that milepost by mere days in 1986.
Teodoro "Teddy" Higuera Valenzuela (no relation) was born November 9, 1958 in Los Mochis, Sinaloa. Unlike Fernando, Higuera was not an instant sensation when reached the majors. Prior to joining the Milwaukee Brewers, he spent all or parts of six seasons with the Juarez Bravos of the Mexican League after breaking in late in the 1979 season with two appearances. During the strike-split 1980 campaign, Higuera went 10-8 for Juarez and followed that up with a stellar 16-9 mark and a 3.10 ERA in 1981, striking out 157 hitters in 207 innings. After a subpar 9-12 showing the next season, he rebounded for his best Liga campaign in 1983 by going 17-8 with 165 whiffs to lead the LMB in both categories. After that, the 25-year-old lefty signed on with the Brewers.
Although there was no "Teddymania" when he reached Milwaukee, Higuera had a very good rookie year, turning in a 15-8 record with a 3.90 ERA and 127 strikeouts. For that, he was voted AL Rookie Pitcher of the Year by The Sporting News and finished second in the balloting for AL Rookie of the Year. The 5'10" 178-pounder followed that with 54 wins over the next three seasons for the Brewers, including his breakout year in 1986 in which he was 20-11, had a 2.79 ERA, 15 complete games and struck out 207 en route to his lone All-Star Game appearance. Higuera dropped off a little to 18-10 and 3.85 in 1987, although his 240 strikeouts set a Milwaukee record in that category. He then had another good season in 1988 by finishing 16-9 with a career-best 2.45 ERA and 192 strikeouts for the Brewers.
However, his fortunes began to change in 1989 as the now-30 Higuera fell to 9-6, although his earned-run rate was a respectable 3.46. Following another marginal season in 1990 (11-10/3.76/129K), Higuera really hit hard times and won just five games between 1991 and 1994. Arm troubles had begun to plague the hard-working lefty by now, and after undergoing rotator cuff surgery after the 1991 season, he missed the entire 1992 campaign. 1994 was his final year on the majors, as he went just 1-5 with an ERA of over seven per game. Higuera's major league career record was 94-64 in nine seasons (six of them in the Brewers' rotation) along with a 3.45 ERA. He never pitched for another major league team than Milwaukee, although he unsuccessfully tried to hook on with San Diego in 1995. At that point, Higuera retired from pro ball, although he did come back in 1999 at age 40 to post a respectable 7-2 mark in nine starts for the Sultanes with a fine 2.91 ERA before calling it quits for good, closing the books on his Mexican League career with a 59-40 record along with a sparking 2.86 earned-run average.
Higuera remains active in baseball, and was (along with Fernando Valenzuela) a pitching coach for Mexico's World Baseball Classic team this month. He is not a member of the Salon de la Fama, and has not been nominated for election in 2006.
Mexican League Stories from March 25, 2006
- Viva Beisbol - OSC Original by Bruce Baskin
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer(s), and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.
