Baseball Mexico
Weekly Mexican Pro Baseball Review
Vol. 1, No. 3
August 16, 2009
TIGRES WIN MARATHON SERIES, PLAYING PUEBLA IN LMB SOUTH FINALS
It took eleven days to play seven games, but the Quintana Roo Tigres were able
to outlast the Campeche Piratas in their Mexican League Southern Zone semifinal
series, 4 games to 3. Three matches were cancelled due to rain.
Campeche took a 3-2 series lead into the week after a 7-6 win over Quintana
Roo last Saturday behind Javier Robles’ two-run homer, but the Tigres roared back with
a pair of home victories in Cancun. Quintana Roo evened the set with an 8-1 win last
Monday as Derrick White walloped a two-run homer. The Tigres then won the seventh
game Tuesday night with a 9-5 triumph over Campeche behind Albino Contreras’
walkoff grand slam homer in the bottom of the tenth inning.
Quintana Roo is now battling Puebla for the LMB South title. The Pericos
dispatched Yucatan in five games, including a 12-0 rout in the clinching game last week
as Andres Meza pitched a four-hitter and Willis Otanez went 3-for-4 with two homers
and 3 RBIs. Meza led the LMB with 15 wins in the regular season.
The Tigres won Thursday night’s opener, 3-1, behind two homers by White, and
followed up with a 12-1 pasting of the Pericos Friday as Ricardo Vasquez’ grand slam
keyed a seven-run first inning for Quintana Roo..
LAGUNA SHOCKS DIABLOS, FACE SALTILLO FOR LMB NORTH CROWN
The Laguna Vaqueros are certainly making the most of their first playoff
appearance since 2004. The Torreon team pounded Mexico City, 15-2, last Monday
night in Foro Sol to win the seventh and deciding game of their Northern Zone semifinal
series, eliminating the defending Liga champions in the process.
Laguna rapped out 21 hits as a team on Monday, including a 4-for-6 night with a
homer from Daniel Fornes, to back up pitcher Juan Delgadillo (who tossed two-run ball
over his six-inning stint on the mound). Fornes capped an excellent series in which he
also whacked a homer in a Game 3 victory and drove in the winning run in the tenth
inning of Game 4, both at home in Torreon. The Diablos had stayed alive with a 12-4
drubbing of the Vaqueros last Saturday, featuring a three-hit night from Ivan Terrazas.
Now the Vaqueros are squaring off with Saltillo for the LMB North championship.
The Saraperos topped Reynosa in six contests, including an 8-1 Game 6 win in Saltillo
last Saturday in which starter Jose Mercedes stretched his string of consecutive
postseason shutout innings to 14 with seven frames of three-hit scoreless ball.
The Saraperos opened the Norte finals with a 9-0 shutout over Laguna last
Wednesday in Saltillo. Hector Rodriguez scattered four hits and struck out seven
Vaqueros in five innings. In Game 2 on Friday night, Refugio Cervantes slammed his
fourth homer of the playoffs to break a 4-4 tie as Saltillo held on for a 5-4 win in front of
over 11,000 fans in Torreon. Cervantes also stroked an RBI double in the third.
SONORAN NORTHERN LEAGUE SEMIS UNDERWAY
The semifinals of Sonora’s Northern League have begun as both Magdalena and
Guaymas took opening night road victories on Tuesday.
Magdalena topped the Agua Prieta Vaqueros, 10-6, in Agua Prieta. Rodolfo
Gonzalez took the win for the Membrilleras by tossing seven innings of one-run ball. On
the same night, Guaymas scored four runs in the third inning and went on to beat San
Luis, 9-2, in San Luis Rio Colorado. Texan Rafael Flores earned the pitching win for the
Ostioneros. Both semis are best-of-7 series.
In the opening round of Northern League playoff action, San Luis knocked out
Ensenada, 4 games to 1, Agua Prieta eliminated Mexicali in six games, and Magdalena
outlasted Guaymas in a full seven games. While all three series winners automatically
advanced to the final four, Guaymas also moved into the second round as the fourth
“lucky loser” team by virtue of their three first-round wins as compared to Mexicali’s two
victories and Ensenada’s lone triumph.
REYNOSA IF McDOUGALL SIGNS WITH PENSACOLA
Reynosa Broncos third baseman Marshall McDougall has signed with the
Pensacola Pelicans of the American Association for the remainder of the season. A
former College World Series MVP and All-American at Florida State University,
McDougall hit .286 for Reynosa this year with 20 homers, 20 doubles and 86 RBIs. The
Jacksonville native signed with Pensacola three days after the Broncos were knocked
out of the Mexican League playoffs in the first round by Saltillo in six games.
Following his collegiate career, McDougall was picked by Oakland in the ninth
round of the 2000 June draft. He spent a number of years in the Rangers organization,
hitting .341 with 11 homers for Oklahoma City bracketed around a brief June stint with
Texas in 2005. McDougall was signed by Reynosa prior to the 2009 season.
A-GON GOES 6-FOR-6 IN PADRES POUNDING OF MILWAUKEE
San Diego first baseman Adrian Gonzalez set a team record for hits in a nineinning game last Tuesday night by going 6-for-6 in the Padres’ 13-6 bludgeoning of the
Milwaukee Brewers in front of over 37,000 fans at Miller Park. The outburst added 11
points to A-Gon’s batting average, which has gone from .246 to .262 over the past two
weeks for the two-time All-Star. Gonzalez spent 12 years growing up in Obregon.
Three other Padres have collected six hits in a game over San Diego’s 40-year
team history, all in extra-inning contests: Gene Richards in 1977, Joe Lefebvre in 1982
and Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn in 1993. Gonzalez is the third major league player this
year with a six-hit game, joining Texas’ Ian Kinsler and Freddy Sanchez of Pittsburgh.
CASTRO PERFORMING WELL AS DODGERS SUB
Los Mochis native Juan Castro has been a key infield reserve this year for the
Los Angeles Dodgers, who have the National League’s best record at 69-45. Castro
has hit .319 with a homer in 36 games for the Dodgers while playing three positions
after starting the season at Class AAA Albuquerque of the Pacific Coast League.
The 36-year-old Castro was signed by the Dodgers out of Mexico in 1991, and
has played all or part of the past 15 big league seasons with Los Angeles, Cincinnati
and Baltimore. He’s a career .231 hitter with 36 homers in 1,022 MLB games.
HISTORIA MEXICANA 3: The Colonial Era, Revolution and Independence
After Hernando Cortes and his troops defeated the Aztecs in the 16th Century, a period
of Spanish colonial rule of Mexico that lasted over three centuries began. Conquistadores and
explorers spread north and south in search of native populations to defeat and precious metals
to mine. By the early 17th Century, Mexico was ruled by a number of so-called encomenderos,
who served the Spanish Crown as quasi-feudal lords charged with protecting and converting
indigenous people. By bringing smallpox to Mexico from Spain and decimating tribal numbers,
the level of “protection” was at least questionable. As for conversion, that was eventually
handled by Franciscan and Dominican friars who literally whipped the natives into spiritual
shape and order.
The 17th Century was actually a relatively peaceful period in colonial Mexico. A new
class of Creole people born in what was called New Spain established great estates with large
agricultural areas centered around a sizeable compound called a hacienda, which included a
large house for the landowners, servant’s quarters, workshops, gardens, and a church with
adjacent graveyard. The Indian population was put to work cultivating crops in the fields, and
the contact between Spaniards and natives created a new category of mixed-race people in
Mexico, the mestizos. The population of modern-day Mexico is predominantly made up of their
ancestors. In the absence of a regular army during the 17th Century, discipline was the domain
of the Catholic Church. Catholicism remains the dominant religion in Mexico today.
However, things became less peaceful in the 18th Century. Much of the relative
autonomy enjoyed by landowners in Mexico (who had established relative fiefdoms) was scaled
back while local taxes were raised as Spain became embroiled in several wars in Europe. The
result was a great unrest that resulted in the expulsion of Jesuit priests from Mexico in 1767 as
the alliance between the Crown and Church crumbled.
By the end of the 18th Century, Mexico stretched from Yucatan in the south to a string of
present-day American states from California to Florida in the north. The American and French
revolutions gave hope to native Mexican seeking freedom from Spanish rule. In 1810, a priest
named Miguel Hidalgo gave his famous cry for independence, known as “El Grito” (or “The
Shout”). The first try for independence failed and Hidalgo was executed, but the seeds had
been planted. A second revolution headed by Father Jose Maria Morelos four years later also
fell short, but guerrilla warfare continued. Back in Spain, the army seized power in 1821, and
shortly thereafter, the Creole landowners in Mexico declared independence. The weakened
Spaniards did not have the will to respond militarily so Mexico became a free nation.
Although Mexico was now independent, it was not unified. After a short imperial period
in which Agustin I ruled as “emperor,” Mexico became a republic in 1823. Unfortunately, the
economy was ravaged after Spanish capital left the country, and Mexico’s elites were divided
between two factions: Conservatives who preferred a Catholic-dominated hierarchy backed by
an army and a system of monarchy, and liberals who favored a more egalitarian free-trade
system of government.
The eventual winner in all this was Antonio de Santa Anna, who began Mexico’s first
political dynasty but who also saw the country lose a large chunk of land in the process.
NEXT WEEK: Texas, Porfirio Diaz and a final revolution
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