ESCALANTE TO STEP DOWN AS LIGA LEADER

Mexican League president Plinio Escalante has announced his retirement following the 2016 LMB season. Escalante made his statement at the Winter Meetings in Nashville.  A Yucatan native and Leones owner in the 1980's with an accounting background, Escalante became Liga president in 2007 after the post had been held by four different men since Pedro Treto Cisneros' 1999 retirement.  

The position of Mexican League president had been relatively stable after Antonio Ramirez Mura took the job in 1962.  Ramirez went on to serve 20 years at the big desk before stepping down following the 1981 season, a year after dealing with a crippling players strike that included a spinoff league of striking LMBers playing their own schedule the rest of the 1980 season in Liga cities and ballparks.  Cisneros Treto emerged in 1982 as president and held the office another 18 years before leaving in 1999, opening the revolving door that stopped when Escalante stepped up in 2007.  His final season will be his tenth.

According to Puro Beisbol's David Braverman, Escalante is already rumored to have three Liga teams offering a job after he exits the LMB office.