Durango wins two in Mexico City, fewer than 2K attend series

There may not be two more different franchises in Mexican League baseball than the Mexico City Diablos Rojos and the Durango Generales.  The Diablos have existed in the nation's capital since 1940, they've won 16 pennants since they broke through for their first title in 1956, they're owned by Alfredo Harp Helu (Mexico's version of Paul Allen, a billionaire who likes to dabble in sports) and they'll move into a brand-new ballpark in 2018. South of the border, the Red Devils are baseball royalty.  After a halting beginning to the 2017 season, the Diablos won 8 of 10 games in early May to pull into contention for a playoff berth.

Then there are the Generales, who moved from Carmen during the winter, had an abbreviated training camp because there was nobody to run it for the first few weeks (manager Joe Alvarez wasn't hired until February), had to play their first month in the LMB on the road because renovation on Estadio Francisco Villa was delayed until well after the first of the year and have had to endure at least rumors of missing paychecks for players because owner Virgilio Ruiz is undercapitalized.  After a surprising start during which the Generales went 11-10 away from home, never being swept in a series while actually winning sets against LMB North powers Tijuana and Monterrey, the team hit the proverbial wall by being swept in Monterrey and Laguna before finally playing their first home game.  That came on May 2 against Monclova, who went on to sweep Durango and extend the new team's losing string to nine games while dropping their record to 11-19.

That was the background of the two franchises when the last-place Generales took a 20-31 record into Mexico City for their first-ever meeting against the 28-23 Diablos Rojos, who were hoping to pick up at least a couple wins and perhaps a sweep against the upstarts.  Instead, Durango left Estadio Fray Nano Thursday night after winning two of three games against one of the Liga's flagship franchises, leaving the Diablos wondering both what happened and where their fans were.

Durango pulled out a 5-3 win in Tuesday's opener when a two-out Daniel Hinojosa single brought in Jesus Loya and Javier Salazar to break a 3-all tie in the top of the ninth inning, followed by closer Tiago da Silva's scoreless frame (with two strikeouts) for his LMB-leading 19th save.  To their credit, the Diablos fought back Wednesday with a 13-8 slugout win keyed by a six-run sixth inning.  Mexico City shortstop Ramon Urias continued his career year by going 2-for-4 with four RBIs, including a three-run homer (his 10th) in the bottom of the first while leadoff man Carlos Figueroa had three of the Diablos' 17 hits on the night.

It was Thursday's rubber match, however, that left the home team scratching their collective heads as the visitors won by a 6-0 score.  Generales starting pitcher Amilcar Gaxiola, a former Braves farmhand who went 10-7 with Tabasco in 2014 but has struggled since (going 0-8 last year), tossed seven innings of six-hit shutout ball to earn his third consecutive win since May 20.  Durango rightfielder Yadir Drake, having a career year himself, belted a three-run homer in the top of the first off former LMB Rookie of the Year Juan Pablo Oramas to set the tone and the Diablos never came close to catching up.

The 27-year-old Drake (pictured), who defected from Cuba to the Yucatan Peninsula on a boat in 2011, is leading the Liga with a .406 average after bouncing around the minors since arriving on the mainland six years ago.  He actually spent time with a Diablos affiliate before signing with the Dodgers, who released him early last year.  Drake's career was floundering until last winter, when he hooked on with Los Mochis and hit .232 with 6 homers in 39 games for the Mayos.  Not eye-popping numbers, true, but enough to earn an invite from the fledgling Generales, who return home Friday night to open a weekend series against Tijuana.

While the Generales have earned respect around the LMB for showing fight under difficult circumstances, even by Liga standards, and winning 11 of their last 15 games, the Diablos are left wondering what's next. Since their May run (capped by a five-game win streak), Mexico City has gone 4-8 heading into a weekend home set against Union Laguna.  While they are a long way from being out of the race for a postseason berth at 28-26, good for a fifth-place tie with Aguascalientes and three games behind fourth-place Laguna, the Diablos are back to looking to regain some mojo.

The Diablos are one of two in the Liga (Harp's Oaxaca Guerreros being the other) who've decided to field all-Mexican rosters this year in reaction to MiLB president Pat O'Connor's edict last winter that there will be no limit to the number of Mexican-American players in the Liga.  Both teams, to their credit, have played credibly thus far (Oaxaca is one game out of fourth in the LMB South), but going all-domestic with one of the circuit's most potent offenses, including a .303 team batting average, has not translated to support at home for the Diablos.

A number of Mexican League teams have struggled at the gate in 2017, but nobody expected a legacy team in a city of more than 20 million people to draw fewer than 2,000 fans TOTAL for their series against Durango.  None of the three contests against the Generales drew as many as 700 aficionados at Estadio Fray Nano and a number of writers have noted that both Mexico City and Tabasco are now routinely drawing fewer than 1,000 onlookers per game, whether or not the announced attendance figures reflect that. reality.  The Diablos are officially averaging 2,805 fans per opening after 27 home games, ranking 12th in the 16-team loop, but it's clear that Mexico City residents are not coming to a ballpark that was never more than a stopgap after the team moved there from Foro Sol in 2014.  Perhaps people are waiting for the unnamed 12,000-seat (expandable to 16,000) facility to open.  It's been speculated that the new ballpark will be ready for play next month, making the decision by Diablos management to delay their first game until April 2018 a curious one, since Fray Nano has obviously never worked out for the team.  Ironically, a Durango team that was perilously close to not even playing this year is seventh in the LMB with an average of 3,604 fans after 15 home dates.

With the midway point of the season on the horizon, it's still too early to make any long-term predictions, dire or otherwise.  But even though a look at both Durango and Mexico City LMB franchises would give all the advantages to the latter at first glance, the two clubs appear to be heading in opposite directions.  Although there is certainly no chance of the Diablos folding or leaving Mexico City (the Yankees will leave New York first), the team needs some positive things to start happening soon to keep 2017 from becoming a proverbial “lost season.”

LMB Assembly votes unanimously to include Durango for 2017

In an offseason that has been noted primarily for the evenly-split acrimony between Old Guard and New Breed teams, the Mexican League's Assembly of Presidents somewhat surprisingly voted unanimously Monday to allow the newly-relocated Durango Generales to at least begin their 2017 schedule.  What happens from here is anyone's guess.

The Generales have been a winter-long question mark after owner Virgilio Ruiz moved the former Carmen Delfines north to Durango after five years in the southern Gulf Coast city.  The ongoing uncertainty over the Durango government's willingness or ability to subsidize the team by paying player salaries with taxpayer pesos, a fairly typical practice among Old Guard franchises, or perform needed upgrades to Estadio Francisco Villa, which has not hosted AAA baseball in nearly four decades, was a major contributing factor.  Waiting until last week to name Joe Alvarez as manager did nothing to imply a scintilla of stability in the Generales front office, nor did players showing up for training camp with no idea where it would be held or who would lead them.  Mexican League baseball often has a making-it-up-as-we-go-along feel to it, but the situation in Durango has stood out even within that milieu.

There has been much speculation that Ruiz would be told to shut down for this season and look toward 2018 while the LMB operated with 15 teams, creating a scheduling nightmare, but the Assembly decided a 16-team "maybe" was a better choice than a 15-team certainty.  The vote also brings the still-simmering schism between teams back to an even eight Old Guard franchises happy to continue with the status quo versus eight New Breed franchises wanting the Liga to be more businesslike in its approach.  Although Minor League Baseball president Pat O'Connor brought down the hammer at last month's league meeting in Houston in favor of the New Breed, the divisions are still as real as they were in January.

The following is a Google translation of a notice from the Generales' Facebook page (they have no website):

"The Assembly of Presidents of the Mexican Baseball League unanimously approved Monday the permanence and official arrival of the Durango Generales to the Mexican Baseball League, returning professional baseball after 38 years of absence.

"The ratification of the Generales was made possible thanks to the unconditional support of the State Governor, Dr. Jose Rosas Aispuro Torres, who since the presentation of the project to return professional baseball to Durango has been a vital part for the King of Sports to return to Estadio Francisco Villa in this city.

"To this sum of efforts to bring professional baseball to Durango have joined a good number of Durango entrepreneurs committed to baseball, who seeing in sports a platform for the development of the state and the standard of living of the inhabitants of Durango, have hesitated to join the project that is already tangible in this capital.

"The vital support of the State Sports Institute of Durango and its director, Mr. Alejandro Álvarez Manilla, has been unconditionally committed to the professional baseball project since the beginning, and hee has become an indispensable ally for making the Generales Of Durango a reality.

"The Generales have had an intense preseason under the hand of the Cuban manager Joe Alvarez and have already obtained their first achievement, the championship of the Sisters Cities Baseball Classic in Laredo, Texas. This Tuesday they return to the training camp to close ranks ahead of the visit to Estadio Alberto Romo Chávez in Aguascalientes to face the Rieleros next Friday, March 31."

The Generales finished 31-76 last season to finish last in the LMB South, 25.5 games out of the fourth and final playoff berth. The schedule has Durango playing five series on the road to start the current season before their scheduled April 18 home opener against Veracruz. The very real possibility that Estadio Francisco Villa won't be ready by then may mean moving home games to Monterrey, where Sultanes owner Jose "Pepe" Maiz (an Old Guard ally of Ruiz) has reportedly offered to allow the Generales to share Estadio Monterrey as a temporary home.

Two weeks ago, LMB president Plinio Escalante reportedly told Puro Beisbol columnist Hector Bencomo, "I don't think Durango can play this season." Ready or not, we're all about to find out together.

Will they or won't they? Meet your 2017 Durango Generales!

After the tension, the anger and ultimately the disappointment among Mexican baseball aficionados in the aftermath of the World Baseball Classic's Pool D competition in Guadalajara last week, this seems an opportune time for a little comic relief, thoughtfully provided by the Mexican League's Durango Generales.

If you're a regular reader of BBM, you're likely already aware of the Liga's version of "The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight," but here's a brief refresher course:  The Generales story really begins in 2012, when businessman Carlos Mejia bought the moribund Nuevo Laredo Tecolotes (who were drummed out of the LMB after refusing to show the league their financial situation) and moved them from the Mexico-Texas border to Cuidad del Carrmen, a city of 170,000 in the state of Campeche on the Gulf of Mexico's southern coast.  The newly-named Carmen Delfines spent five summers at 8.200-seat Estadio Resurgimento, winning a South Division regular season title in 2013 under manager Felix Fermin but otherwise finishing among the also-rans while being first-round casualties the two seasons they reached the playoffs.  The Delfines averaged over 4,000 fans per opening for their 2012 debut season, but attendance steadily declined before the franchise shut down after drawing 2,615 a night in 2016 and moved to Durango when team owner Virgilio Ruiz got approval for the transfer from the LMB Assembly of Presidents in November.

This is where the fun begins.

Durango is not a stranger to the Mexican League.  The colonial city of over 500,000 residents has had two LMB teams (both named the Alacranes), first for the 1956 and 1957 seasons and again from 1976 through 1979, but baseball has never really gained a foothold there.  The last year a Class AAA team represented Durango was in 1980, when yet another club called the Alacranes played in the so-called ANABE league that sprang up in the wake of a player strike that cancelled the Mexican League campaign in midseason.

One result of the sport's longstanding absence was that 8,000-seat Estadio Francisco Villa (pictured amid mounds of dirt), opened in 1972 and renovated four years later when the Alacranes 2.0 began their four-year LMB run, had fallen into disrepair.  One of the stipulations of the franchise shift was that Ruiz was to secure renovations to the ballpark in time for the 2017 season, something the owner assured his fellow team presidents would be done.  Instead, there was no movement on the facility for months, as the Durango state government dragged its heels on paying for the work to be performed.  The renovations finally began after the first of the year but there was no way the ballpark would be ready for the start of the season in the best of circumstances and a league schedule shows the Durango Generales playing their first five series of the coming season on the road.  The consensus opinion among Mexican baseball writers appears to be that there's no way the facility will be ready to open for Liga home games by mid-April, however, as work was progressing much slower than expected.  Proceso's Beatriz Pereyra (who is rapidly becoming my favorite Mexican baseball writer) says the state is spending 30 million pesos, or about US$1.5 million, on stadium upgrades, adding that LMB operations manager Nestor Alva Brito recently toured the facility and estimates that it won't be ready until at least June.

Another fly in the ointment regards further state subsidies for the team itself, or the lack thereof.  Ruiz claimed at the November Presidents meeting that he would receive financial and tax assistance from the State of Durango to operate the Generales, a not-uncommon occurance among a number of Mexican League franchises (mostly among the so-called Old Guard owners and teams).  That situation changed following the elections last November when then-governor Jorge Herrera Caldera was replaced by Jose Rosas Aispuro, who has been far less willing to share state resources with the team, a situation mirrored in Quintana Roo which helped compel longtime owner Carlos Peralta to sell the storied Tigres franchise to a group fronted by former Dodgers All-Star pitcher Fernando Valenzuela.  The lack of taxpayer pesos flowing into the Generales' coffers seriously threatened to kill the team's season before it started and the issue remains unresolved as of today.

Then there's the matter of hiring a manager.  Ruiz did not announced a skipper for his team until Thursday, when Cuban-born Joe Alvarez was chosen to lead the Generales with just two weeks to prepare for the regular season.  Alvarez spent nearly four decades playing or managing in the minor leagues for a number of MLB organizations and took the Puebla Pericos to the 2014 LMB championship series against Mexico City on an interim basis before spending the past two summers coaching with the SK Wyverns in South Korea.  He was rumored to be Ruiz' choice as far back as December.  Alvarez and his coaching staff will need to prepare their team in just 14 days of training camp before their season begins March 31 in Aguascalientes, according to the team's Facebook page (there's no website yet).

Ahhh, training camp.  Players began showing up to begin working out in preparation for the regular season a couple weeks ago.  The problem?  Nowhere to play and nobody to lead them.  An exhibition game against the Union Laguna Vaqueros last week had to be scuttled and it appears that Durango still has yet to play a preseason contest.  Not to worry, according to Ruiz, who was quoted by Puro Beisbol editor Fernando Ballasteros as saying, "Our team is not out of shape and they have not stopped preparing.  In 2012, the Carmen Delfines had only 20 days of practice and we were leaders of the South Division."  The record shows that Carmen tied for fifth with a 51-60 record that year (they finished first in 2013).  In any case, the team will need a lot of things to go right in short order before their road opener against the Rieleros in two weeks.  Ruiz also claims to have the financial wherewithal for the 2017 season, that the government is "fully engaged" in ballpark renovations and that the scheduled April 18 home opener against Veracruz, assertions that may be similar to the assurances he gave at November's league meeting.

So whither goest the Durango Generales?  Even Mexican writers who've covered the Liga for years are unsure, although skepticism appears to be the order of the day even among those who think they'll be able to at least begin the regular season.  A more common thread is that the LMB would be better served by fielding just 15 teams this year (assuming the Arellano brothers are able to operate their teams in Yucatan and Merida after having their assets frozen by the federal government earlier this month) to give Ruiz more time to properly build his team and ensure ballpark renovations are completed by April 2018.  It's believed that although a 111-game season schedule with all 16 teams has been released, the league reportedly has an alternate 15-team schedule (including rotating byes) in case the Generales don't make it to the starting gate.

So will the Generales play in 2017?  My own guess is that they won't unless the Alvarez, his coaches and his players are willing to spend at least the first ten weeks of the season living out of their suitcases.  There have been instances of "Road Warriors" teams playing entire seasons on the road, but those have usually been independent clubs, not members of a league with a Class AAA designation.  At this point, I'm not holding my breath and neither should you.