LMP TO OPEN PLAY THURSDAY AMID VIRUS CONCERNS

Inspection at Los Mochis ballpark

    Despite ongoing worries about possible effects the ongoing pandemic might have on both the playing field and in the stands, the Mexican Pacific League is preparing for the opener of its 76th season of winterball on Thursday night, when five games are slated to be played. While the LMP expects to become the first professional baseball league across the globe to start their season on time and (mostly) with people in the stands, things could be running a little smoother.

    On the positive side, the Los Mochis Caneros have gotten the okay from local government to open Estadio Emilio Ibarra Almada seating to 40 percent capacity for home games this winter. The leader of the Municipal Health Directorate in Ahome, Dr. Francisco Espinoza Valverde, and Civil Protection director Salvador Lamphar toured the ballpark with Caneros owner Joaquin Vega to verify that protocols are being followed and subsequently gave the green light for fans to witness games in person. Estadio Emilio Ibarra Almada is located in Ahome, a community of over 10,000 within the municipality of the same name in which Los Mochis is the seat, thus local officials have jurisdiction for such decisions.

    Since the stadium seats 12,000 under normal circumstances, the adjusted capacity to start the season will drop to 4,500 for the start of the season. There will be signage indicating which seats may or may not be used, with no more than three seats allowed to be purchased together. Tickets for Caneros home games are due to go on sale Monday. The decision brought the number of Mex Pac teams being allowed to host games with people in the seats to six: Culiacan, Guasave, Hermosillo, Los Mochis, Mazatlan and Mexicali.

    On the other hand, Septima Entrada reports that Jalisco governor Enrique Alfaro has confirmed that due to conditions related to the pandemic, the public will not be allowed to attend sporting events in the state, including Jalisco Charros home games in Guadalajara. “This is an endurance race and it is not known how long it will last,” Alfaro said on Twitter. “We are all tired, with exhaustion from not being able to go out, of not being able to celebrate in the stadiums, of not celebrating our traditions, but it is not time to relax things.”

    Alfaro noted that Jalisco is one of many states in the country designated with a virtual orange traffic light, which reflects the second-highest stage of alert in Mexico. “For now, there are no conditions to advance in the opening of new activities. We still cannot allow the return of people to the stadiums or the opening of clubs or any type of massive activity," added the governor.

Seats to remain unfilled in Culiacan

    To complicate things even further, Sinaloa (where four of the five LMP teams planning to allow fans play) is one of seven states in which their virtual traffic lights have been downgraded from yellow to orange, which has the potential to force those teams to rescind their decisions and play behind closed doors. The state of Sonora, which has Mex Pac teams in Hermosillo, Navojoa and Obregon, is still under a yellow traffic light but ironically none of those three clubs had said they'd be playing in front of limited capacity crowds until the Naranjeros made a statement to that effect on Saturday. Monterrey, in the virus-ravaged state of Nuevo Leon, will also be playing before empty seats.

    Last week, the LMP office in Guadalajara announced that 669 tests for the Wuhan virus had been carried out in two stages. “The first stage showed that 25% of the players had already contracted the virus prior to arrival at the training fields and that they already had antibodies,” the press release states. “7.7% of the players and coaches were positive at that time in the first stage. 6.2% of the players and coaches were positive in a second stage.”

    The press release adds that both stages of the tests were applied to the same people, showing that the LMP protocol has “generated a downward result in infections” and that the number of positives has been lower than the average of each state where games are played. More to the point, the league says “the results to date to not represent a threat for the season to take place.” Teams will be allowed to use players from extended 70-man rosters to allow for more flexibility in case the virus hits any of them harder than anticipated.

    Thursday's schedule has Jalisco at Monterrey to take the cellophane off the season at 5:00PM EDT, followed by Guasave at Culiacan (9:00PM EDT), Mazatlan at Los Mochis (9:30EDT), Mexicali at Obregon (10:10 EDT) and Hermosillo at Navojoa (10:30 EDT).

TIGRES TO MOVE FROM CANCUN, HOPE TO LAND IN SONORAN CITY

Tigres appear done in Cancun

    One of the Mexican League's flagship franchises will be moving for the third time in less than 20 years years after Quintana Roo Tigres owner Fernando Valenzuela notified the league office of his intention to shift the team out of Cancun after 14 years in the resort city. While nothing is firm yet, the former Cy Young Award winner and his wife Linda are planning to move the Tigres to the border city of San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora.

    Formed in 1955, the Mexico City Tigres (first under founder Alejo Peralta and then his son Carlos) formed an intense rivalry with the Diablos Rojos as the two teams shared the beloved Social Security Park for 45 years before it was razed and replaced by a shopping center. After playing the 2000 and 2001 seasons and winning pennants both years at Foro Sol (a larger facility but ill-suited for baseball), the younger Peralta moved the club to Puebla in 2002 and renamed them the Angelopolis Tigres. They shared Estadio Hermanos Serdan with the Pericos for five years and won the LMB pennant in 2005, but Carlos Peralta moved the team again, this time in 2007 to Cancun. Now known as the Quintana Roo Tigres, the team won three pennants between 2011 and 2015 but never really caught on with locals or tourists, who were more interested in spending time at the beach or in the bars.

    Carlos Peralta was a competent owner by LMB standards, but his passion never came close to his father's and he was ready to sell the Tigres after ten seasons in Cancun. Enter Fernando Valenzuela, who had pitched against the team in Mexico City when he was a teenager pitching for Yucatan in 1979. Valenzuela and his wife bought the Tigres franchise from Peralta in February 2017 and immediately began having problems.

    After partners bailed out to leave the Valenzuelas as the sole owners, five Tigres prospects who'd been on a list of players they were given while negotiating for the team had been transferred to the Diablos Rojos before they assumed ownership. The Rookiegate scandal, which resulted in two of those prospects being sold to the Texas Rangers for over $2 million, soured the Valenzuelas (who could've used the money to counteract the meager crowds at Estadio Beto Avila) and they had to run the once-proud franchise on a frayed shoestring over the next three years. The canceled 2020 season likely sealed the Tigres' fate in Cancun.

    When Proceso writer Beatriz Pereyra tweeted less than a month ago that the Tigres would be moving, the team categorically denied her but Pereyra stood her ground and repeated what she'd heard. As it turns out, she was correct. Although many people have clamored for years to have the Tigres back in Mexico City and others in Veracruz have been trying to bring an LMP team back to the port city, Valenzuela is said to be planning to move the ballclub to San Luis Rio Colorado, a city of 200,000 sitting on the Mexico-Arizona border that has never had a team in either the Mexican League or Mexican Pacific League.

 

Ballpark awaits in San Luis Rio Colorado

   San Luis Rio Colorado (commonly known as simply "San Luis") has been a member of the North Mexico League. The Algodoneros, who can trace their own beginnings to 1946, won their third LNM pennant in seven years in 2019 but the future for that club, classified as Class AA in the Mexican system, is in doubt. The city has refurbished Estadio Andres Mena Montijo from 2,500 seats into a new-look facility that can hold 7,000 spectators, and the Algodoneros were reportedly refused the opportunity to lease the updated ballpark this year before the Liga Norte shut down anyway due to the Wuhan virus.

    Although San Luis would be one of the smallest markets in the Mexican League, it's located in the baseball-crazy state of Sonora, a proven breeding ground for players and fans. San Luis has hosted games for past editions of the Mexican Baseball Fiesta with good turnouts, so crowds may be above the LMB average at worst. The city is located less than 300 miles from Valenzuela's home base in Los Angeles, a much shorter commute than Cancun has been. The Tijuana Toros would have a natural travel partner, although one never knows how the Uribe family would react to a team that could draw fans from Mexicali or even Yuma who've been going to El Nido for ballgames. While San Luis can get scorching hot in the summer, so does Monclova and all the Acereros did was win the last MLB pennant. San Luis mayor Santos Gonzalez already has a good relationship with president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Both Fernando and his son, Tigres GM Fernando Junior, have visited San Luis and toured the ballpark. The stars seem to all be aligned.

    In other words, barring fireworks at the next Assembly of Presidents meeting, we'll be seeing the San Luis Tigres in 2021. Then again, what would a Mexican League Assembly of Presidents meeting be without fireworks?

TOROS SKIPPER VIZQUEL ACCUSED OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

    A nasty divorce just got nastier after Tijuana Toros manager (and Cooperstown candidate) Omar Vizquel's soon-to-be ex-wife accused him of domestic violence during a session on Instagram Live.

    “I am in a divorce process,” Blanca Vizquel said last week, according to Puro Beisbol. “It is a hard process where the man wants me to shut my mouth. That is his request: That I keep my mouth shut so as not to damage his career, so as not to damage his Hall of Fame chances, but he never thought of me nor my well-being. I was his trophy. It cut off all my hopes and dreams."

    Omar Vizquel's first wife, Nicole, was a Seattle native the Venezuelan had met as a young player with the Mariners, leading to their 1992 marriage and two children before their.divorce a few years later. Blanca Garcia, a Colombian fitness trainer 20 years younger than the 53-year-old ex-shortstop, married the 11-time Gold Glove winner in 2014.

    After retiring as a player in 2012 following a 24-year MLB career in which he played in three All-Star Games and collected 2,877 hits, Vizquel has gone into coaching. After spending time as a roving instructor for Angels minor leaguers and as Detroit's infield coach for four years between 2014 and 2017, he moved to the Chicago White Sox system in 2018, leading Winston-Salem to an 84-54 record in the Class A Carolina League and then 64-74 with Class AA Birmingham for 2019 before the Chisox let him go. Vizquel also managed Venezuela to a 2-5 record in the 2017 World Baseball Classic.

    Vizquel was hired to manage Tijuana in 2020 but saw the season end before it got started after the Mexican League canceled its schedule. Now his future with the Toros may be in doubt due to these allegations.

The Vizquels in apparently happier times

    Blanca Vizquel also said on Instagram, “He demanded that I go everywhere with him so in order to not bother him and for not pay the consequences, I had to agree to smile, be well-dressed and well-groomed with makeup, when all I wanted was to cry…but it wasn't an option for me.” In a story posted on the en24.com website in Venezuela, she claimed that Vizquel lost his job with the White Sox for this reason and that he only gave her “crumbs of money” because he did not stop financially supporting his ex-wife. She said she couldn't elaborate on the case at the suggestion of her lawyers but details about her troubled relationship with Vizquel would soon be revealed. No details of actual physical violence have been given.

    Besides the threat to his current job status, the allegations are also a setback for Vizquel's chances at joining another slick-fielding shortstop, Luis Aparicio, as the only Venezuelans in the Hall of Fame. He earned 36.9 percent of the vote in 2018, his first year on the ballot) then saw his support rise to 4.8 percent in 2019 and 52.6 this year. It takes being on 75 percent of BBWAA ballots for induction and Vizquel was looking like a good bet to get in before his ten-year ballot limit was reached. Whether these allegations hinder his chances or not, they certainly won't help.

DIABLOS OPEN NEW BALLPARK WITH LOSS TO PADRES

Full house at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helu opener

While it's rarely fun to lose a lopsided exhibition baseball game to a team of prospects, players with the Mexico City Diablos Rojos may be forgiven if they were smiling after such a result last Saturday in the nation's capital.  The Red Devils were pounded, 11-1, by a collection of San Diego Padres minor leaguers but the game itself took second billing to its environs as over 20,000 fans packed the stands at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helu, the Diablos' brand-new home.

The man for whom the ballpark was named (after he provided all funding for its construction) was the Man of the Hour during pregame ceremonies.  Also known as Don Alfredo, Harp addressed the capacity crowd by thanking the people who built the stands they were sitting in.  "I want to thank the more than nine thousand people who participated in the construction of this dream, the construction of the home of the Diablos Rojos," Harp said.  "With this, we show that we can do great things together.  Mexico is a championship country and we will continue to be a championship country.  I hope that together, we will enjoy our new home."

Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has practically become a ubiquitous presence at baseball events south of the border as a power-broker in the sport and an ally of billionaire Harp.  AMLO was on hand for Saturday's opener and took part in the pregame ceremony.  Although Puro Beisbol reports that many in the crowd booed the country's new leader, Lopez Obrador revelled in the moment, telling those in attendance, "We will support baseball, a sport that requires intelligence, heart and a lot of passion."

The game itself was almost anticlimactic and, for all intent and purposes, settled somewhat early.  The Diablos took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the third inning when Jesus Fabela (back from his trip to Japan with the Mexican National Team) scored the stadium's first run from third base on an Adonis Garcia sacrifice fly, but the Padres roared back with four scores in the top of the fourth to take the lead.  San Diego scored four more times in the sixth, with a two-run homer by Michael Gettys giving the visitors an 8-1 lead and effectively salting the contest away.  Despite the final 11-1 score, few (if any) attendees went home disappointed.

Prior to Saturday's game (the first of two played between the two sides over the weekend), a number of Mexican players with the Padres visited with players and coaches from the Liga Olmeca, a Mexico City youth baseball organization and Little League Baseball affiliate headed by Carlos Fragoso, who has scouted for both the Red Sox and Yankees over the years while building strong ties within Mexican baseball.  In his Septima Entrada column for Solo Beisbol, writer Gilberto Ruiz Razo said that Esteban Quiroz and Luis Urias were among those San Diego players expected to spend time at the Liga Olmeca facility.  Ruiz added that Fragoso is a longstanding friend of Monterrey Sultanes co-owner Jose "Pepe" Maiz, who was a member of Monterrey's 1957 Little League World Series champions (along with Hector Torres and Angel Macias) and instrumental in Liga Olmeca's later inclusion as an LLB affiliate.


LMP LEADERS DISCUSS EXPANSION DRAFT, PLAYOFF FORMAT

Guasave ballpark will see extensive renovations

Executives from the Mexican Pacific League met in Culiacan recently to talk about developments regarding the LMP's two new teams as well as a potential change in next winter's playoff format (including the elimination of the "lucky loser" method of advancing teams who lose their first round series to the second stage of the postseason.

According to Puro Beisbol editor Fernando Ballesteros, MexPac president Omar Canizales was at Culiacan's Fiesta Inn Hotel with LMP league directors Hector Ley of Culiacan and Joaquin Vega from Los Mochis Caneros to confer with representatives from the league's two new franchises, the Monterrey Sultanes and Guasave Algodoneros.  Although the Monterrey entry will be owned by the same Multimedios group that oversees the city's Mexican League club (along with part-owner Jose "Pepe" Maiz), the LMP version of the Sultanes will be operated separately from their summer LMB counterpart.  Rosters will not carry over from one team to the other, although it's possible that some players may perform double duty without changing cities.  Mexico's president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador facilitated Monterrey's entry into winter baseball to partner with Guasave, where AMLO promised the return of the MexPac during his campaign last year.

 The Algodoneros are partly owned by a group of Guasave businessmen who will operate the team, but they will be largely underwritten by Mexico City Diablos owner Alfredo Harp Helu.  Harp will be funding the majority of an offseason renovation of Estadio Francisco Carranza Limon for 120 million pesos, which is approximately US$6 million.  The ballpark was completed when Guasave joined the LMP along with Navojoa in 1970 and was used for 44 seasons (with some 2002 upgrades) before the original Algodoneros were sold to moved to Guadalajara in 2014.  It'll be expanded from 8,000 to 10,000 seats in time for October's opener.  The facility's traditional playing surface was smallish: Both foul lines are 305 feet away from home plate while the centerfield wall is a chummy 375 feet away.

Franchise fees for the respective new entries were considered with Guasave, the loop's smallest market, expected to have received a price break.  An expansion draft was also discussed and a format comparable to when Arizona and Tampa Bay joined Major League Baseball was decided upon.  Each existing Mexican Pacific League team will be allowed to protect 18 players on their current rosters.

Finally, the LMP playoffs were restructured into a three-stage competition involving the top eight teams. The league opted to align as a single entity of ten teams rather than split into two five-deam divisions while the 68-game regular season schedule was retained for 2019-20.


TOROS P BARREDA COMPLAINS ABOUT LMB'S NEW FRANKLIN BALL

Manny Barreda celebrates no-hitter for Caneros

The Mexican League is switching to Franklin baseballs this season after decades of using Rawlings balls.  The Liga announced the signing of a multiyear agreement with Franklin in February that also includes the manufacture and public sales of licensed team products and merchandise.  Franklin's new OL4000 baseball will be used.

It didn't take long for one of a group of people whose success depends on what they throw to register his concerns.  Tijuana pitcher Manny Barreda was quoted on the Hitazo site last Tuesday as saying the Mexican League had not sent the new balls to the Toros training camp in Tucson, Arizona yet.  "It's difficult.  It's not long before the season and we haven't really tested them," Barreda said.  "We don't know how they look and we don't know how it'll feel in our hands.  We don't know how it's going to work, like how our pitches will break."

A 30-year-old Arizonan who spent eight years as a reliever in the Yankees organization before becoming a starter with Los Mochis in 2016-17, Barreda subsequently authoring two no-hitters months apart in both the LMB and LMP (using 138 and 135 pitches, respectively).  He was 5-3 with a 2.63 ERA in 11 starts for Culiacan over winter after splitting last summer between the rotation and the bullpen with Tijuana.  The 5'11" righty does seem certain in advance of one likely feature of the new ball:  "We do know it'll fly farther.  It's the show that they (the Liga) want to give to the fans and we as pitchers will be affected.

Barreda doesn't think his fellow pitchers will easily adapt to the Franklin ball.  "It's something very different," he said.  "We've been pitching all our career with the Rawlings ball.  It's thrown in the minor leagues, in winter and summer.

"Now that we have to change it, we're not very happy about that."

New ballpark on drawing board in Los Mochis

The modernization of Mexican Pacific League ballparks has seen an overall upgrade or outright replacing of stadiums in most of the LMP's eight cities, and Los Mochis may be the next site for a new facility.

According to El Debate, Caneros team president Joaquin Vega, the team is currently lining up financial support for a ballpark to be built atop the parking lot adjacent to Estadio Emilio Ibarra Almada, the home of the MexPac club since the team was formed in 1947.  Emilio Ibarra held 3,000 fans when first opened but subsequent expansions have brought its current capacity to 10,840.  The stadium was badly damaged by Hurricane Paul in 1982, causing the Caneros to play day games only the following winter due to lack of floodlights.  It has seen occasional upgrades over the years but they have not been enough to keep pace with the other LMP facilities.

Vega admits that nothing has been officially authorized, but that the Caneros hope to emulate Culiacan, where the new 20,000-seat Estadio BBVA Bancomer was built next to Estadio General Angel Flores, which was built in 1948 and served the Tomateros from their inception in 1965 until January of last year, when it was razed after Culiacan's LMP finals victory.

Caneros team officials held a meeting with potential investors earlier this week in Mexico City, but it may be a hard task to line up enough private money to build the ballpark because money is already tight in the country while the peso closed Tuesday trading at $18.81 per U.S. dollar, its lowest value in years.

The upgrading of MexPac facilities began with the overhaul of Mexicali's ballpark in 2007, followed by a new stadium in Hermosillo in 2013, a move by the Guasave Algodoneros to Guadalajara's three-year-old stadium in 2014 and Culiacan's new ballpark, which opened last year. In addition, a 16,000-seater is being built in Obregon and plans are being made for a new yard in Navojoa, leaving Mazatlan as the only LMP city with no plans to replace or renovate its longtime ballpark, 54-year-old Estadio Teodoro Mariscal.

VEGA NAMED MEXPAC CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD

Los Mochis Caneros team president Joaquin Vega was voted in as the Mexican Pacific League’s Chairman of the Board last Thursday at a league meeting in Hermosillo. Vega will succeed Enrique Mazon, who served nine years as LMP chairman. Mazon, who is president of the MexPac champion Hermosillo Naranjeros, was named LMP Executive of the Year earlier this month.

Vega will work with LMP president Omar Canizalez on building the league’s marketing effort while helping maintain a sense of balance among the eight league franchises. One of the first issues Vega will face is the question of whether to allow television instant replay in helping umpires determine home run calls. ”Everything will depend on the technology that exists in the stadiums so the umpires can make this work efficiently,” he said.

Another item on the MexPac agenda will be a possible reconfiguration of the playoff system to coincide with a likely earlier start to the 2011 Caribbean Series, which will be played at 10,500-seat Estadio Isadoro Garcia in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. Historically, the CS has been held the first week of February, but may be moved to the last week of January to allow for more time between the end of the winter baseball season and the beginning of Major League spring training.