Jalisco's Manny Rodriguez named MexPac MVP for 2017-18

Jalisco Charros 2B Manny Rodriguez

Jalisco Charros second baseman Manny Rodriguez has been voted Most Valuable Player in the Mexican Pacific League for their 2017-18 season.  And the balloting really wasn't all that close, as Rodriguez garnered 90 of 167 votes, or 53.9 percent, as cast by Mexican sportswriters and broadcasters who cover the LMP.  MexPac batting champion Sebastian Elizalde of Culiacan finished second with 25 votes, or 25.2 percent.  Rodriguez receives the Hector Espino Trophy after finishing second to Elizalde's .380 average by hitting .371, tying Elizalde for the lead in hits with 95, topping the circuit with 50 runs scored and 58 RBIs, tying Navojoa's Randy Arozarena atop the table with 25 doubles and tying Charros teammate Agustin Murillo for fourth in homers at 10 apiece.  The 35-year-old Guasave native struck out just 26 times in 256 at-bats for the Guadalajara team.  He'll be back in Monclova this summer after batting .313 with 13 homers and 89 RBIs over 102 games for the Acereros in 2017.

Mazatlan's Mitch Lively won the Vicente "Huevo" Romo Trophy as the MexPac's top pitcher after receiving 67 percent of the media votes.  Lively led the loop with nine wins, two more than Anthony Vazquez of Culiacan and Jalisco's Octavio Acosta, finished second in strikeouts to Navojoa's Tyler Alexander (66 to 63) and came in second to Mexicali's Rolando Valdez (1.74) with a 2.50 ERA.  The 6'5" Sacramento State alum tossed the LMP's only complete game shutout on November 30 in Culiacan against the potent Tomateros, missing a perfect game by one Elizalde single in a 1-0 win.

Navojoa closer Daniel Moskos was voted the Isidro Marquez Trophy winner as best reliever after outpolling Obregon's Manny Acosta, 42 to 29 percent.  Although Acosta led the LMP with 17 saves in 34 appearances for the Yaquis, Moskos finished second with 16 saves while turning in a no-see-um 0.92 ERA, allowing just three earned runs and striking out 29 batsmen in 29.1 frames over 29 trips from the bullpen.

Other winners included Navojoa pitcher Jaime Lugo (5-3, 2.53) with the Melo Almada Trophy as Rookie of the Year, Mayos manager Willie Romero with the Benjamin "Cananea" Reyes Trophy for Manager of the Year and Culiacan team president Hector Ley with the Horacio "Macacho" Lopez Trophy for Executive of the Year.  Tomateros manager Benji Gil also accepted without incident the Francisco "Paquin" Estrada Trophy for leading Culiacan to the league title.


LMB and LMP in Houston confab with MiLB, COPABE

Representatives from both the Mexican League and Mexican Pacific Leagues, including respective presidents Javier Salinas and Omar Canizales, were recently in Houston, Texas for meetings with Minor League Baseball president Pat O'Connor and Pan American Baseball Confederation chief Juan Francisco Puello.  The conference was convened to address issues concerning the tight timeframe between the end of the LMB's second 2018 season playoffs and the opening of the LMP's regular season.

As the March opening of the Mexican League's revolutionary two-season experiment approaches, the four groups (which included Dos Laredos owner Jose Antonio Mansur, Culiacan president Hector Ley, Los Mochis president Joaquin Vegas and Eustaquio Alvarez of parts unknown) met to discuss the ramifications of a year in which playoffs following the Mexican League's second season could potentially end as late as October 8, or three calendar days before the Mexican Pacific League opened their 2017-18 regular season schedule.  The quick turnover would be hard on players on the heels of two 57-game tournaments with playoffs and many may be inactivated due to "extreme fatigue" (as happens with players under MLB contracts) by their Mexican League teams, who own player rights south of the border.

Such a situation would create a talent shortage in the MexPac, with perhaps as many as 80 players delayed in reporting for winterball.  The LMP increased the number of foreign players allowed on each team from six to eight last winter with talk of increasing that limit to ten foreigners per squad in 2018-19.  Curiously, O'Connor apparently never broached the topic of Mexican-American players being considered "domestic" by LMP teams, thus not counting against their self-imposed extranero quota.  The issue split the Mexican League down the middle last winter before O'Connor ruled that the LMB should have no limit on Mexican-American players because the policy violates Mexico's labor laws.  As president of MiLB, O'Connor had the authority to make that ruling for the Mexican League but not the MexPac, which is an Associate member of the World Baseball Softball Confederation (as are Nippon Professional Baseball, the Korea Baseball Organization and Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League, among others).

One thing that WAS apparently debated is the idea of a Mexican National League as a confederation of sorts between the two league to create more cooperation in the world's only nation with Class AAA-level professional baseball throughout the year.  The proposal appears to be Puello's brainchild and Puro Beisbol editor Fernando Ballesteros says informed sources tell him that while three of the MexPac's teams would be in favor of such a move but only four of the Liga's 16 franchises are sympathetic.

Ultimately, the meeting in Houston produced nothing of substance beyond an apparent willingness among all sides to continue visiting the lack of breathing room between schedules, so players will have to continue waiting (if they have the time).


Guasave, Culiacan, La Paz among possible Liga Norte expansion sites

Estadio Arturo C. Nahl in La Paz

While the Mexican League is clearly the king of summer baseball in Mexico, the North Mexico League has established itself as the LMB's top affiliate circuit and is considered Class AA within the country's baseball hierarchy.  Now, after being a six-team loop since its 2008 formation, the Liga Norte is strongly considering adding two more franchises to become an eight-team body and one former Mexican Pacific League site is the clear front-runner for one of the teams.

LNM president Francisco Ochoa tells journalist Carlos Torres Bujanda that he has heard from an unnamed person interested in placing a Liga Norte team in Guasave, which hosted a MexPac franchise for 44 winters until the Algodoneros were sold by local owners and moved to Guadalajara and renamed the Jalisco Charros.  It was rumored earlier this year that there was interest in bringing a Mexican League to Guasave, Sonora's fourth-largest city with just under 300,000 residents, but nothing has come about since the LMB office was reportedly contacted (perhaps by the same person).

A LNM franchise would make more sense for Guasave, where a team would be competing with other like-sized markets in much closer geographic proximity while a Liga Norte franchise fee would be a fraction of the 51,000,000 pesos (just under US$2.5 million under the exchange rate at the time) that Fernando Valenzuela agreed to pay for the Quintana Roo Tigres.   Guasave would be an attractive place for the Liga Norte, with a good population base and an 8,000-seat ballpark in Estadio Francisco Carranza Limon that would be the league's largest since the Mexicali Centinelas moved to Tecate to become the Indios.  No formal bid for a Guasave franchise in the LNM has come in at this point.

One concern about expansion Ochoa shared with Torres was that there should be two teams brought in, primarily for scheduling purposes as well as creating a suitable travel partner for Guasave, which would be otherwise be isolated as the Liga Norte's southernmost team.  One feeler Ochoa claims he's received comes from Culiacan, where mayor Francisco Antonio Castaneda is said to have been interested in bringing a summer team to Estadio Tomateros as soon as this year.  Ochoa said there was not enough turnaround time for that, but added that businessman Guadalupe Miranda (a friend of Mayor Castaneda's who would've operated an LNM franchise there) has instead been encouraged to invest as a partner in the existing Puerto Penasco Tiburones to gain experience first.

Attention for LNM expansion has also been directed toward La Paz, a city of nearly a quarter-million people on the Gulf of California near the southern end of the Baja Peninsula.  La Paz would be virgin territory in a region (including Cabo San Lucas) that has never hosted a professional baseball team and sits a ferry ride across the water from Tompolobampo near Guasave.  Although La Paz has never hosted a team, there is a 9,000-seat ballpark, Estadio Arturo C. Nahl, in town that is currently undergoing renovations, including the installation of a turf field, as part of a 70 million peso (US$3.8 million) makeover of the city's sports complex.  Baja California Sur governor Carlos Mendoza, who has contacted Ochoa at the LMN office to inquire about an expansion franchise in conjunction with Guasave's entry.  Mendoza invited Ochoa to tour La Paz as part of an effort to bring baseball to the peninsula.

The Liga Norte will open its 2018 season April 3 when San Quintin visits Tecate, Caborca hosts San Luis Rio Colorado and defending champion Ensenada welcomes Puerto Penasco.  Teams will play two 42-game halves between early April and mid-July, with the top four seeds (via a points system similar to that used by the Mexican Pacific League) advancing to playoffs that last into early early August.  Each LNM team has two parent clubs from the Mexican League providing players and coaches:
Caborca Rojos (Laguna, Yucatan), Ensenada Marineros (Mexico City, Oaxaca), Puerto Penasco Tiburones (Saltillo, Tijuana), San Luis Algodoneros (Monclova, Puebla), San Quintin Freseros (Campeche, Quintana Roo) and the Tecate Indios (Aguascalientes, Monterrey).  Ballparks in the Liga Norte range in capacity from 2,500 to 5,000 sets.  Tecate is replacing the Mexicali Centinelas, who played in 17,000-seat Estadio B'Air before requesting a leave of absence for 2018.

LMB to play two seasons from April to November in 2018

LMB Assembly (with Javier Salinas on microphone)

The Mexican League has formally announced that it will be playing two shorter seasons during the 2018 calendar year, beginning in April and ending in November.  The announcement came at the Liga's Assembly of Presidents meeting Thursday in Mexico City. The plan is for two separate 66-game regular season schedules with playoffs, bridged by a one-week rest in July during which the LMB's All-Star Game (there'll be just one of those) is played.

While the move, approximating the country's popular Liga MX soccer circuit's Apertura and Clausura tournaments (which drew crowds of about 27,000 per match for its 2016-17 seasons), represents a radical departure from baseball orthodoxy, Minor League Baseball president Pat O'Connor was in attendance at Thursday's meeting and endorsed the move.  O'Connor, you may recall, was compelled to call an emergency meeting of LMB teams in February when internecine squabbling threatened to tear the 16 teams into two leagues or cancel the 2017 season altogether.  Instead of two leagues, now we'll see two seasons for 2018.

Currently, the Liga plays a single 112-game regular season schedule from early April to mid-August, followed by a three-tiered, eight-team playoff lasting about a month into mid-September.  The new format will include two 66-game regular seasons followed by playoffs, with the LMB's "Apertura" lasting from April to July and their "Clausura" running from August into November.  The notion of a two-season format was floated last month in a reference made by incoming league president Javier Salinas, whose background has been (not so ironically, apparently) entirely as a Liga MX marketing executive.  There was no word whether Salinas was going to divide the LMB into eight-team Premier and First Divisions with promotion/relegation playoffs for 2018, but it's only July.

Salinas, who will replace retiring LMB president Plinio Escalante at the conclusion of the current season and has been serving as a de facto co-president, addressed the addition of 20 games and a separate playoff to a league in which half its teams are teetering on economic collapse.  "The cost is relative," he said.  "You can raise or lower it.  If you qualify for the playoffs, it decreases.  If you manage your team better, the same. Each team is independent and will have the economic strategy that suits them best."  Salinas and the LMB team presidents will be relying on added sponsorships next season to help offset the added expenses accrued from lengthening the overall season two months for teams like the Tabasco Olmecas, who had 178 warm bodies rattling around Estadio Centenario 27 de Febrero for a game against Yucatan earlier this month, and the Durango Generales, who've had some players refusing to play because they hadn't been paid in weeks.

Prior to Thursday's press conference from the Assembly meeting, the two-season proposal had drawn almost universal skepticism from Mexican baseball's print commentators, but the move may ultimately draw the strongest reaction from the Mexican Pacific League.  While the LMB has eleven teams drawing fewer than 5,000 fans per night (seven clubs are bringing in fewer than 3,000 per opening), the MexPac has built itself into a juggernaut with a leaguewide attendance average of just under 10,000 per game, a figure that dwarfs every league in organized Minor League Baseball.  The LMP season traditionally opens in mid-October, meaning the LMB's Clausura will overlap the MexPac schedule by about a month.  

According to Beatriz Pereyra of Proceso, the LMB will require players to sign contracts for both seasons, thus cutting the player pool for the MexPac.  Thus far, LMP president Omar Canizales has been silent on this topic, but it's expected by some that his league will respond by opening their rosters to more imported talent from the United States to fill the void while the Liga plays out its Clausura season.  In effect, the LMB's lengthening of its schedule is a declaration of war on the LMP, which has in the recent past explored expansion into Liga cities like Monterrey, Tijuana and even Mexico City. 

Whatever happens, the LMB will likely have the backing of Major League Baseball and commissioner Rob Manfred, which recently gave the Liga their version of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval despite the financial mess many Mexican League teams are in.  According to Pereyra, three teams (Durango, Leon and Saltillo) each owe the Liga MX$15 million in assessments for 2017, with Leon owner Arturo Blanco owing another 900 thousand pesos toward the purchase price of the former Reynosa Broncos, while several other LMB franchises owe MX$2.5 million to the league office. 

One of those teams, the Veracruz Rojos del Aguila, are looking to move, possibly to Nuevo Laredo. The Eagles are currently eleventh in the LMB attendance derby with a per-game average of 2,647. Team president Jose Antonio Mansur backtracked a bit by later stating he would keep the team in the port city if attendance improves over the rest of the current season, during which the 40-49 Rojos del Aguila have been a playoff contender in the weak South Division.  

The club has been a past recipient of government subsidies to remain afloat, a common occurance with several LMB franchises.  However, the exiled ex-State of Veracruz governor responsible for recent largesse, Javier Duarte, was arrested outside the country in April after a six-month manhunt and is facing charges of pilfering millions of dollars from public coffers, as are many of his associates.  Duarte was extradited from Guatemala City earlier this week.  In all, eight former Mexican governors have been indicted for similar crimes and their successors have typically reined in past subsidies to sports teams that have relied on them to meet payroll, among other expenses.

In all, the LMB's break from baseball tradition would be fascinating to observe, let alone report on, under any circumstance.  That the Liga is doing so amid internal financial peril to so many of its teams accentuates how badly Salinas and the owners will need this to work in order to bring fans in through the gates and sponsorship pesos to team bank accounts.  We'll be watching.

P.S.  The LMB also announced the return of its Mexican Winter League for a third season, opening on October 20.  The six-team LIM, considered Class A in the country's baseball system, is a prospect-oriented circuit that allows only Mexican-born players.  It's presumed the loop will play a single-season schedule.

Javier Salinas elected new Mexican League president

The Mexican League's Assembly of Presidents this week named Javier Salinas as successor to Plinio Escalante as league president, effective at the end of the 2017 regular season.

Salinas (pictured, on microphone with Escalante at left) earned a degree in Communication Science at Latin American University plus postgraduate degrees in Sports Sponsorship in the Business School of Sports in Bogota, Colombia with a Masters in Business and Administration of Football from Johan Cruyff University.  His two-decade career has focused on marketing of sports teams and leagues, with time spent in Mexico's Liga MX soccer organization, which has become the preeminent sports league in the country.

After a tumultuous offseason, during which he'd been forced from the president's office by a faction of so-called "Old Guard" owners led by Monterrey's Jose "Pepe" Maiz, only to be reinstated by Minor League Baseball president Pat O'Connor at a February meeting in Houston called by O'Connor himself, Escalante told the league presidents that he would indeed follow through on his desire to leave his current position at the end of the season.  The Liga's Board of Directors, led by Puebla and Monclova owner Gerardo Benavides, then took on the task of interviewing a number of candidates before Salinas was selected.

Salinas will serve as the LMB's Deputy President until Escalante steps down to aid in the transition.  "It is with pride and honor to be the next president of the Mexican League," he said following the meeting.  "I've been a baseball fan as far back as I can remember, and to become the president of the Liga implies enormous responsibility and passion.  I'm grateful to Plinio Escalante, whom I've been close to, and also grateful to the entire Assembly, where I've met Mexican entrepreneurs who love baseball and are looking for significant change.  It's a huge challenge, and we will face it in the best way."

Also during Monday's meeting in Mexico City, the LMB Board of Directors and various committees were restored.  The new Board includes Benavides as President, Mexico City team president Roberto Mansur and Veracruz' Jose Mansur (Roberto's brother) as co-Vice Presidents, Alejandro Uribe of Tijuana (son of Toros owner Alberto Uribe) as Treasurer and Eustacio Alvarez of Aguascalientes as Secretary.

Salinas' election to succeed Escalante at the big desk indicates that the internecine war between the Old Guard of Mexican League teams and the New Breed of franchise owners has been won by the latter group.  The two factions had been split 50-50 and the rift over the winter threatened to break up the LMB into two circuits this season or even cancel the schedule altogether.  While the debate regarding the use of Mexican-American players who do not count against the ceiling of six "foreign" players per team (the Old Guard wanted to limit their numbers, the New Breed wanted no limits) represented the focal point of the schism, it was hardly the only issue between the two groups.  At its heart was a desire by the Old Guard to continue as things had been for years against a New Breed wanting to change the way the Liga is run into a marketing-driven model in which teams generated revenue by selling their product to the public rather than rely on government largesse to meet expenses.  Salinas is clearly cut from the cloth of the New Breed mentality and his election would appear to put the debate to rest.

One has to believe that Plinio Escalante has breathed several sighs of relief this week in the knowledge that he'll be handing the gavel over to Salinas in August.  The Merida native ascended to the LMB presidency in 2007 and brought a sense of stability after four men had held the office since Pedro Treto Cisneros stepped down in 1999.  While the Liga has not made any great leaps forward in Escalante's ten years, he has steered the circuit through at-times turbulent waters in that span.  He had planned to retire in 2016, but was talked into staying on two more years by a group of men led by Carlos Peralta, the then-owner of the Quintana Roo Tigres.

The move took on a sense of irony last winter when Peralta was among the owners who voted to oust Escalante in a rather dubious procedure during which a representative of the Reynosa Broncos (who sided with the New Breed) was kept out of league meetings because the franchise had not yet officially shifted to its current site in Leon.  At that point, Pepe Maiz became the de facto LMB leader in his role as president of the Board until O'Connor stepped in one month later to tell owners that their league's continued membership in MiLB was in question and that the only person he would deal with as Liga president was Escalante.  That meeting shifted the dynamic in favor of the New Breed, culminating in Monday's election of Salinas as Escalante's successor.

Since then, Peralta has sold the Tigres to a group fronted by former Cy Young Award-winning pitcher Fernando Valenzuela while for all intent and purposes, Pepe Maiz has disappeared from the Mexican baseball scene after selling 50 percent of his Monterrey Sultanes to Grupo Multimedios.

Mexico City ballpark to be ready by July, Diablos will wait to play in it

Construction of Mexico City's new 13,000-seat ballpark will apparently be completed by July and ready for occupancy, but Mexico City Diablos Rojos owner Alfredo Harp Helu says his club will remain at 5,200-seat Estadio Fray Nano for the entire current season and open the new facility in 2018.

At a recent press conference, Harp told assembled media that he is the owner of the as-yet-unnamed stadium, which he added was costing him US$80 million, rather than the original US$60 million pricetag.  Beatriz Pereyra of Proceso said the media outlet has confirmed the cost at US$90 million and that a uniquely-shaped roof over the grandstands will cost just over US$20 by itself to erect.

While Harp may indeed be financing the ballpark and is thus its legal owner, the land it sits on within the Magdalena Mixhuca Sports City is being leased from the city.  Pereyra quoted Harp as saying, "I am the owner, not the government of the city.  I created a partnership with my family to get all the resources. There is no help from anyone, like in other cities or states. It's my family's money. The land was given through a special loan, first for 12 years but that can be renewed.  We will have to pay somehow because in the long run they stay (the government) with everything."  Harp, who Forbes magazine has listed as the 974th richest man in the world, says the city will take ownership of the facility after his passing.

Whoever owns what for how long, the new stadium will end a somewhat uncertain ballpark stuation that has existed for the second-largest metropolitan area in the Western hemisphere since the 25,000-seat Parque del Seguro Social (pictured) last hosted baseball on June 1, 2000, when the then-Mexico City Tigres topped the Diablos, 7-5, in a game that lasted until 12:34 the next morning.  Current Diablos skipper Miguel Ojeda belted the old park's last home run.  Parque de Seguro Social was eventually razed to make room for a shopping center.  The two teams inaugurated Foro Sol for baseball the following day, something that won't be repeated in 2017.

While Foro Sol is comparable in seating capacity to its predecessor, it was built in 1993 primarily as an outdoor concert venue and was never considered a "baseball-friendly" stadium during the 15 seasons it was used by the Diablos (the Tigres moved to Puebla following the 2001 season).  After announcing in 2014 that a new ballpark would be built in Mexico City, Harp moved the Diablos to Estadio Fray Nano, where he invested in renovations and expansion to 5,200 seats there.  Over the past two seasons serving as a placeholder for the team until their new digs are ready, attendance at Diablos games has been negligible at best.  Mexico's most storied ballclub has drawn just 283,004 fans to 107 home games over the past two seasons for an average of 2,645 per opening, finishing 13th in the Liga attendance derby both years.

Harp also owns the Oaxaca Guerreros, where there don't appear to be any plans to replace Estadio Eduardo Vasconcelos, a 7,200-seater opened in 1950 (although Harp has constructed a baseball academy in the southern Mexico city).  Both teams are fielding all-Mexican teams in 2017, Harp's reaction to Minor League Baseball president Pat O'Connor's ruling that there will be no limits on the number of Mexican-American players an LMB team can carry on their roster.  "At the academy," Proceso quotes him as saying, "we bring in boys at 14 or 15 years, we give them schooling, we give them everything and I do not want them sitting on the bench."  It's a somewhat ironic twist, since longtime rival Tigres owner Alejo Peralta was a very vocal proponent of Mexican-only teams in the Liga, assembling a number of such teams himself while serving as the driving force for the national baseball academy just outside Monterrey in El Carmen.

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.

LMB Assembly of Presidents make nice, approve new owners

The Mexican League's Assembly of Presidents met Friday in Mexico City in a gathering that was apparently without rancor, a welcome relief from the at-times open warfare among two factions of teams over the winter that threatened to split the circuit in two or even shut the 92-year-old LMB down for 2017. This time, however, it was smiles all around the 16 teams represented and reinstated league president, Plinio Escalante, whose resumption of that role was unanimously ratified after Minor League Baseball president Pat O'Connor made it clear at a meeting in Houston weeks ago that MiLB would not accept anyone else behind the Liga's big desk.

Among the order of business was the approval of new owners for the Quintana Roo Tigres, Leon Bravos and Monclova Acereros as well as a thumbs-up for last weekend's fifty-percent purchase of the Monterrey Sultanes by Grupo Multimedios. Former Dodgers All-Star pitcher Fernando Valenzuela was confirmed as the new majority owner of the Tigres after buying the club from Carlos Peralta a week ago. Although other members of his ownership group are still unidentified (leading to speculation in some quarters that the State of Quintana Roo is acting as a "silent partner" in the Cancun team), Valenzuela was announced as the Tigres' chairman of the board. Francisco Villanueva will serve as executive vice president while son Fernando Valenzuela Junior is the executive chairman and general manager of the flagship franchise.

Left out in the cold was longtime Tigres executive president Cuauhtemoc "Chito" Rodriguez, who served as eyes and ears for Peralta (who is not a baseball fan) after the latter's father, Alejo, passed away in 1997 and helped direct the Tigres to eleven Mexican League pennants in three different cities after another 19 seasons and two flags with the Nuevo Laredo Tecolotes. The younger Valenzuela, a former first baseman who attended UNLV and went on to bat .328 in nine LMB seasons, does not appear to have any prior experience running a pro baseball team.

As for the Bravos, the former Reynosa Broncos were officially handed over to new owner Arturo Blanco, a Leon businessman who will also serve as the team's chairman of the board. Former owner Mauricio Martinez will stay on as executive president. The approval of Puebla Pericos owner Gerardo Benavides as the new owner in Monclova was little more than a reaffirmation of a sale first agreed to during the winter, as Benavides has already been putting his stamp on the team.

The situation in Monterrey came as a bit of a surprise, starting with the timing of the announcement of the sale late last Sunday after all the attention that day went to Valenzuela and the Tigres. As its name suggest, Grupo Multimedios is a business dedicated to promoting sports and entertainment in northern Mexico and Latin America in general. They're expected to provide a cash infusion for Sultanes' longtime owner Jose "Pepe" Maiz, who has struggled a bit at the helm of the team in recent years despite strong attendance totals at the 26,000-seat Estadio Monterrey, Mexico's largest ballpark and the scene of Major League games in past seasons. Maiz will remain as team president while Multimedios' Guillermo Gonzalez Elizondo will serve as vice president.

Other items dealt with were the formalization of the no-limit policy on Mexican-American players (another O'Connor edict) and approval of a system of instant replay reviews of umpire calls among teams televising their games while the presidents got a start on putting together a schedule for an upcoming season set to open in five weeks.

The scheduling process has been hampered by ballpark renovations in the Liga's newest cities, Leon and Durango, which both got off to late starts and will not be completed by the beginning of the season. As a result, only the first week of the season has been scheduled, with 14 of the 16 LMB teams opening their home slates while the Bravos and Generales play their first six games on the road. The 2017 Mexican League All-Star Game will be played later than usual, with this year's edition set for the weekend of July 16-18 at Campeche's 6,000-seat Estadio Nelson Barrera. The ballpark was named after the former slugging third baseman who died tragically in 2002 while managing the Piratas when the beloved Barrera, nicknamed El Admiral by fans, was electrocuted at home that July while working on the house's wiring.

The following is the LMB's opening week schedule for 2017:

March 31-April 2 Monclova at Mexico City
Saltillo at Tijuana
Durango at Aguascalientes
Laguna at Monterrey
Leon at Puebla
Veracruz at Oaxaca
Tabasco at Campeche
Quintana Roo at Yucatan

April 4-6
Mexico City at Saltillo
Aguascalientes at Laguna
Monterrey at Monclova
Durango at Tijuana
Leon at Oaxaca
Puebla at Veracruz
Yucatan at Tabasco
Campeche at Quintana Roo

Puebla owner buys Acereros for reported $2.95 million

The Mexican League has one more owner controlling two franchises in the circuit after Puebla Pericos owner Gerardo Benavides completed the purchase of 90 percent of the Monclova Acereros from Alonso Acira for a reported 60 million pesos (which translates to about $2.95 million in US currency).  The Altos de Hornos manufacturing company owned the Acereros for 33 years until last spring, when it decided to sell the team as part of an overall debt restructuring effort.  Acira has served in a more-or-less caretaker role for the baseball team since.

Benavides joins the LMB's syndicate owners club of Alfredo Harp Helu (Mexico City Diablos Rojos, Oaxaca Guerreros) and brothers Juan Jose and Erik Arellano (Laguna Vaqueros, Yucatan Leones).  The Arellanos purchased 67 percent ownership of the Torreon-based Vaqueros last September.  Monterrey owner Jose "Pepe" Maiz once owned the old Chihuahua Dorados as well as the Sultanes.

The Liga has been embroiled in an internal struggle of existential proportions in the offseason, with factions of longstanding Old Guard owners and younger New Breed owners squaring off most notably over whether there should be limits on the number of Mexican-American players in the LMB (Minor League Baseball president Pat O'Connor recently ruled there will be no limits), but the dispute goes into deeper territory and involves the longterm direction the 92-year-old loop will take in the years ahead.  Acira has been in the New Breed camp, something that will not change with Benavides taking over the team.

Despite the behind-the-scenes financial uncertainty with the Acereros, Benavides takes over a franchise that (on paper, at least) is in better shape than many other LMB teams.  The Acereros won the Northern Division title in 2015 and finished with a 63-50 regular season record last summer before suffering a first-round playoff sweep at the hands of eventual North champs Tijuana.  Monclova was in decent shape at the gate as well, with 353,252 fans attending 55 home games for an average of 6,423 per opening at 11,000-seat Estadio de Beisbol Monclova, good for fourth in the 16-team circuit.  Conversely, Benavides' pennant-winning Pericos finished seventh in Liga attendance, drawing an average of 4.314 in Puebla.

The sale of the Acereros sets a benchmark of sorts for the now-dormant Quintana Roo Tigres of Cancun, whose owner, Carlos Peralta, put the team (but not the Tigres name) up for sale shortly after O'Connor's ruling on Mexican-Americans was handed down.  Peralta was firmly in the Old Guard camp led by Maiz, who called the decision "the worst thing that has ever happened in the history of baseball in Mexico."  Peralta had reportedly been seeking $2.5 million US dollars for the Tigres before the Acereros sale was completed, which may lead to an adjustment in Peralta's asking price.

An emergency LMB Assembly of Presidents meeting has been scheduled for Monday in response to Peralta's shutdown of the 62-year-old franchise that had been established in 1955 by his father Alejo, a major force in Mexican baseball for more than four decades before his 1997 death and a firm believer in hiring Mexican-born players for the Tigres.  Although the team has won six pennants since Carlos ascended to ownership, he has never embraced baseball as a fan and rarely ventured to the ballpark whether his team called Mexico City, Puebla or Cancun "home."


BASEBALL MEXICO WINTER AWARD ANNOUNCEMENTS BEGIN MONDAY, FEB. 13

MiLB: No limit on Mexican-Americans in Liga; Tigres for sale?

One week after meeting with Mexican League team presidents in Houston to hear both sides of the bitter dispute between two factions over the status of Mexican-American players in the LMB, Minor League Baseball president Pat O'Connor has released a ruling that there will be no limit on how many such players can signed to contracts with Liga teams.  There had been a suspension on signings of Mexican-American peloteros (who do not count against the LMB's limit of six foreigners per team) since the Assembly of Presidents meeting in Texas on February 1 while the issue was considered in MiLB offices in St. Petersburg, Florida, but the stay was lifted with Tuesday's ruling from O'Connor.

In a letter to the LMB, O'Connor explained that limiting the number of U.S.-born players with at least one Mexican parent would be in violation of both the Mexican Constitution and federal anti-discrimination laws, and that the Liga could be subject to lawsuits by such a policy.  There were no limits on Mexican-American players last year in the Mexican League which led to Monterrey owner Jose "Pepe" Maiz reacting bitterly to his Sultanes' loss in last September's Northern Division finals to a Tijuana Toros club with a heavy presence of Mexican-Americans on the roster.  Maiz was joined by seven other so-called Old Guard owners in seeking limits for the 2017 season, first a total of nine players per team but lowered to three apiece after the schism among owners deepened even further in January's league meeting, a rift that goes far beyond roster limits.

O'Connor's ruling is a clear victory over the seven "New Breed" owners (including Tijuana's Alberto Uribe, the primary object of Maiz' ire), who wanted no limits on Mexican-Americans, but there's already been one reaction among one of the Old Guard, Quintana Roo Tigres owner Carlos Peralta.  The son of legendary Tigres owner Alejo Peralta, who founded the team in 1955.  The Tigres shared old Parque de Social Seguro with the Diablos Rojos, a rivalry that was the biggest in Mexican baseball until the elder Peralta's death at age 80 in 1997.

Although Carlos has run the team for two decades since his father's passing, his ties to baseball were never as extensive and after a few more years in the nation's capital, the Tigres were moved twice: First to Puebla in 2002 and again to Cancun in 2007.  While the Tigres have indeed won six LMB pennants under Carlos' stewardship (three in Puebla, three in Cancun), the team has never been wholly embraced in either city as the younger Peralta grew more and more distant from the ballclub, largely leaving its operation to team Executive President Cuauhtemoc "Chito" Rodriguez, who came to work under Alejo Peralta in 1995 after 19 years in the Nuevo Laredo Tecolotes front office.

This is not the first time Carlos Peralta has explored selling the Tigres, but it appears to be the most serious effort.  Peralta is seeking to sell the team but keep the Tigres name and intellectual properties.  One asking price that was floated in the Mexican media is US$2,500,000, but it's difficult to place a value on this particular ballclub because it has been a major presence in the LMB for more than six decades, the team has has some financial difficulties operating in Cancun while the franchise will undoubtedly lose luster without the "Tigres" name attached to it.  There is some sentiment among Mexican baseball cronistas for the team to move back to Mexico City and resume their rivalry with the Diablos, but that might be a reach if the Diablos are not willing to share the new ballpark being constructed in Mexico City.

Whatever the outcome with the Tigres, this serves as one more headache for recently-reinstated Liga president Plinio Escalante, who returned to the LMB offices in Mexico City this month.  O'Connor made it clear on February 1 that the Yucatan native is the only person that MiLB will accept behind the big desk.  Besides the seemingly-insoluble division between the two owner factions, ballpark issues in both Durango and Leon still need addressing and there are other Old Guard owners besides Peralta who earlier "quit" the league earlier this offseason (albeit symbolically).  The question of who buys the UnTigres becomes more important in regards to which faction the new owner would align himself with.

The next LMB Assembly of Presidents meeting is scheduled for February 17 in Mexico City.  Tea and scones are not likely on the agenda.

Detente temporarily reached among Mexican League owners

The presence of Minor League Baseball's president may have been required to broker it, but a detente of sorts appears to have been reached among the two warring factions of team owners and presidents in the Mexican League, at least for the 2017 season.

Pat O'Connor flew into Houston from MiLB headquarters in Florida to attend Wednesday's LMB Assembly of Presidents meeting in the Texas city.  Smoldering tensions had reached critical mass between eight "Old Guard" owners and seven "New Breed" owners over the issue of Mexican-American players performing in the Liga.  While the latter group preferred no limitations on such players (who do not count against the limit of six foreigners per team, a number not in dispute), the former wanted to cap the number at three after first proposing topping out at nine.

Various sources say things came to a head after last season's Northern Division finals, when a Tijuana Toros team with a large number of Mexican-Americans on their roster bested the Monterrey Sultanes, who relied mostly on homegrown talents.  Sultanes owner Jose "Pepe" Maiz took great exception and has led offseason efforts to cut back on the use of American-born players of Mexican descent.  Last month's Assembly resulted in the ouster of LMB president Plinio Escalante while Reynosa Broncos team president Eliud Villarreal, whose transfer of his franchise to Leon had been approved by the Assembly in November, was excluded from league affairs because his loyalties are with the New Breed.  Villareal's exclusion gave the Old Guard an 8-7 edge in bloc voting but the increasingly bitter dispute between the two factions threatened to split the 16-team Liga into two separate eight-team loops or even cancel the 2017 season altogether.

Instead, O'Connor was able to convince (no doubt with a little arm-twisting of some owners) the Assembly to reinstate Escalante at the helm of the circuit while bringing Villareal into the debate.  The MiLB majordomo reportedly stated in no uncertain terms that the governing body of minor league baseball, which accords the LMB its "AAA" status, would recognize nobody but the Yucatan native as the presiding authority of the Liga. Escalante had planned to retire after last season and return home to Merida and a front office job with the Yucatan Leones, but was talked into staying for two more years last winter in a move approved by 15 of the 16 team presidents (with only Quintana Roo dissenting).

The situation involving the renamed Leon Bravos is still unresolved despite the enforced recognition by O'Connor of Villarreal as a living, breathing member of the Assembly.  Attempts to move the team to Leon's 3,000-seat Estadio Domingo Santana (pictured) had already stalled due to lack of progress on upgrades to the facility and owner Mauricio Martinez was said to be instead looking into relocating in Nuevo Laredo, where there are no ballpark issues but problems with drug cartel activity on the border city mirror the problems that caused the Broncos' move out of Reynosa in the first place.  Word is that Martinez may seek to sell the franchise to a local group in Leon instead, although ballpark concerns there remain two months away from the season opener.

Speaking of the 2017 season, the LMB will be operating as one 16-team circuit.  O'Connor specified that a final, binding decision on the number of Mexican-American players allowed per team must be reached by no later than next Tuesday.  Whatever that allotment ends up being, however, the current state of detente should not be mistaken for peace.  The only change in this boxing match is that the referee has shown up, but the combatants are still at loggerheads and the imbroglio will continue to roil beneath the surface for the coming months.  In short, this ain't over.