VERACRUZ' UNSWORTH TOSSES NO-HITTER VS. DIABLOS

Dylan Unsworth during his no-hitter

    Veracruz pitcher Dylan Unsworth only arrived this year in the Mexican League and has already ensured that his name is registered in the record books by launching a no-hitter last Friday in an 8-0 Aguilas home victory over the Mexico City Diablos Rojos in Estadio Beto Avila.

    In just his second game in the LMB, the 4,229 fans in attendance saw a golden outing from the South African pitcher, who pitched the full route and took a perfect game into the seventh inning. After walking Juan Carlos Gamboa on five pitches with one out, "El Tiburon" did not allow another baserunner and handcuffed the Diablos to achieve the Liga's first no-no of the 2021 season and number 96 in the history of the summer circuit.

    The former Mariners farmhand, who was about to not come to Mexico due to the complicated logistics to travel from South Africa to Veracruz due to the pandemic, became the seventh pitcher of the Eagle to toss a no-hit, no run game, joining a list inaugurated by Hall of Famer Martín Dihigo in 1937.

    The Aguilas opened the scoring in the second inning off Mexico City starter Sasagi Sánchez when, with one out on the board, Héctor Gómez belted a homer right field to put Veracruz in front, 1-0. The Eagles again damaged the Diablos pitching in the fifth inning when Alexi Amarista stoked his fifth double of the season to send Kevin Flores and Alonso Gaitan home. Yasiel Puig then singled to left and brought in Amarista for Veracruz 'fourth run.

    In the fifth inning , the Aguilas put together a three-run frame as Alexei Amarista slashed a two-run double and later scored on a Puig single. One frame later, Alex Ortiz hit his first double of the season and drove in Héctor Mora. Then, with Puig at bat, Diablos reliever Armando Araiza uncorked a wild pitch to allow Amarista run from third to home plate, scoring the seventh run.

Unsworth being mobbed after final out

    In the top of the seventh, Unsworth lost his perfect game bid when Juan Carlos Gamboa reached base on a five-pitch walk. However the Aguilas defense supported their pitcher and avoided any damage the rest of the way. The Veracruz nine scored once more in the eighth inning, courtesy of Ortíz 'single to right, which plated Kevin Flores with the final tally of the night. Ortiz finished with three hits and three RBIs in the contest.

    It was a masterful performance by Unsworth, a 28-year-old righty who pitched in the Dodgers chain as well as in Venezuela and Australia following his release by Seattle in 2017. He only required 75 pitches over nine innings (58 of them strikes) for a complete game last ended 20 minutes shy of three hours even with Veracruz 'eight-run outburst in which 15 Aguila batsmen reached base via hit or walk. Sasagi took the loss for the Diablos after allowing four runs on five hits over 4.2 innings of work.

VERACRUZ AGUILAS NO-HITTER HISTORY
Martín Dihigo (1937) vs Nogales
Leroy Gaines (1940) vs Chihuahua
Anastacio Velázquez (1974) vs Chihuahua
Héctor Madrigal (1983) vs Ciudad Juárez
Leobardo Meza (1993) vs Laredo
Julio Hernández (1995) vs Diablos Rojos
Dylan Unsworth (2021) vs Red Devils

FINAL OLYMPIC BASEBALL QUALIFIER MOVED TO PUEBLA

Hermanos Serdan Stadium, Puebla

    The World Baseball and Softball Confederation (WBSC) revealed last Thursday that the Final Baseball Qualifier for the Olympic Games, to be played in Tokyo, will take place from June 22 to 26 at Estadio Hermanos Serdan, home of the Mexican League's Puebla Pericos.

    The qualifying tournament was originally going to take place in Taiwan at Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium, but safety concerns were raised over an increased outbreak of the Wuhan virus across the island nation that led to the cancellation of a week's worth of games in the Chinese Professional Baseball League. The WBSC determined that the final qualifier would instead take place in Mexico (particularly in Puebla) due to its strategic location.

    "The Olympic baseball qualifiers will have a safe and successful conclusion in Puebla, at the home of the Pericos of the Mexican Baseball League," WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari said in a press release. He added “The 'Road to Tokyo 2020' of baseball is already established, and for this I would like to extend the deepest gratitude of the entire WBSC family, to the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador; director of the National Commission for Physical Culture and Sports (CONADE) Ana Guevara; to the authorities of the State of Puebla and the owner of the Puebla Pericos club. "

    For his part, Pericos owner and team president José Miguel Bejos said, “We are very proud to host this important tournament and to welcome these teams. The work carried out in recent years allows us to showcase Puebla and the Pericos, and to stand out as one of the best organizations in the world. "

    The five teams that will compete in the last Olympic baseball qualifier include Australia, The Netherlands and Taiwan, while the other two teams will come out of the Baseball Qualifier of the Americas, a playoff that begins May 31 in Florida. The winner of that qualifier will punch their ticket to Tokyo while the second and third place teams will join the final playoff in Puebla.

    So far, four teams have qualified for the Olympics: Japan, Israel, Korea and Mexico.

    The tournament organizers will later announce the details about the allowed capacity in conjunction with what the corresponding authorities determine.

CANTU FIRST MEXICAN WITH 100 HRS IN BOTH MLB AND LMB

Cantu hitting first HR for Diablos in 2019

    Mexico City Diablos Rojos veteran slugger Jorge “El Bronco” Cantu opened a special section for players who have also played in the Mexican League by becoming the first Mexican to hit 100 home runs during the regular seasons of both MLB and the LMB.

    The historic blast came in the ninth inning of last Wednesday's game in Oaxaca against the Guerreros. With two teammates on board, Cantu smashed the ball over Estadio Eduardo Vasconcelos' right field wall for the final score to the game that his Mexico City Diablos Rojos won, 5-1.

    After playing eight seasons in the Major Leagues with five different teams with which he hit 104 home runs, Cantú returned to Mexico and fulfilled a promise he'd given to Cuauhtémoc “Chito” Rodríguez, former president of the Mexico City Tigres, that he'd play with the Bengals when his MLB days were over. Following two-and-a-half seasons with Quintana Roo between 2013 and 2016 (plus a one-year a stint in South Korea), Cantú was sent to Toros de Tijuana after having hit 63 home runs with the Tigres.

    With the Toros, he hit 24 more longballs between 2017 and 2018 before he reached an agreement with the Diablos, a club with which in 2019 he socked 12 more home runs to end the season with his LMB home run total at 99. The season in which he hit the most home runs was 2013 when he hit 31, only six less than that season's home run champion, Carmen's Rubén Mateo (who belted 37).

    The 39-year-old Cantu was born in the border city of Brownsville, Texas but grew up across the border in Reynosa. He was spotted by a Tampa Bay scout as a 16-year-old high schooler while playing in Mexico City during a Junior Olympics tournament in 1998 and offered a contract with the Rays. After signing, he made his pro debut with Class A Hudson Valley one year later and eventually reached the Majors with Tampa Bay in 2004, primarily as a second baseman.

    Cantu went on to some good seasons with the Rays (socking 28 homers and driving in 117 runs in 2005) and the Marlins (45 roundtrippers and 195 RBIs between 2008-09) before wrapping up his MLB career with San Diego in 2011. His 2014 season with the KBO's Doosan Bears saw him hit .309 with 18 homers in 111 games, but he came back to Mexico for good in 2015.

    Last Wednesday's roundtripper against the Guerreros will be recorded as the first of the season for Jorge Cantu but with another two months left in the Liga's abbreviated 66-game schedule for 2021, it likely won't be his last.

CRIMINAL COMPLAINT AGAINST LMB PREZ RATIFIED

LMB president Horacio de la Vega

    Puro Beisbol editor Fernando Ballesteros reports that the Mayor's Office in a Mexico City borough has confirmed the filing of a criminal complaint against Mexican League president Horacio de la Vega for his alleged "fraudulent administration" in the Magdalena Mixihuca Sports City of the nation's capital, when he was Director of the Sports Institute during the period between 2013-2018.

    Puro Beisbol obtained the copy of the original document with the complaint filed on July 30 with the Territorial Investigation Prosecutor's Office in Iztacalco against de la Vega and two other former officials, in addition to confirming its ratification on February 10 with new elements contributed by the affected party.

    The complaint was presented by Enrique Escamilla Salinas, Executive Director of Legal Affairs and legal representative of the Iztacalco mayor's office. De la Vega, who assumed the presidency of the LMB on November 26, 2019, has not declared anything about the criminal complaint against him.

    As part of the alleged "fraudulent administration," the current head of the LMB has been accused of awarding all contracts directly in the Sports City with millions of pesos that do not coincide with the works that were carried out. The documents point to one of these direct award contracts dating to 2017 with the minor maintenance of the baseball fields, whose company Pastos y Juegos Deportivos invoiced the amount of 15,037,906 pesos.

    On the other hand, the Mayor of Iztacalco considers the construction of a lake within the Sports City as one of the biggest frauds, which led to the destruction of five soccer fields and four basketball fields. The lake has been inoperative and is considered one of the most "fraudulent" works in Horacio de la Vega's administration at Indeporte.

    Another act that has aggravated Iztacalco authorities who now administer the Ciudad Deportiva is that the Mexico City Diablos Rojos built their new Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú ballpark within the complex but they have yet to pay a single peso since it opened on March 23, 2019. De la Vega awarded the team room for the stadium as administrator of the Sports City, and Ballesteros notes that it was the Red Devils who promoted him for the LMB presidency of the LMB with the support of the Monterrey Sultanes after his term as leader of Indeporte ended in 2018.

    Sources have informed Puro Beisbol that the Diablos have sought to negotiate these irregularities with Iztacalco mayor Armando Quintero Martínez. It's unknown if they have already reached an agreement with the team but in the case of de la Vega, what the Mayor's Office did was ratify the criminal complaint against him. "We are going to go to the end of the day," said an official for Quintero, who will seek re-election for another term as mayor.

SAN LUIS POTOSI TO HOST LMB PRESEASON EVENT

Estadio 20 de Noviembre

    The central Mexico city of San Luis Potosi is returning to the Mexican League (sort of) with a four-week series of weekend exhibition games between late April and mid-May. At this point, five LMB teams have signed on for at least one three-game series to be played at the 6,500-seat Estadio 20 de Noviembre. Organizers are hoping the San Luis Potosi Cup serves as a launching pad for future use of San Luis Potosi as a spring training site.

    The tournament, which will include Mexican League umpires officiating 12 single games, will be held to an as-yet-determined capacity in the stands. Game times will be at 7PM on Fridays, 6PM on Saturdays and 5PM on Sundays. “It is going to be a great, unprecedented event,” said SLP Cup organizing committee director Patricio Perez. “For a month, we want San Luis Potosi to be one of the main focuses of the LMB preseason, with a quality show on and off the field of play.”

    Perez envisions the competition leading to his city becoming a magnet for multiple Liga teams to conduct their training camps and exhibition games: “The idea is ambitious. We want to turn San Luis Potosí into something similar to what Arizona or Florida is for Major League clubs; that is, the base of training camps for clubs that wish to join in the future.”

    San Luis Potosi is a city of more than 2.8 million residents (19th-largest in Mexico) that serves as capital of the similarly-named state north of Mexico City and south Monterrey. The region was once of the country's most prominent mining areas and it remains a leading industry there, although agriculture employs a large percentage of people and the service sector is growing.

    SLP has had five previous runs in the Mexican League. After fielding a team from late 1925 until early 1927 (during which the name Tuneros was first adopted) and again in 1934, when the team finished second, a third version of the Tuneros inaugurated Estadio 20 de Noviembre in 1946 and played there until moving to Mexico City early during the 1952 season. Another Tuneros squad played in the Class A Mexican Center League from 1960 through 1962 and again in 1971 before the LMB returned in 1986 to provide six more seasons in AAA ball (they were known as the Reales in 1991, the final season of SLP's second Liga stint). One more Tuneros squad played between 2004 and 2006 before the Liga and baseball left the city for good.

    Among the more prominent players to represent San Luis Potosi over the years have been Hall of Famer Martin Dihigo, Hector Espino, Leon Durham and Luis Tiant, Sr. Depite the array of talent, the Tuneros turned in just three winning records and one playoff appearance in 15 full LMB seasons .

    After the last incarnation of the Tuneros moved to Chihuahua for the 2007 campaign, conditions at Estadio 20 de Noviembre deteriorated to the point where only occasional concerts were being held there. The ballpark was remodeled in 2018 and hosted a preseason series between Mexico City and Oaxaca one year later. The SLP Cup will open on Friday, April 23 with a game between Monterrey and an undetermined opponent and wrap up Sunday, May 16 when Aguascalientes meets Guadalajara. Durango and Leon are the other teams scheduled to play.

SAN LUIS POTOSI CUP 2021 Schedule
April 23-24-25: Monterrey Sultanes vs. TBD
April 30-May 1-2: Durango Generales vs. Aguascalientes Rieleros
May 7-8-9: Monterrey Sultanes vs. Leon Bravos
May 14-15-16: Aguascalientes Rieleros vs. Guadalajara Mariachis

CASTRO ACCUSES CONADE OF BLOCKING OLYMPIC FUNDS

Olympic team manager Juan Castro

    After defeating the United States along the way and qualifying via the 2019-20 WBSC Premier12 tournament to play in the Olympic Games for the first time, Mexico's national team is standing still and without funding towards the Summer Games scheduled to be held this July and August in Tokyo. In an interview with Mexico City's Proceso, Mexican manager Juan Gabriel Castro and GM Kundy Gutiérrez launched a call for help and publicly denounced that CONADE, led by Ana Guevara, has kept the resources that the federal government had already assigned them.

    Guevara and CONADE (an acronym for National Commission on Physical Culture and Sports) have come under withering criticism in the past several months for their handling of various sports at the national level. According to Proceso writer Beatriz Pereyra, five months prior to the start of the Tokyo Olympic Games, the Mexican Baseball National Team was “ruined” after President Andrés Manuel López Obrador left the project in the hands of Guevara, CONADE's General Director. She has since been accused of corruption, poor monetary practices, involvement with bribes and other irregularities during her first year in that office in a recently released162-page audit.

    In Mexico's first Olympic baseball commitment in history, the national representative must arrive in the capital of Japan no later than the end of June to comply with the 14 days of isolation required by the protocol for the covid-19 pandemic, allowing the players and coaches to get used to the time change and play a series of preliminary games. Pereyra says that means the baseball team has only four months to be ready, but so far there isn't even a working shortlist of an itinerary.

    In an interview with Proceso, Castro and Gutiérrez called for assistance so CONADE will begin to disperse the budget assigned by the federal government and they can start hiring and working with a team of scouts, statistical analysts, physical therapists, nutritionists, specialists in doping and psychology.

CONADE director Ana Guevara

    “We wanted to keep quiet because we were waiting for what was going to happen,” said Castro. “We can no longer be silent and we have to be honest with people. I don't want to lie. The project had already been in place for a year, the Olympic Games were postponed and everything stopped. Last October, they told us that we were going to start and four months have passed and everything is still stopped.”

    Gutierrez adds that the allocated money amounts to 28 million peso to be used to form a pre-selection of 150 players which will be refined until there are 28 players: 24 for the active roster and four reserve players. Then there the services of the coaching body and the salaries of the aforementioned personnel, as well as the costs of accommodation, food, logistics in Japan and requirements related to the Wuhan virus. From Gutierrez' point of view, it is urgent to be certain when the resources will begin to flow, since the people they have contacted to work with the Verdes Grande are already being hired by other teams.

    Six nations are slated to compete in Olympic baseball this summer. In addition to Mexico, host Japan, South Korea and Israel occupy four of the berths, while two more qualifying tournaments are due to determine occupants of the final two slots.

CULIACAN, HERMOSILLO TIED 1-1 IN LMP TITLE SET

Hermosillo LHP Ryan Verdugo

   After winning their respective semifinal series, the Culiacan Tomateros and Hermosillo Naranjeros split the first two games of the Mexican Pacific League championship series last weekend at Estadio Sonora in Hermosillo. Game Four through Six are set for this week in Culiacan, beginning Monday night.

    Hermosillo opened the title series last Friday with a 2-1 knucklebiter win as Ryan Verdugo outdueled J.C. Ramirez in a battle of past and future Chinese Professional Baseball League pitchers. Verdugo pitched the CPBL's first perfect game for the Uni-President Lions in 2018 while Ramirez is slated to join Mexican hurler Manny Banuelos with the Fubon Guardians this summer.

    For his part in this matchup, Verdugo tossed seven scoreless innings and scattered five hits. His Orangemen teammates staked him all the runs he'd need with two in the bottom of the first frame. Norberto Obeso opened with a single, moved to second on a Jose Cardona sacrifice fly and scored on Yadiel Hernandez' double. Hernandez then took third on an Isaac Paredes single and plated another run on Victor Mendoza's slow-rolling infield single to second.

    Ramirez, a somewhat surprising Game One starter after struggling in the postseason, settled down to pitch five scoreless innings through the sixth but the Tomateros had no luck against either Verdugo or reliever Robinson Leyer. Culiacan put a run on the scoreboard in the top of the ninth when Joey Meneses doubled off LMP Reliever of the Year Fernando Salas and Efren Navarro singled him, but Salas held the fort the rest of the way for the save. Obeso finished the night with two of Hermosillo's eight hits while seven different batsmen had one hit apiece for the visitors.

    Culiacan came back Saturday night by pulling away with a 6-1 win over the Naranjeros to tie the series at a game apiece. Game Two started out as another pitching duel, this time between the Tomateros' Anthony Vasquez and Hermosillo's Juan Pablo Oramas, the Mex Pac's Pitcher of the Year. The Orangemen opened the scoring in the bottom of the third when Obeso bounced into a groundout to second, plating Jasson Atondo from third, but Culiacan knotted the contest up at 1-1 in the top of the fifth when Navarro launched a high fly off Oramas that cleared the right field fence. That would be the only run Oramas allowed and he left the game after six innings having given up two hits and striking out eight.

Culiacan LHP Anthony Vasquez

    Vasquez held up his end by letting in the single run in the third before exiting with one out in the seventh. By then, however, the Tomateros had given him a 3-1 lead in the top of the inning when MVP Sebastian Elizalde homered to right center off reliever Marcelo Martinez, who also gave up a run-scoring single to Alexis Wilson. Then, Yoelkis Guibert's two-run bomb against another reliever (Heriberto Ruelas) keyed a three-run eighth to give the defending champs a 6-1 advantage that stayed firm when Sasagi Sanchez and Alberto Baldonado held the Naranjeros scoreless the rest of the way to close out the win. Elizalde added an RBI single in the eighth to finish the night with two hits and two ribbies for Culiacan. Veteran Luis Alfonso Cruz, an ex-MLB and NPB infielder who turns 37 next month, went 3-for-4 with a double and triple for the Naranjeros but produced no runs.

    Game Three is slated for Monday night in Culiacan's Estadio Tomateros at 7:00PM local time. Cesar Vargas will be on the mound for Hermosillo while Edgar Arredondo gets the start for the Tomateros.

    Culiacan reached the finals by defeating Obregon, 4 games to 2, in one of the semifinals. That series ended last Tuesday with a 3-0 shutout at Estadio Yaquis in Obregon as Arredondo tossed six innings of scoreless ball, allowing five hits and striking out four Yaquis batters. Arredondo had finalized a minor league contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks one day earlier.

    Hermosillo punched their ticket to the championship series by topping Monterrey, 6-3, also last Tuesday. The Naranjeros' Vargas and Monterrey's Edgar Gonzalez were locked in a 1-1 game through five innings, after which both were pulled by their respective managers. Hermosillo responded to Gonzalez' absence by posting five runs in the sixth inning, thanks in part to Julian Leon's two-run single and a Jasson Atondo RBI double. The Orangemen won the series, 4 games to 2, as every playoff series this winter has been decided in six games.

LMP AWARDS: ELIZALDE NAMED MVP, ROBLES TOP MANAGER

Culiacan OF Sebastian Elizalde

   The Mexican Pacific League has announced the final two winners of its individual awards for the 2020-21 regular season. Culiacan outfielder Sebastian Elizalde topped the closest balloting of the five categories in being named Most Valuable Player while Guasave's Oscar Robles led the balloting for Manager of the Year.

    A product of former LMP franchise site Guaymas, Sonora, Elizalde had a solid year at the plate for the defending champions, batting .282 on 48 hits over 46 games, including 13 doubles and 11 homers, and driving in 45 runs while stealing 12 bases in 18 attempts. He appeared among league leaders in a number of categories, finishing third in RBIs, tying for third in roundtrippers and tying for fourth in steals.

    Elizalde, who broke into winterball with Hermosillo in 2010-11 and spent five seasons with the Naranjeros before being traded to the Tomateros prior to the 2016-17 season, is wrapping up his tenth LMP season playing against his former team in the championship series. He has lifetime marks of .294 with 39 homers and 205 RBIs in 414 Mex Pac games, swiping 62 bases in the process. He's also hit .267 over nine games for Culiacan in the 2018 and 2020 Caribbean Series.

    During the summer, Elizalde has put in six Mexican League seasons (five for Monterrey before being sent to Mexico City in 2019) sandwiched around five years in the Cincinnati system between 2014 and 2018. The 29-year-old was a Reds organizational All-Star pick in 2014 and represented Daytona in the Florida State League All-Star Game one year later. Elizalde was a .277 hitter with 41 homers as a Reds minor leaguer, topping out at AAA Louisville, while his LMB career numbers are .299/58/248 in 679 games.

    Elizalde garnered 30 percent of votes for Mex Pac MVP, beating out Obregon's Sebastian Valle (21%), Japhet Amador of Jalisco (17%), Mazatlan's Isaac Paredes (12%), Yadir Drake of Guasave (11%) and Jalisco's Dariel Alvarez (9%). He becomes the tenth Culiacan player to win the Hector Espino Trophy, the first since Luis Alfonso Cruz did it in 2011-12.

Guasave manager Oscar Robles

    A former Dodgers and Padres infielder, Robles won the Benjamin “Cananea” Reyes Trophy as top manager after leading Guasave to a winning record (31-26) and a third seed in the postseason with 14.0 playoff points, a remarkable achievement with the second-year Algodoneros (who finished 26-37 and out of the playoffs in 2019-20 while finishing last in the loop with a .234 team batting average and 4.44 ERA).

    This winter, the Cottoneers saw their collective BA rise to .286, second in the LMP, while their team ERA of 3.43 was also second and a full run better than in 2019-20. Robles, who was the Mex Pac's Rookie of the Year in 1995-96 as a shortstop with the original Guasave Algodoneros, led his team into the playoffs but fell in six games to Culiacan in the first round.

    A 44-year-old Tijuana native, Robles obtained 36% of the total votes, more than double than Bronswell Patrick (Mexicali), Juan Navarrete (Hermosillo) and Sergio Gastelum (Obregón), who finished with 17% each. Jalisco helmsman Roberto Vizcarra and Gerardo Álvarez of Monterrey obtained 8% and 5% percent, respectively.

    All winners of Mex Pac awards were selected by a nebulously-titled specialized press after the league had told fans that they would be making the picks in online voting. No definition of “specialized press” has been given nor whether fan ballots were even considered in the tabulations.

JAPANESE GOVERNMENT RECOMMENDS OLYMPICS CANCELLATION    

Yokohama Baseball Stadium

    After last summer's Olympic Games in Tokyo were postponed until this year due to the ongoing pandemic, the London Times reports that the Japanese government held a closed-door meeting with top sports officials from that country to recommend outright cancellation of the worldwide event. The Mexican National Baseball Team is slated to take part in the Olympics after qualifying during the WBSC Premier12 tournament last winter.

    However, the International Olympic Committee refuted the Times report in a statement issued last Friday. "Some news reports circulating today are claiming that the government of Japan has privately concluded that the Tokyo Olympics will hae to be canceled because of the coronavirus,” said the IOC. “This is categorically untrue...All parties involved are working together to prepare for a successful Games this summer."

    According to organizers in Tokyo, Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga has told them that he's determined to hold the Olympics this July and August as rescheduled and that meetings are ongoing to ensure the Games move forward with strict protocols in place to prevent further outbreaks of the Wuhan virus, which has caused the postponement or outright cancellation of major sporting events across the globe since last spring.

    "All our delivery partners including the national government, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee, the IOC and the IPC are fully focused on hosting the Games this summer," the organizers said. "We hope that daily life can return to normal as soon as possible, and we will continue to make every effort to prepare for a safe and secure Games."

    The pandemic is said to have infected nearly 100 million people worldwide (including nearly 26 million active cases), with over two million deaths, according to Worldometers. Japan is 39th on the site's nation-by-nation list with 356,074 total cases (65,617 active) and 45th with 4,934 deaths. Mexico ranks 13th on the same list with over 1.75 million total cases (297,125 active) and 4th overall with 149,084 deaths.

Mexico manager Juan Gabriel Castro

   Olympics baseball is scheduled to open Wednesday, July 28 in Fukushima's Azuma Stadium and conclude with Bronze and Gold Medal games on Saturday, August 7 at Yokohama Baseball Stadium. Mexico is one of four nations to have already qualified for the six-team field along with South Korea, Israel and host Japan. The remaining two participants will be determined at Americas and Final Qualifiers sometime this year, although dates and venues have yet to be released.

    Should the Olympics proceed as hoped, former MLB infielder Juan Gabriel Castro will manage the Mexican entry. Whether or not baseball is played in Tokyo this summer, Castro has already got his regular job lined up since the Philadelphia Phillies announced he'll be back in 2021 as a member of manager Joe Girardi's coaching staff. A native of Los Mochis, Castro spent 17 years as a player for five teams in the majors before retiring during the 2011 season. He spent time coaching in the Dodgers organization (including two years under Dave Roberts in Los Angeles) and was a coach on Mexico's 2013 World Baseball Classic team for manager Rick Renteria.

    Castro has managed in the Mexican Pacific League for Mexicali and was hired away from the Dodgers to work as sports director for the Mexican League's Tijuana Toros in 2018, but left the team after first being fired, then brought back as a coach but not paid during the month of February and never having his new role (if any) defined by the front office before leaving the team in frustration. Castro was named manager of the Grandes Verde in August 2019 prior the Premier12 tournament and caught on with Philadelphia for 2020. the Phils have given him permission to take a month off for the first time Mexico takes part in Olympics baseball, a sport scheduled to be discontinued in 2024.

LMB LOOKS AT JULY START; LMP OPENER IN NOVEMBER?

Mexican League season may be held up until July

One of Mexico's most well-connected baseball writers is saying that the Mexican League is eyeing a July start to a 2020 regular season that would run into September, followed by a postseason that might push the winterball Mexican Pacific League's season opener into November.

Puro Beisbol editor Fernando Ballesteros, who has well-placed sources in both of Mexico's top leagues, wrote last week that reports from three LMB clubs indicate the country's senior circuit is hoping to get their Wuhan virus-delayed campaign underway in July, assuming the pandemic is under control by then. The federal government's extension of their "safe distance" edict to May 30 effectively scuttled the Liga's hoped-for May 11 starting date after their initial April 6 debut in Monclova was postponed.

The tentatively-planned Mexican League schedule would end in September, with a full right-team playoff calendar potentially ending with an October 31 Game Seven of the Serie del Rey championship matchup. According to another Ballesteros source in the Mexican Pacific League, "The LMP would be starting on November 1; that's the most current scenario that comes to us today and it would be very feasible to approve it." Ballesteros notes that the only previous time winter baseball on the west coast started in November was in 1958-59, when the former Liga Sonora began their 36-game regular season on November 14.

In his Zona Contacto column, Ballesteros advises LMB owners to not "fall into despair" and make "irreparable mistakes," like the appointment of the "worst president in the history of the Liga," Javier Salinas. He said one potential format being discussed would involve three groups of five or six teams each playing regular season games behind closed doors in Mexico City, Monterrey and Merida, a scenario Ballesteros says would result in "absolutely pure losses" for the league, which does not have the television revenue that would allow leagues in Taiwan and South Korea to use a similar setup.

In an interview with Septima Entrada, LMB president Horacio de la Vega told writer Irving Furlong, "For the moment, we are not contemplating being able to do the season behind closed doors. We depend on the attendance of people and need the potential of making internal sales at our stadiums. In other words, it's a requirement for us." De la Vega did allow that everything depends on health contingencies in Mexico due to the Wuhan virus: "We'll have to explore it. It can be a temporary solution, too, that we start like this and then migrate to another situation. At the moment it's not one of the situations we're considering but, well, we're going to see how things develop."

Mex Pac schedule to be delayed until November?

Ballesteros added that the LMB is seeking to sanction anyone who leaks information to the media, which he said was nothing new: "They have tried this for years and the more they pressure their associates, the faster it flows and from new fronts."

According the the Puro Beisbol editor, several LMB club owners wanted their season to open on the planned April 6 date a month-and-a-half ago, although Northern Division teams were opposed, while Mex Pac owners and president Omar Canizales watched “comfortably” from the sidelines. Now, however, the LMP calendar is in danger for two reasons: There is no exact date for controlling the Wuhan virus and the Mexican League is now sending signals that their season may extend as far as November. The closest the two leagues came to colliding schedules was in 2018, when that Fall's Serie del Rey ended on October 9, three days before the Mex Pac regular season opened. This year, the LMP season could potentially begin one day after a Game Seven in the LMB's championship series.

As a result, the Mex Pac may have to expand the limit of foreigners to eight per club while opening up the often-contentious issue of defining players with dual nationality to ensure each of their ten teams have enough players to start the season with.

EL TITAN NOT RULING OUT PLAYING IN MEXICAN LEAGUE THIS YEAR

Adrian Gonzalez, Sergio Romo celebrate WBC win

El Fildeo reports that former major league All-Star first baseman Adrian Gonzalez is reportedly willing to consider playing in the Mexican League this year once the season gets underway.

In an interview with Marca Clara reporter Guillermo Garcia, Gonzalez said he was "looking at the possibility of going to play in the Mexican League this year to see how I felt in order to possibly play in the first Olympic Games for Mexico." The Mexican National team qualified for the country's first appearance in baseball competition at the Olympics last winter in the WBSC Premier12 tournament. However, the Summer Games in Tokyo were postponed until next year due to ongoing concerns over the Wuhan virus.

El Titan has not played professionally since June 10, 2018 as a member of the New York Mets, going hitless in a 2-0 win against the crosstown rival Yankees before being released the following day. By then, he had collected 2,050 hits, 317 homers and 1,202 RBIs to augment a .287 batting average over a 15-year ML career that began with the Texas Rangers in 2004. Gonzalez appeared in five All-Star Games, took part in four postseasons, won four Gold Gloves for fielding at the initial hassock and was given two Silver Slugger awards as the best-hitting first baseman in MLB. He finished in the Top 20 among MVP vote-getters eight times, coming in fourth in 2010 (when he hit .298 with 31 homers and 101 RBIs for San Diego that season).

Although he was born in San Diego and attended high school in nearby Chula Vista, the 37-year-old Gonzalez spent many years being raised across the border in Tijuana by parents David and Alba and is qualified by his heritage (David grew up playing baseball in Obregon, Sonora) to play for Mexican national teams. Brother Edgar, who grew up with him in Tijuana, played second base in MLB with the San Diego Padres and in NPB with the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants and managed in the Mexican Pacific League before being named by Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to head Probeis, an AMLO-created federal agency charged with revitalizing baseball across the country from the grass-roots level up. Adrian now lives in La Jolla, another San Diego suburb, with wife Betsy and two daughters.

Edgar, David and Adrian Gonzalez in Mazatlan

Gonzalez has represented Mexico in World Baseball Classics in 2006, 2009, 2013 and 2017. Although it's been nearly two years since his last competitive game, he told Marca Clara that he's always hoped to return to the diamond someday and wanted to play Olympic baseball for Mexico. "It's something that I've had in mind," he said, "and it's one of the reasons why I haven't retired." Gonzalez acknowledges that he'll have to earn his place on the roster next summer in Tokyo. "It's not something where I say, 'They have to put me on the team.' Not at all. I have to go to the Mexican League to show that I deserve to be on that team. And if I don't deserve it, I don't want to be on that team."

If Gonzalez does indeed play in the Mexican League this summer, it would mark the first time he's appeared in the LMB but he is no stranger to playing baseball south of the border. He and brother Edgar played side-by-side for several winters with the Mazatlan Venados of the Mexican Pacific League.

TESTS: MEXICAN OLYMPIC BASEBALL CANDIDATES OUT OF SHAPE

Bartolo Colon should fit in with Monclova

The Monclova Acereros' offseason signing of Bartolo Colon points to something I'd read in a book years ago that drew my attention and sympathies to Mexican baseball: As long as you can get the job done there, it doesn't matter how old you are or what shape you're in. Colon stands as both Exhibits A and B for that axiom. While his age and body-type were what exemplified him to many fans during the latter part of his Major League Baseball pitching career, he will not stand out in either regard in the Mexican League.

However, while age is indeed becoming a relative thing ("40 is the new 30" and all that), a recent essay by Proceso writer Beatriz Pereyra shares the concerns of a highly-respected advisor to Probeis director Edgar Gonzalez about both the lack of muscle mass and the high percentage of fat among 35 baseball players listed on the Mexican National Team's pre-selection roster for the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, postponed until 2021 due to Wuhan virus concerns in Japan.

"I did not expect good results," says advisor Miguel Valdes, a longtime top figure in Cuban baseball, "but I did not expect them to be so bad."

Of the 80 players currently on the Olympic pre-selection roster, 17 Mexican nationals and 18 Mexican-Americans showed up for physical testing in 23 different categories held in late February at the National Center for Talent Development and High Performance. Areas covered included physical, anthropometric, body composition and psychological variables, with Pereyra depicting the overall results as "deplorable" and "devastating."

According to the report obtained by Proceso, 20 of the 35 players showed a high percentage of fat and poor muscle development, thus creating a negative imbalance between fat and muscle ("characteristic of sedentary people, or endomorphs"). Twenty-one players had body fat that far exceeds what's considered optimal in baseball while 22 exhibited poor muscle development. Player diets were considered "inadequate" in all 35 players tested.

The report suggests that pitchers should have 14 percent body fat, corner players (catchers, first and third basemen, left and rightfielders) should be between 11 and 12 percent and middle fielders (shortstops, second basemen and centerfielders) will optimally show up to 10 percent body fat.

Miguel Valdes learned belt-tightening in Cuba

"It doesn't surprise me so much that it shows there are overweight pre-selected players," Valdes told Pereyra. "I AM troubled by the fact that in baseball, the percentages of fat are high compared to other sports and that in Mexicans, the average is above 20 percent. There are some who exceed 30 percent, which is equivalent to having about 15 kilos (33 pounds) of pure fat.” He then asked rhetorically, “How can they play with all that weight? There is no efficiency for high performance. High-performance teams compete with between 11 and 14 percent of collective fat."

Valdes spent 35 years managing the Cuban National Team before defecting in 2002 along with his 14-year-old son and star pitcher Jose Contreras, who went on to appear in a World Series and All-Star Game as a member of the Chicago White Sox. He signed on last September with Probeis (aka Office of the Presidency for the Promotion and Development of Baseball), a creation of Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador headed by former MLB and NPB infielder Gonzalez.

“I won 151 games in a row with the Cuban team," Valdes notes. "Olympic Games, Pan American Games, Central American Games, World Cups...everything that is possible to win. I give credit in a large percentage to what we achieved with functional capacity. They are the sciences applied to sport, in addition to the team's talent."

According to Valdes, if Mexico wins an Olympic medal, it will not be by luck or chance: "We can compete at the highest level if we do things right. We have to get to the Olympics better prepared than the other teams, with superior parameters, and that is not easy.

"But a medal can be built. Yes, it can be built!"

LMB WEIGHS SCHEDULE OPTIONS, LMP FACING SQUEEZE

Mexican League season held up at least 5 weeks

In the wake of their season openers being delayed at least five weeks due to the coronavirus panic, the Mexican League is considering options for their 2020 schedule moving forward and the Mexican Pacific League's own 2020-21 season could potentially be affected.

The LMB had planned to begin their season next Monday with defending champion Monclova hosting Monterrey, followed by a full slate of games the next evening. Instead, league president Horacio de la Vega ordered all 16 training camps closed earlier this month while pushing Opening Day back five weeks until Monday, May 11, a date not etched in stone given the uncertainty regarding efforts to combat the virus or the government's willingness to allow the LMB to have final say in their scheduling.

With that in mind, de la Vega has been trying to cobble together an alternate schedule that would save the Liga's original 102-game regular season format, something he's said he wants to do. However, that adjusted calendar could mean the Serie del Rey possibly concluding immediately prior to the beginning of the Mex Pac's regular season. In an interview with ESPN, the new league leader said, "In the scenario in which we start on May 11, we'll plan to be playing 102 games per team and finishing at the start of the Pacific season, that is, around October 12 or 14..that is the current scenario."

As noted in a Septima Entrada story, the LMB concluded their 2019 calendar on October 2, when Monclova concluded the Serie del Rey with a fourth win over Yucatan for their first pennant since entering the Liga in 1974. The LMP season opened nine days later on October 11. De la Vega says he's been maintaining contact with Mex Pac president Omar Canizales and hopes to affect the winterball circuit as little as possible, since so many players perform in both loops.

Another area of concern is the Mexican League's All-Star Weekend, originally scheduled for June 5-7 in Monclova. The event, which includes the Home Run Derby, Double Play Derby and All-Star Game, will have to have new dates assigned to reflect the late start in the overall schedule. "Let's hope that by May 11, things have improved," de la Vega told ESPN. "That's part of the conversations we've had with the different federal health authorities and we have many possible scenarios with the intention of moving forward with the 2020 season."

Mexican Pacific League president Omar Canizales

Meanwhile, Canizales is having to deal with similar uncertainties. A press release issued by the Mexican Pacific League league office in Guadalajara says, in part, "In these difficult times, the LMP is confident that with the efforts of the authorities and the community, this emergency can be overcome. Once this is achieved, our fans can return to enjoy baseball, for which we'll be prepared to do what the authorities dictate." The Mex Pac held an Assembly of Presidents meeting earlier in March, where the gathered leaders decided to wait to see what the Mexican league determines regarding an adjusted schedule before moving forward on their own 2020-21 calendar.

The LMP faces a possible squeeze for playing dates if the LMB season bumps up against their own, especially given the desire of both Major League Baseball and the Confederation of Pan American Baseball to have the Caribbean Series played in late January after decades of taking place the first week of February so the tournament doesn't bump against MLB's own training camps. The Mex Pac was already looking into revamping their playoff schedule before the coronavirus scare hit and may now be faced with an abbreviated regular season and/or postseason if they have to start later AND finish sooner.

Although Mexico's baseball writers have been sympathetic with the Mexican League's scheduling worries, some are calling for the summer circuit to scale back their regular season rather than push ahead with their original 102-game schedule. Puro Beisbol editor Fernando Ballesteros says "a 60 to 80-game schedule would be, from our point of view, the most sensible for the LMB. In fact, 80 is the optimal number of games that several club owners are looking for and to leave it permanently in a long-term project, but this year they did not want to be so drastic and developed the 102 games, subtracting 18 from the 2019 season."

Ballesteros added that the potential economic chaos in the wake of the coronavirus could make it more difficult for the average Mexican fan to afford to go to the ballpark often enough to make a 102-game schedule financially viable for LMB teams.

TOKYO OLYMPICS, INCLUDING BASEBALL, POSTPONED TO 2021

Mexican National Team celebrates win

After weeks of speculation over whether the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan would begin in July as scheduled, whether they'd take place in front of empty venues or be delayed to a later start due to the coronavirus pandemic, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe announced last week that the event will be postponed until next year. 

"Due to current conditions and by all athletes, we have proposed to postpone the event for about a year so that they can be safe," Abe said during a telephone news conference last Tuesday. The International Olympic Committee and the Organizing Committee of the 2020 Olympic Games also released a statement that given information made available by the World Health Organization, a United Nations agency, IOC president Thomas Bach agreed with Abe that the Olympics should called called off for the rest of this year and instead be staged in 2021.

Baseball was on the Olympic calendar this summer as a demonstration sport after last being played at the Olympic level during the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, where eight nations competed for the Gold medal won by South Korea.  Cuba took the Silver medal while the Bronze went to the United States.  This year's Olympics field was to be comprised of six nations, including first-time participants Mexico.

The Mexicans qualified for the Summer Olympics on the basis of their performance at last year's Premier12 tournament, sponsored by the World Baseball Softball Confederation.  Mexico won the Group A first round of the competition in Guadalajara by going 3-0 against the United States, Dominican Republic and The Netherlands, averaging eight runs per game while allowing a total of five tallies over the three contests.  

Mexico's Olympic baseball dreams put on hold

The six nations that advanced from Group play then converged in Japan for the Super Round, a round-robin stage in which Mexico won their first three games before losing a pair of two-run tilts to host Japan and South Korea at the Tokyo Dome.  Mexico's 3-2 win in ten innings over the United States on Efren Navarro's walk-off RBI single in the Bronze medal game on November 17 was enough to punch their ticket to the Olympics.  Japan and South Korea, who played in the Gold medal game (won by Japan, 5-3), also qualified for the Olympics.  Interestingly, only one Mexican player, outfielder Jonathan Jones, was named to the 11-man All-World Team at the conclusion of the Premier12 while the United States placed four despite finishing out of the money.

Israel also qualified for their first Olympics appearance in baseball after pulling off a surprise win in the Africa/Europe event in Italy last September.  Two more qualifying tournaments, an Americas group in Arizona consisting of nations that fell short in the Premier12 (with the winner advancing to Tokyo) and a Final qualifier in Taiwan for the sixth and final berth, have been postponed.

OBREGON, LOS MOCHIS TO CO-HOST U23 BASEBALL WORLD CUP

The World Baseball Softball Confederation has announced the sites of their 2020 Under-23 Baseball World Cup tournament.  Obregon and Los Mochis have been tabbed to co-host the event, which will be held between Wednesday, September 30 and Friday, October 9.  The selection was somewhat surprising in that while located in the middle of Mexico's prime baseball hotbed, the two agricultural centers are among the smallest markets in the ten-team Mexican Pacific League (only Navojoa and Guasave have fewer residents) and lack the kind of amenities offered in other Mex Pac cities like Guadalajara or Monterrey, where tournaments of this caliber typically end up when Mexico is the host country.

Even so, there is little doubt that the U23 Baseball World Cup will be embraced in both cities, partly because they rarely (if ever) see global events on this scale but mostly because fans in Obregon and Los Mochis have proven over time that they love a good ballgame.  While a schedule has not been released, it's expected that Group stage games in the 12-nation tournament will be shared between the two cities while Obregon will host later contests all the way through the October 9 final game. 

Estadio Emilio Ibarra Almada, Los Mochis

Los Mochis, a city of over 250,000 not far from the Copper Canyon in northern Sinaloa, is home to the Mex Pac's Caneros, who christened the recently renovated 12,000-seat Estadio Emilio Ibarra Almada last October. The ballpark's 400 million peso facelift included a total redo of the main grandstand, which now includes three levels: lower and upper box seats plus luxury boxes. Along with Guasave's Estadio Francisco Carranza Limon, the facility is the "newest" in the LMP as the league seeks to modernize all of its playing fields and leaves Navojoa's Estadio Manuel "Ciclon" Echeverria, which opened in 1970, as the last remaining non-modern facility in the league.

Home to over 400,000 residents, Ciudad Obregon (named after Revolution leader Alvaro Obregon, who later became preident of Mexico) is near the southern tip of the state of Sonora. Like Los Mochis, Obregon is an agricultural hub and is served by an international airport (Los Mochis' is for domestic flights only). The LMP Obregon Yaquis play in the 16,500-seat Estadio Yaquis, which was completed in 2016 and is considered one of the country's nicest ballparks.

Estadio Yaquis, Ciudad Obregon

Both stadiums to be used for the U23 Baseball World Cup are symmetrical: Estadio Emilio Ibarra Almada in Los Mochis has 320-foot foul lines with a straightaway center field fence of 400 feet while Obregon's Estadio Yaquis is 325 feet down each foul line and 400 feet to center field. Players and coaches will have Class AAA-level clubhouse facilities in both venues as well.

Among the 12 nations represented at the U23 Baseball World Cup, four are in Latin America: Besides host Mexico, teams from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela will compete. Asia will also send four national teams from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China while Germany, South Africa, New Zealand and the Czech Republic will round out the field. New Zealand replaced Australia as Oceania's delegate squad after the Aussies pulled out of their qualifying series. Professional players are allowed to represent teams at the tournament and several Mexican Leaguers are expected to fill out much of the Mexican National Team's roster, along with minor leaguers from MLB affiliates.

Mexico won the 2018 U23 Baseball World Cup in Barranquilla, Colombia under manager Jose Enrique Reyes, the first time the country had won a world championship in the sport above the Little League level. One of Mexico's three All-World Team members that year, catcher Orlando Pina, hit .294 and belted 16 homers in 90 games for Oaxaca last summer.