Baseball in Mexico Is Louder, Spicier and Fighting for a Home Run Rodrigo Cervantes - KJZZ
go to original August 4, 2016

Fans from Monclova's Acereros (Rodrigo Cervantes/KJZZ)

Baseball is known as America’s pastime. From the sandlot to the Major Leagues, kids dream of making it big one day. But while America’s love of the game is undeniable, the passion in Mexico is hot ... although the game is struggling to become profitable.

Soccer might be the number one sport in Mexico, but that's not stopping baseball promoters, team owners and fans in their efforts to start a new era of béisbol mania in Mexico.

Baseball is actually one of the oldest professional sports to be played in Mexico. It has been around since the late 1800s. The origins are imprecise: some records attribute its arrival as a consequence the U.S. invasion in 1847, while others simply consider it a natural influence from American border towns or even Cuba.

Nowadays, Mexican baseball has two national professional leagues, both founded in the early 20th century. The Liga Mexicana de Beisbol, the summer league, has 16 teams, while the Liga Mexicana del Pacífico, the winter league, has eight. While the first holds occasional friendly matches with the teams of the U.S. MLB, the winner of the second league represents Mexico at the Caribbean Series -  Latin America’s most important baseball tournament.

Last June in Monterrey, around 20,000 baseball fans from all over the country gathered at the Sultanes’ Stadium to enjoy the 84th edition of the annual Juego de las Estrellas, Mexico’s all-star game of the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol.

Read the rest at KJZZ

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