MEXICO CITY — An afternoon prior to Major League Baseball performed common season video games right here for the primary time, Nick Martinez, a glass for the San Diego Padres, had an concept. Accompanied via a couple of teammates, he visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Friday, which was once a day without work for each the San Francisco Giants and the Padres.
On easy methods to the church, Martinez spotted a number of retail outlets promoting piñatas. He purchased a couple of, hoping they might be smashed via the participant of the sport after every of the contests.
“Being in San Diego, Mexican culture is very much a part of our culture,” Martinez stated. “And being here in Mexico for this series, the piñatas were an opportunity to keep that Mexican culture in our clubhouse.”
So after the Padres defeated the Giants, 16-11, on Saturday, in a slugfest made conceivable via the prerequisites of Mexico City, Padres designated hitter Nelson Cruz donned a sombrero within the colours of the Mexican flag as he struggled to damage open a Buzz To set up Lightyear piñata. His teammates cheered him on whilst dressed in lucha Mexican libre wrestling mask. And after a 6-4 Padres win on Sunday, first baseman Matt Carpenter despatched sweet flying onto the clubhouse flooring when he busted open a piñata within the form of a celebrity.
“It was a real short bat,” Cruz defined later of his piñata troubles. He ultimately gave up and ripped it open via hand. “If it had been a normal bat, it would’ve been done with one swing.”
For two days at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú, the MLB video games had been a birthday party of Mexico and its love of baseball. The league had in the past performed common season video games in Monterrey in 1996, 1999, 2018 and 2019. Exhibition contests had been performed in Mexico City up to now however enjoying video games that mattered within the nation’s capital was once other.
MLB sought after to take action in Mexico City quicker, however the $166 million stadium, which holds 20,000 fanatics, wasn’t finished till 2019. The facility is house to the Mexican League’s Diablos Rojos, a crew owned via the Mexican billionaire Alfredo Harp Helú, additionally a component proprietor of the Padres.
Mexico City is among the greatest towns on the earth, a city extra populous (22 million) than New York City (20 million) and a couple of,000 ft upper in altitude than Denver, which is house to MLB’s Colorado Rockies and is famously a mile above sea degree. It could also be the biggest town in North America with no franchise within the area’s 4 main males’s skilled sports activities leagues (NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB).
Soccer is also the largest game in Mexico however baseball has a powerful foothold, specifically in sure areas of this nation of 127 million folks. Given how the Toronto Blue Jays are the MLB crew for all of Canada, baseball officers and fanatics have dreamed about the potential for a selection franchise in Mexico City.
“It would be a great experience,” stated Juan Soto, a celebrity outfielder for the Padres who’s from the Dominican Republic. “It makes me think of soccer, where those players live traveling from city to city.”
Even despite the fact that MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has praised the industry possibilities of Mexico City and the Mexican marketplace as a complete up to now, he just lately stated that he had “never been close to the idea of Mexico as an expansion opportunity.”
“The challenges are facility based,” he stated closing week. “Even the stadium that we’re playing in this weekend is probably not big enough for a permanent home for a major league club. And then, of course, our season is so long. I have a union issue there that would have to be bargained to get players to live for that long of a period of time in Mexico.”
The current goal for Mexico, Manfred said, was to improve MLB’s relationships with existing professional baseball leagues there and to have the country become a North American equivalent of Japan, with “vibrant, domestic professional play” and “star players given the opportunity to come and play Major League Baseball.” He said having more Mexican players in MLB would help baseball appeal to the large Mexican American audience in the United States and create more broadcast interest in Mexico.
Based on the weekend of games in Mexico City, there was indeed an appetite for the sport. The scenes in the stands and on the field reflected a spirited baseball culture. The tickets for the games sold out quickly in November. About 20,000 fans attended each game but it sounded like more.
Mexican food—including micheladas, tacos, aguachile and churros—were sold in abundance. A mariachi band played throughout the games, performing a rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh-inning stretch. Hundreds of fans lingered outside the stadium after the final game to send off both teams with cheers and waves.
“It was awesome,” said Manny Machado, a third baseman for the Padres whose family is from the Dominican Republic. “What most impressed me was the fans and how passionate they were, especially for us Latinos who play with a lot of passion and energy.”
After each of the seven home runs they hit over the weekend, the Padres, the MLB team closest to the Mexican border, put a sombrero on the head of the player who smashed the ball over the fence. Fernando Tatis Jr. bought it on Friday during a trip to the famous canals of Xochimilco in Mexico City. When Padres relievers walked out to the bullpen, they did so in lucha libre masks gifted to the team by the Mexican American professional wrestler Rey Mysterio.
“It way so much,” Tatis said of playing in Mexico City. “For us Latin Americans, it’s something beautiful to play in front of our people and taking the game to the kids who don’t normally see us play in the US”
Roughly three-quarters of the tickets sold online were purchased in Mexico, according to MLB, while the remaining tickets were purchased in the United States, primarily in California. But walking the stands, it felt like more Padres fans were visiting from the United States and several said they bought their tickets online through secondary-market resellers in Mexico.
In the left-field bleachers, Felipe Perez, 44, said he met many fans from the United States but also several Mexicans who had traveled from throughout the country. He was one of them; he said he took a seven-hour bus ride on Saturday from Veracruz, a city on the Gulf of Mexico coast, and arrived in Mexico City just in time for the 4 pm game. He returned home at 11 am the next day.
All that effort was worth it, Pérez said, because he loves baseball. He added in Spanish, “I’m happy. To see a big league game here, it’s the best.”
Pérez were looking forward to those video games. He and his circle of relatives purchased tickets for the April 2020 collection in Mexico City between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Padres that was once erased via the pandemic. He marveled on the setting round him on Saturday as he nursed a lager.
“Mexicans have a way of enjoying shows and life,” Pérez stated as fanatics stomped their ft for Tatis on the plate. “People get at the back of a crew. Look at how individuals are cheering.
In contemporary years, Mexican baseball has stepped forward at the world degree. On opening day MLB rosters this season, there have been 15 gamers born in Mexico, the very best overall since 2005. In March, the Mexican nationwide crew completed 3rd within the World Baseball Classic, its easiest appearing within the event. And essentially the most robust fan in Mexico is its president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who hosted a breakfast on Sunday at El Palacio Nacional for, amongst others, Trevor Hoffman, a Hall of Famer who starred for the Padres; Sergio Romo, a reliever who received 3 World Series titles with the Giants; and Harp Helu.
Romo, who’s Mexican American, stated he did not assume the hurdles for Mexico City as a long run MLB house had been as giant as some would possibly assume. He stated a variety of English was once spoken within the world hub and that there was once a whole lot of tourism and historical past right here.
“I do feel that Mexico does have a little bit of a bad rap in terms of like safety and whatnot,” he stated. “But right here in Mexico, you might be secure. There’s numerous truly cool issues happening and clearly each town has their neighborhoods you do not need to visit. But this position has such a lot of different spots which are so welcoming and open.”
Regular season games, at the very least, are expected to return to Mexico City. As part of its overseas push in recent years, MLB played games in London for the first time in 2019, expanding a world tour that already included Japan, Puerto Rico and Australia. In the latest labor agreement, MLB and the players’ union agreed to more regular season games in London, some in Paris in 2025 and annual trips to Mexico City from 2023 to 2026.
The altitude and the turf in Mexico City will present some ongoing challenges — or advantages — to players. On Saturday, the ball zoomed through the thinner air and the teams combined for 11 home runs and 30 hits. Defenders said the ball skipped off the ground and rocketed past them.
Pitchers said their pitches didn’t move like usual, clarifying that it was even more of an issue than it is at Coors Field in Denver. After running the bases on Saturday, Cruz said he felt more out of breath. Yu Darvish, the Padres pitcher, said umpires told him he could call for a trainer during his start on Sunday if he was feeling too winded. Alex Cobb, a pitcher for the Giants, said his team’s training staff provided more fluids and electrolytes to avoid dehydration.
But for a team expected to contend for the playoffs, and which had previously been struggling at the plate, a memorable trip to Mexico City might have been exactly what the Padres needed.
“I’d love to stick right here some other week,” said Machado, who homered twice.