From 1985 to 1994 there existed a significant but unheralded experiment
in professional baseball. For ten seasons, the Tecolotes de los Dos
Laredos (The Owls of the Two Laredos) were the only team in professional
sports to represent two nations. Playing in the storied Mexican League
(an AAA affiliate of major league baseball), the "Tecos" had home parks
on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, in Laredo, Texas and in Nuevo
Laredo, Tamaulipas. In true border fashion, Mexican and American
national anthems were played before each game, and the Tecos were
operated by interests in both cities. "Baseball on the Border" is the
story of the rise and unexpected demise of this surprising team.
For Alan Klein, a cultural anthropologist specializing in sport, "the
border" is almost a nation of its own. Having formed teams of players
from both sides of the Rio Grande for almost a century, organizers and
followers of the "Border Birds" often join forces but just as frequently
squabble with each other in a chronic border tension. Throughout the
book, Klein includes firsthand observations of the team and descriptions
of its players. Readers will meet Dan Firova, the Tecos' beleaguered
manager, a border-region native who nevertheless finds himself a target
of the Mexican media. The "Ugly American, " Willie Waite, is a young
pitcher whose stunning success does nothing to diminish the disdain he
has for his Mexican teammates. Ernesto Barraza, "The Trickster, " once
threw a no-hitter on only seventy-three pitches (on Apri Fool's Day,
appropriately enough), but occasionally shows up at the park missing
part of his uniform. And then there is Andres Mora, an aged slugger who,
despite three seasons in majorleague baseball and a life of personal
excesses, came within a few home runs of setting the all-time Mexican
League record.
This is just part of the roster of the Tecos and only a fraction of the
lineup of "Baseball on the Border." Anyone with an interest in baseball
will be enlightened and entertained by this informative book.
