Baseball is the second most popular sport behind soccer (futbol) in Mexico, but it is a very sad and poor second. Baseball is truly the ugly step-sister that you have to acknowledge because she is in the family but you don't want to like. The pretty sister soccer gets all of the compliments, the accolades and attention. There are almost no resources for baseball here with parents and coaches footing the bill for pretty much everything -- transportation, equipment, uniforms, even the painting of the lines on the field. Most teams still play on improvised soccer fields with no fences and no allowance to modify or make the field more appropriate for the sport. We personally have had soccer balls flying overhead when a team decided they had enough of us using "their field" that we had a right to play on. As Rodney Dangerfield used to say, "We get no respect."
There is almost no financial support for baseball on a governmental level and what little is offered you have to fight tooth-and-nail to get, wasting tons of time away from the field dealing with institutional apathy or just plain stupidity. There are no school-sponsored baseball teams so to play you usually need to pay to join a private league. Leagues are very few and far between outside of the big populations so for a tiny state like Morelos you must travel a lot to find games. In general, if you enjoy being under-appreciated, mistreated, or just to want to experience the muck of Mexican bureaucracy - come start a kids baseball team!
With all of these obstacles, baseball still somehow moves forward with the passion these kids and parents have for the sport. This year, I decided to become involved in the Little League baseball tournament to manage and select a state team for Morelos in the 7-8 year-old category. This is the competition that ends with the famous tournament in Williamsport, Pennsylvania (here is not called "Little League" but "William-sport" which I find amusing). The 7-8 year-old tournament isn't televised like the older categories, but it takes place in the same complex against teams from around the world. The winner of the Mexican national tournament gets an automatic seed. It is a big deal here and provides a lot of inspiration for the kids. Everyone has a story to tell about "the Perfect Game" of the famous team from Monterrey that won the Little League World Series in 1957 even though many weren't around at that time. Jose Maiz, one of the members of that '57 team is the head of Little League in Mexico.
As a state team, we selected the kids from different towns, practiced, got uniforms, sponsors, bus, everything ready to go. When we arrive at districts in Omitlan, however, we were greeted with a bizarre, threatening document from the FEMEBE (the Mexican baseball association). The FEMEBE is the equivalent of one of those old unions that obliges you to pay them for a bloated and useless bureaucracy, does very little for the actual members, and loves to send down edicts from above. Little League is a private tournament run by its own organization and affiliated with Little League International. The FEMEBE doesn't actually fund or do anything in the tournament other than give its rubber stamp of approval.
In the tournament meetings, the document was presented and discussed. I read it and thought it was both bizarre and curious. It mentioned a team who had not paid its new "tax" to use government or FEMEBE administered fields called the SIRED. This is a 3 dollar or 30 peso fee per player that is paid to the FEMEBE so that they can squander it on their useless bureaucracy. I really didn't think anything about it because we had already paid the tax for our players and for the kids in the state of Morelos in general. The letter threatened to "disaffiliate" any team from the FEMEBE if they merely participated in the Little League tournament. My first reaction was that this was ridiculous. We paid our tax, why are we being threatened? My second reaction was recognizing the arrogance on the part of the FEMEBE to threaten kids and their families who had already spent money on hotels and transportation, telling them to just go home. It was the consensus of the other teams that this was not our fight and we were going to play.
Subsequently regional tournaments take place and this bizarre conflict continues to brew. A few teams fall out and do not participate. Injunctions are obtained. FEMEBE officials, however, continue to threaten children, Little League tournament volunteers, and Little League officials to try to get leverage. Now teams that have won their spot at nationals are being threatened. The site for the 9-10 category for districts had to be changed from because of FEMEBE threats. All of this turbulence creating a general climate of uncertainty to be topped off with the FEMEBE sending down a new edict that any team representing Mexico at the international Little League tournament will be punished!
All for what? Because some other team (that is no longer participating) didn't pay their 30 peso "tax" when everyone else did? What arrogance! I imagine if someone offered to pay the total tax of $50 USD for the team in question, the FEMEBE wouldn't accept it. This is about power and control of a useless but lucrative bureaucracy that feeds off of the budgets of hard working Mexican families. What a total lack of respect for the efforts of hundreds of children, volunteers, and parents to promote a positive experience for their kids. It is hard enough in Mexico to get things off the ground, let alone having to carry a bureaucratic monster on your back fighting its petty feud at the expense of the development of the sport they are supposed to protect.
This is not to say that the Little League tournament in Mexico doesn't need improvement. It is filled with umpires who don't know Little League rules, constant negotiations between teams and administrators over how the tournament should proceed, over-exuberant parents, perennial fights over "chachirules" as they are called or kids who are too old to participate in their category playing with fake documents or birth certificates, constant date changes right before the tournaments, etc. In many respects it is imperfect, but it is one of the only ways for children in Mexico to participate an internationally-organized tournament.
More importantly, this tournament gives kids hope. They see the Mexico team compete and they think, "if I work hard, maybe that could be me someday." Here the kids have rarely seen a major league game or know who the stars are but the kids that play on the Mexican Little League team are heroes - someone to look up to. It keeps them practicing and working hard. It gives them a goal in a day-and-age when worthwhile goals are hard to come by.
But the FEMEBE doesn't see it that way. They consider baseball to be their exclusive turf just like the bloated unions of old and those that cross the line will be punished no matter how unfair or ridiculous the charge.
Vermin tend to scurry when the lights go on. I am sure that the FEMEBE was hoping that their threats would be quietly heeded and this issue wouldn't make it to the national press. However, as of last week that is not the case. The media appears to be picking up this story and bringing this sad and bizarre incident to light.
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