FEMEBE Attempts to Stifle Children's Baseball for "Sport"

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.

I'm still here! More to Come.

Okay. No post in a year. What can I say, it has been a very busy year with our business and with baseball. Our business is related to tourism in Mexico and as you can imagine 2010 was a tough year. Not as tough as 2009 which was abyssal but still not back to normal. We live in a very peaceful, culturally significant part of Mexico in Tepoztlán, a world apart from the violence reported on the border and other areas but people have a tendency to focus on the sensational and generalize about all of Mexico. But, thank God, things are starting to look up and reservations are slowly but surely on the rise.

But enough about business. It was a good year for baseball for me and my family. My sons are both playing well in both Morelos and Mexico City. My 6 year old played on a all-star team in Mexico City and became a home run phenomenon. He is now playing in a category above his age in 7-8 where they are just starting to pitch. He has a great (sometimes overwhelming and all-consuming) passion for it. My 2 year old hits a live pitched ball which is great for his age. Of course he still has a tendency to run to 3rd base first but that will come. Being the second child, he has the advantage of seeing his brother and towing the company line. He just got baseball shoes by default when we ordered a pair for his older brother that didn't fit so his brother generously donated them to him. We had to put socks on the inside because they were a little big. He loves them and has not taken them off since he got them. He thanks his brother profusely and tries to persuade his parents every night to sleep with them on.

I decided that it was time to have a 7-8 year old team in Tepoztlan and have been practicing in town in a very picturesque soccer field close to the mountains. The kids here have never seen a baseball game let alone played a game but my kids who now have 6 months are now competing with kids from Mexico City that have played all of their lives. We got a generous donation for new uniforms, received donations of equipment from friends and family, and have received support from the municipality for the field with an offer to create a new baseball field in town. There are going to be a lot of fun things coming up that I promise to report.

I am playing baseball at a very good level. I have kept up the exercise. I played on various teams in the state of Morelos and in Mexico City. I played on the national over-40 baseball tournament in Aldama, Tamps. for the state of Morelos and competed with some teams filled with guys who are still playing Mexican professional baseball. I received an interesting offer to play as a professional in Monterrey on Sundays. More on that later. Right now I am playing as a paid player for a team in a place that you for sure have never heard of called Jonacatepec in exchange for baseball equipment for my kids in Tepoztlan. As my wife found out last week, it appears I have groupies that come to my games.

Anyway, even though this blog has probably more members of my family following than anyone else, it is probably therapeutic for me. I will promise to write more often. If a blog falls in the forest does it make a sound?

What the hell happened?

Alright, I committed the cardinal sin of blogging -- I stopped updating. Bad blogger! Bad, bad, blogger! Okay. My new year's resolution is to update my blog regularly.

So, to quickly update. Jaime's crazy core training routine has really paid off. I am in very good baseball shape. Over the year, I started to pitch better each game, adding more innings. We started to win games. I reached a goal that I never reached even when I was young which is to pitch a complete 9 inning game. The Pirates gained steam and we started to pick up good "free agent" players as we enter into the tournament.

I get invited to play on the "Seleccion de Morelos" or the state baseball team as the #1 starter in a 10-day national tournament in Ixtapa. Then I get disqualified. Why you may ask? Use of a funny steroid laced hand cream? Season ending injury? Caught with "unidentified substance" on the brim of my hat? NO. I WAS DISQUALIFIED FOR BEING TOO OLD!! Yes, that is right. Yes, "ageism" raises its ugly head in Mexico. Last year the Mexican Baseball Federation created a new "Masters" league for 40 and over. Our coach tried in vain to convince the federation that this rule was not meant to disqualify older players but to protect the younger ones. To no avail. I was told two days before the tournament that I couldn't play . . . but that I could be a rookie on the old farts team, uhhh I mean Masters team which had its tournament in Monterrey. I worked really hard to play with the players that are half my age so I was not excited to play with the oldies-but-goodies.

In any event, I needed to travel for business so I could not play with the Masters. As well I had to travel for most of the league tournament and the Piratas got to the semifinals and lost. Our Seleccion de Morelos state team finished 8th in the national tournament -- the best ever for our tiny little state.

I kept on working out with Jaime -- now adding the old-but-now-new medicine ball training as well as a set of exercises meant to reduce probabilities for injuries. He also adds balance and explosivity exercises to help with control and velocity. The season is just about to start. I am feeling good. This is going to be fun.

Spring Training -- Wax on, Wax off

Okay. So, where have I been. Career-ending injury? Call up to the bigs to be the next 40 year old rookie? Hahah. Yeah, right. For the last 5 weeks of the season, I needed to work -- i.e., going to the airport to pickup and return guests who have visited us at our culinary vacation hotel, La Villa Bonita (www.lavillabonita.com). We play on Sundays and that is also our dedicated airport day. Although I have been trying to break them of this habit, my kids are pretty accustomed to this funny ritual of eating on a regular basis so working is not optional. The Piratas took a nose dive over those last few weeks of the season and we didn't make the playoffs. I took advantage of the time off to go back to spring training and get in shape.

My wife, Ana, is an up-and-coming culinary personality (see http://tinyurl.com/chefanawarnerbros). She wanted to get back on a regular workout schedule so she hired a trainer from Cuernavaca to come to La Villa Bonita. This trainer has a nickname among his faithful clientele: "Pinche Jaime." Jaime is his real name, but "Pinche" is not. The closest translation in English would be "Goddamn Jaime" because he is very reliable, almost never cancels a date, and arrives on time. There is no avoiding your workout so many of his clients feeling lazy when he rings the doorbell actively use his nickname before letting him in. "SH#$! Do I have to work out today? . . . Okay, come on in. . . Pinche Jaime."

Jaime is a former bodybuilder in his 60s who in his younger years won the title of "Mr. Morelos" (strikingly close to "Mr. Miyagi," read on). He should be able to come up with a workout to get me back into pitching shape. Since he is 20 years older than me and still in good shape, he should also have more insight about getting back into shape at my age than someone younger.

Miyagi: We make sacred pact. I promise teach karate to you, you promise learn. I say, you do, no questions.


Ana and I workout 3 times a week with light weights and isometrics and I traverse the Tepozteco pyramid 2-3 times a week. Over the past 4-5 weeks, I have lost about 10 pounds and even though some of the exercises are a little bizarre they seem to work (lots of funny balancing exercises on one leg - remember the stork from Karate Kid? I do a lot of that -- wax on, wax off!). Balance is key to pitching and developing balance requires strengthening core muscles. Since core muscles are difficult to isolate you have to do some interesting movements to strengthen them. I would recommend this combination for anyone who wants to return to form with one potential barrier -- you may not have that pre-Columbian Xochimilcan ruin in your back yard. Damn! And I was going to write my new self-help exercise book, "Get with the Program! The Ancient Pyramid Baseball Workout." Guess not.

I have to admit, I do feel a lot stronger. I haven't been able to throw over the break with my high school training partner, Ube. In Mexico, there is a mandatory 400 hours of community service for high schoolers that must be completed to graduate. Apparently he put this off and is on about 100 of 400 hours. Sounds more like a work release program to me than community service.

This week we have an "amistoso" or friendly game that doesn't count as a tuneup for the start of the new season (after Easter week). I will get to see whether this conditioning works against a team that has a lot of good hitters. I definitely feel better.

Two Firsts

The Christmas vacation wasn't good for us. First of all, the Piratas are known as a good team that doesn't practice. Other teams practice and try to stay in shape but the Piratas, with the exception of a few, just don't seem to have the time. Most if not all of us have children and real jobs. Everybody loves the game immensely but it is hard to add more time beyond the half day it takes from a family day on Sunday. No one is harboring a secret dream to make it big -- not unless someone secretly got a bootleg copy of "The Rookie." There are a couple of young guys who have some potential and they complain that the old guys are holding the team back. I have to admit, with all of the good intentions in the world, I didn't practice over the Christmas break and neither did my teammates.

I thought I had arrived with plenty of time to the early 9:00 am start but for some reason everything commenced about 15 minutes early. No one really gave me an explanation. I hadn't even thrown one warm up toss. I was just given the ball about 8:45 and told to go at it. "I haven't warmed up at all," I told the catcher. The manager told me to warm up on the mound. Ouch. I think you could hear the creaking in my joints all the way up to the bleachers. Five pitches and down to second base to start the inning. This is great. I hadn't even broken a sweat yet. This was definitely a first for me. I don't think I can recall a game where I didn't warm up even at a younger age when I was "spry and limber." Okay. I have never been "spry and limber" even at a younger age. I will be lucky if I can pick up my arm off the ground after this one is over.

The team we faced was one of the best teams in the league from Cuernavaca. The top teams all have good hitting. They tend to win in massive slugfests. The pitching tends to be spotty. I was told by the catcher that the top 5 batters on this team are very good. I tried to simply put it over the plate and hoped my defense would respond. It almost worked. I got two outs with a couple of ground outs then tragedy struck. Unfortunately my teammates were a little rusty too and what should have been an uneventful inning turned into 3 runs for the other team after a couple of errors and a walk on my part combined with a timely double.

I don't think I ever really got properly warmed up. My manager had me on a 4 inning limit and by about the 4th inning, my arm was still not limber. I couldn't get the snap on the curve ball and my control was spotty. By the 4th, the wheels fell off with an error, a walk and a hit batter. The manager pulled the plug on me and put in a guy that I previously thought was only a coach. I had never seen him play before. He didn't throw very hard and cleared the bases of my runners by giving up a 3 run double as well as adding a few of his own. We are now down 8-1.

My training partner Ube came in afterward and mopped up. Then came the second event that I had never seen before. All of a sudden, there was a flurry of dust in front of the opposing dugout. Two of the players on the same team were pounding the hell out of one another. The umpire didn't seem to know what to do. The umpires do not get a lot of respect in this league so I don't blame him for being a little pensive. Their authority is questioned quite a lot. After a minute or so the fight was stopped by their teammates. The umpire still didn't know what to do so our manager ran out and supplied him with an opportunistic and well-measured response -- throw them out or they forfeit. I had to admit, it was a novel argument that had its merit, especially when you are down 7 runs. The umpire responded that he didn't think there was a rule that prohibited teammates from fighting among themselves. That didn't sound right.

In any event, we lost the argument. Ube gave up a couple of runs and we made a small comeback but it was too little, too late. We lost 10-6. I picked up my arm and went home.

Game Two

We play a game every Sunday and this is the last one before the Christmas break. Here baseball is a year round sport because the climate is perfect. Cuernavaca is known as "the city of eternal spring." Things will pick up again after New Years, giving me time to get back into shape.

Today's game is against the Leones (Lions) and our manager is giving me the ball again to start the game. I have decided to throw all fastballs. I have a lot of movement on my fastball and I decided after last week's game to just challenge the hitters and put the ball over the plate. I have a pretty good defense and I think I overthrew a bit last week. It would be good not to hit anyone.

The same heckler is here again "Gringo, Go to you House!" Snap! Got me again. A few other heckles surface that quite frankly I couldn't decipher. It definitely wasn't English or Spanish. One player on our team is particularly proficient at heckling back. The Cocodrilo (the Crocodile) has no fear about confronting spectators, other teamates or opposing players, and umpires. He takes up my cause, relating how I am going "smoke" everyone today. Don't brag too much, I tell him.

I give up a run in the first and in the second inning but no one really hits me hard. I struck out quite a few batters. No one would have scored if it hadn't been for a few silly mistakes on my part by trying to pick off a runner on first and a wild pitch with a guy on 3rd. In the 3rd inning we jump out quickly with 5 runs and then add 7 more over the next two innings. I start feeling a bit more confident and take out what is left of the "A game" velocity. I throw a bit harder and then tossed in one curve just for fun and struck out a batter. After a really long rally on our part, I tell the coach that I should probably bow out at this point as I have stiffened up. A left-handed pitcher called "Cafe" or "Coffee" comes in and shuts down the Leones. When he strikes out batters, Cocodrilo chimes in "your coffee has been served, guey!" Showing the Mexican sense of humor, he is called Cafe because his is much darker than everyone else. Mexicans love joking about race and skin color. As we pour it on to the tune of 12-2, darkness falls in the 6th inning and the game is called.

Win number one for "The Rookie!" I even got a 2 RBI double which is now costing me dearly as I actually had to run around the bases as well as slide. Could someone unchain the plow attached to my back? I will be paying for this tomorrow. Thank God for extra strength naproxin.

Training Begins

Did I mention everything hurts after the first game? I am in decent shape in general. I can jog 4 miles without stopping. I can hike up the Tepozteco in 20 minutes. Baseball is different. You isolate many core muscles when throwing a baseball and as any injured pitcher can tell you, ligaments and other connective tissue need to be slowly conditioned.

I was invited to train with one of the other pitchers on the team. His name is Ube (pronounced oo-bay). He is all of 17 years old but has an incredible passion to play. He has gone to Monterrey a couple of times to tryout camps for the Mexican professional team "Los Sultanes." He lives in the small village of Yautepec just 15 minutes from my home in Tepoztlan. We practice 2 times a week with a group of young kids from the Yautepec team in the 2nd division.

There are 3 divisions and we are in the 1st. Ube tells me these guys are afraid to be in the 1st division. He also tells me that we have a good team but most of our guys don't practice enough. He says we could be great if they would just apply themselves a bit more. Ube tells me that almost everyone is "old." I ask him what "old" is to a 17 year old and he tells me "they are all around 28." I laugh and ask him how old he thinks I am. He doesn't answer. I laugh again.