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B a s e b a l l
M e x i c o
Saturday,
March 30, 2020
LMB WEIGHS SCHEDULE OPTIONS, LMP FACING SQUEEZE
In
the wake of their season openers being delayed at least five weeks due
to the
coronavirus panic, the Mexican League is considering options for their
2020
schedule moving forward and the Mexican Pacific League's own 2020-21
season
could potentially be affected.
The
LMB had planned to begin their season next Monday with defending
champion
Monclova hosting Monterrey, followed by a full slate of games the next
evening.
Instead, league president Horacio de la Vega ordered all 16 training
camps
closed earlier this month while pushing Opening Day back five weeks
until
Monday, May 11, a date not etched in stone, given the uncertainty
regarding
efforts to combat the virus or the government's willingness to allow
the LMB to
have final say in their scheduling.
With
that in mind, de la Vega has been trying to cobble together an
alternate
schedule that would save the Liga's original 102-game regular season
format,
something he's said he wants to do. However, that adjusted calendar
could mean
the Serie del Rey possibly concluding
immediately prior to the beginning of the Mex Pac's regular season. In
an
interview with ESPN, the new league leader said, "In the scenario in
which
we start on May 11, we'll plan to be playing 102 games per team and
finishing
at the start of the Pacific season, that is, around October 12 or
14..that is
the current scenario."
As
noted in a Septima Entrada story, the LMB concluded their 2019
calendar
on October 2, when Monclova concluded the Serie
del Rey with a fourth win over Yucatan for their first pennant
since
entering the Liga in 1974. The LMP season opened nine days later on
October 11.
De la Vega says he's been maintaining contact with Mex Pac president
Omar
Canizales and hopes to affect the winterball circuit as little as
possible,
since so many players perform in both loops.
Another
area of concern is the Mexican League's All-Star Weekend, originally
scheduled
for June 5-7 in Monclova. The event, which includes the Home Run Derby,
Double
Play Derby and All-Star Game, will have to have new dates assigned to
reflect
the late start in the overall schedule. "Let's hope that by May 11,
things
have improved," de la Vega told ESPN. "That's part of the
conversations we've had with the different federal health authorities
and we
have many possible scenarios with the intention of moving forward with
the 2020
season."
Meanwhile,
Canizales is having to deal with similar uncertainties. A press release
issued
by the Mexican Pacific League league office in Guadalajara says, in
part,
"In these difficult times, the LMP is confident that with the efforts
of
the authorities and the community, this emergency can be overcome. Once
this is
achieved, our fans can return to enjoy baseball, for which we'll be
prepared to
do what the authorities dictate." The Mex Pac held an Assembly of
Presidents meeting earlier in March, where the gathered leaders decided
to wait
to see what the Mexican league determines regarding an adjusted
schedule before
moving forward on their own 2020-21 calendar.
The
LMP faces a possible squeeze for playing dates if the LMB season bumps
up
against their own, especially given the desire of both Major League
Baseball
and the Confederation of Pan American Baseball to have the Caribbean
Series
played in late January after decades of taking place the first week of
February
so the tournament doesn't bump against MLB's own training camps. The
Mex Pac
was already looking into revamping their playoff schedule before the
coronavirus scare hit and may now be faced with an abbreviated regular
season
and/or postseason if they have to start later AND finish sooner.
Although
Mexico's baseball writers have been sympathetic with the Mexican
League's
scheduling worries, some are calling for the summer circuit to scale
back their
regular season rather than push ahead with their original 102-game
schedule. Puro
Beisbol editor Fernando Ballesteros says "a 60 to 80-game schedule
would be, from our point of view, the most sensible for the LMB. In
fact, 80 is
the optimal number of
games
that several club owners are looking for and to leave it permanently in
a
long-term project, but this year they did not want to be so drastic and
developed the 102 games, subtracting 18 from the 2019 season."
Ballesteros added that the
potential economic chaos in the wake of the coronavirus could make it
more
difficult for the average Mexican fan to afford to go to the ballpark
often
enough to make a 102-game schedule financially viable for LMB teams.
TOKYO
OLYMPICS, INCLUDING BASEBALL,
POSTPONED TO 2021
After
weeks of speculation over whether the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo,
Japan
would begin in July as scheduled, whether they'd take place in front of
empty
venues or be delayed to a later start due to the coronavirus pandemic,
Japanese
prime minister Shinzo Abe announced last week that the event will be
postponed
until next year.
"Due to current
conditions and by all athletes, we have proposed to postpone the event
for
about a year so that they can be safe," Abe said during a telephone
news
conference last Tuesday. The International Olympic Committee and
the
Organizing Committee of the 2020 Olympic Games also released a
statement that
given information made available by the World Health Organization, a
United
Nations agency, IOC president Thomas Bach agreed with Abe that the
Olympics
should called called off for the rest of this year and instead be
staged in
2021.
Baseball was on the Olympic
calendar this summer as a demonstration sport after last being played
at the
Olympic level during the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, where eight
nations
competed for the Gold medal won by South Korea. Cuba took the
Silver
medal while the Bronze went to the United States. This year's
Olympics
field was to be comprised of six nations, including first-time
participants
Mexico.
The Mexicans qualified for the
Summer Olympics on the basis of their performance at last year's
Premier12
tournament, sponsored by the World Baseball Softball
Confederation.
Mexico won the Group A first round of the competition in Guadalajara by
going
3-0 against the United States, Dominican Republic and The Netherlands,
averaging eight runs per game while allowing a total of five tallies
over the
three contests.
The six nations that advanced
from Group play then converged in Japan for the Super Round, a
round-robin
stage in which Mexico won their first three games before losing a pair
of
two-run tilts to host Japan and South Korea at the Tokyo Dome.
Mexico's 3-2
win in ten innings over the United States on Efren Navarro's walk-off
RBI
single in the Bronze medal game on November 17 was enough to punch
their ticket
to the Olympics. Japan and South Korea, who played in the Gold
medal game
(won by Japan, 5-3), also qualified for the Olympics.
Interestingly, only
one Mexican player, outfielder Jonathan Jones, was named to the 11-man
All-World Team at the conclusion of the Premier12 while the United
States
placed four despite finishing out of the money.
Israel also qualified for
their first Olympics appearance in baseball after pulling off a
surprise win in
the Africa/Europe event in Italy last September. Two more
qualifying
tournaments, an Americas group in Arizona consisting of nations that
fell short
in the Premier12 (with the winner advancing to Tokyo) and a Final
qualifier in
Taiwan for the sixth and final berth, have been postponed.
OBREGON,
LOS MOCHIS TO CO-HOST U23 BASEBALL WORLD CUP
The World Baseball Softball
Confederation has announced the sites of their 2020 Under-23 Baseball
World Cup
tournament. Obregon and Los Mochis have been tabbed to co-host
the event,
which will be held between Wednesday, September 30 and Friday, October
9.
The selection was somewhat surprising in that while located in the
middle of
Mexico's prime baseball hotbed, the two agricultural centers are among
the
smallest markets in the ten-team Mexican Pacific League (only Navojoa
and
Guasave have fewer residents) and lack the kind of amenities offered in
other
Mex Pac cities like Guadalajara or Monterrey, where tournaments of this
caliber
typically end up when Mexico is the host country.
Even so, there is little doubt
that the U23 Baseball World Cup will be embraced in both cities, partly
because
they rarely (if ever) see global events on this scale but mostly
because fans
in Obregon and Los Mochis have proven over time that they love a good
ballgame. While a schedule has not been released, it's expected
that
Group stage games in the 12-nation tournament will be shared between
the two cities
while Obregon will host later contests all the way through the October
9 final
game.
Los
Mochis, a city of over 250,000 not far from the Copper Canyon in
northern
Sinaloa, is home to the Mex Pac's Caneros, who christened the recently
renovated 12,000-seat Estadio Emilio Ibarra Almada last October. The
ballpark's
400 million peso facelift included a total redo of the main grandstand,
which
now includes three levels: lower and upper box seats plus luxury boxes.
Along
with Guasave's Estadio Francisco Carranza Limon, the facility is the
"newest" in the LMP as the league seeks to modernize all of its
playing fields and leaves Navojoa's Estadio Manuel "Ciclon"
Echeverria, which opened in 1970, as the last remaining non-modern
facility in
the league.
Home
to over 400,000 residents, Ciudad Obregon (named after Revolution
leader Alvaro
Obregon, who later became preident of Mexico) is near the southern tip
of the
state of Sonora. Like Los Mochis, Obregon is an agricultural hub and is
served
by an international airport (Los Mochis' is for domestic flights only).
The LMP
Obregon Yaquis play in the 16,500-seat Estadio Yaquis, which was
completed in
2016 and is considered one of the country's nicest ballparks.
Both
stadiums to be used for the U23 Baseball World Cup are symmetrical:
Estadio
Emilio Ibarra Almada in Los Mochis has 320-foot foul lines with a
straightaway
center field fence of 400 feet while Obregon's Estadio Yaquis is 325
feet down
each foul line and 400 feet to center field. Players and coaches will
have
Class AAA-level clubhouse facilities in both venues as well.
Among
the 12 nations represented at the U23 Baseball World Cup, four are in
Latin
America: Besides host Mexico, teams from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela
will
compete. Asia will also send four national teams from Japan, South
Korea,
Taiwan and China while Germany, South Africa, New Zealand and the Czech
Republic will round out the field. New Zealand replaced Australia as
Oceania's
delegate squad after the Aussies pulled out of their qualifying series.
Professional players are allowed to represent teams at the tournament
and
several Mexican Leaguers are expected to fill out much of the Mexican
National
Team's roster, along with minor leaguers from MLB affiliates.
Mexico won the 2018 U23 Baseball World Cup in Barranquilla, Colombia under manager Jose Enrique Reyes, the first time the country had won a world championship in the sport above the Little League level. One of Mexico's three All-World Team members that year, catcher Orlando Pina, hit .294 and belted 16 homers in 90 games for Oaxaca last summer.