‘There is history here': For Laredo's baseball team, the US/Mexico border is their true hometown

The Guardian

6 days ago

The differences between attending a baseball game in the US and Mexico are difficult to miss. The on-field rules are identical, but the atmosphere in Mexican baseball stands is noisy, musical, constant and infectious. The two fan cultures are distinct enough that, were you to drop a blindfolded supporter into either crowd, they would be able to identify which side of the Rio Grande they stood within seconds – or so you might think. Reality is never so binary.
Despite the often unyielding political debates about them, international borders rarely possess hard edges. This is particularly true in South Texas, and not merely as some writerly conceit - even that most material indicator of crossing a border, a checkpoint with customs officers, can be found 50 miles away from the actual national boundary. The Rio Grande may delineate where Mexico and the US officially begin and end, but the famous river simultaneously exists at the centre of economies, communities and individual lives that span both of its banks. Living with one foot in Laredo (on the US side) and the other in Nuevo Laredo (in Mexico) is so intrinsic to life here that it's even reflected in the name of the cities' beloved baseball team, los Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos (the Two Laredos Owls).
Like many things in border regions, the team affectionately known as 'los Tecos' enjoys multiple identities. As their name suggests, they play home games on both sides of the border, making them simultaneously Mexican, American and, perhaps most of all, representative of the blended experience that has always survived in the blurry lines between the two.
'The US-Mexican border es una herida abierta [is an open wound] where the Third World grates against the First and bleeds,' wrote Gloria Anzaldúa, a scholar and South Texas native whose Borderlands/La Frontera is considered a seminal work on the subject. 'The lifeblood of two worlds merg[es] to form a third country.' This third country, to many, is the cultural zone known as La Frontera (the border).
People on either side of many borders often have more in common with each other than they do with their compatriot communities deeper in their own countries' heartlands. This is the case along the Rio Grande and, as such, los Tecos can also be viewed as La Frontera's de facto national team. They are first and foremost, however, representatives of the two Laredos.
'Yes, there are fans in Matamoros, Reynosa, Piedras Negras [other cities along the Texas-Mexico border],' says Juan Alanis, a media official for los Tecos who also serves as one of the team's play-by-play broadcasters. 'The base, the nucleus [however] is in the two Laredos … there's a history here.'
Los Tecos compete in the Liga Mexicana de Béisbol (the Mexican Baseball League, or LMB), a competition featuring twenty teams spread across much of the country, from Tijuana to Cancún. Club baseball lacks a standard metric for comparing domestic leagues à la European football but, depending on the criteria and source, the LMB is arguably the third- to sixth-strongest domestic competition in the world. Although LMB baseball falls well below the standard of play in the MLB and Japan's NPB, it is arguably as good as (or better than) leagues in Korea, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic (during the LMB's offseason, Mexico also hosts a smaller and shorter winter baseball league which some pundits argue to be Mexico's highest standard of baseball).
What can be said about without debate, however, is that the LMB was considered a AAA competition (i.e., on par with the second-highest level of competition in the U.S.) from 1967 until the 2021 restructuring of minor league baseball. The LMB is also older than all the non-US leagues mentioned above – indeed, the league is now celebrating its 100th anniversary.Los Tecos have been there for most of it.
Mexican baseball clubs bounce from city to city at least as much as their US counterparts, but a club called los Tecolotes has played in either Laredo or Nuevo Laredo for the vast majority of seasons since the 1940s. The current team may technically be the third franchise to bear the Tecos name, but such trivialities seem to matter little to fans.
'The entire place was a party,' fan Ricardo Ábrego says of los Tecos' penultimate championship in 1977 (two franchises ago). A 58-year-old carpenter from Nuevo Laredo, Ábrego attended the match with his extended family and smiles at the memory. Sporting a plushie Tecos mascot poking out of his breast pocket, it's fair to call Ábrego a superfan. When asked what los Tecos mean to him, he replies 'todo' (everything) before going on to recount the team's championship pedigree.
With five titles under their belt, los Tecos are one of the LMB's winningest teams, roughly analogous to the MLB's Detroit Tigers in terms of post-season success (as well as their location on the northern border). Such success, when partnered with the team's longevity in the area, makes Tecos fandom a multi-generational affair.
'I've always liked them – my grandfather always liked them,' says 23-year-old factory worker Eduardo Espino. 'For my family, it's baseball more than football. I think it's because we are from La Frontera, we're very fronteriza [of the border culture].'
In many ways, Espino exemplifies the Tecos' binational identity – despite living in Nuevo Laredo, most of his childhood memories of Tecos games are from the Texas side of the border. He speaks with the Guardian, however, while attending a match in Nuevo Laredo, where he prefers the atmosphere.
'The people at the matches in Nuevo Laredo are more emotional,' says Espino 'The stands are full and the support is just… more.' Alanis and Ábrego both agree–a slight preference for the (much older) stadium in Nuevo Laredo seems to be a universally acknowledged but unwritten truth among Tecos supporters.
'I prefer the atmosphere in Nuevo Laredo,' says superfan Ábrego, before clarifying that he loves going to games at both sites. '
'[In Nuevo Laredo], the crowd is more passionate, fiercer, more grrrr,' notes Alanis the broadcaster. 'But respectful, always respectful … If the fielder of the other team makes a good play, the fans applaud.' This is more than just the positive PR of a marketing professional. On several occasions at the games this correspondent attended, Tecos fans applaud the away team's defensive efforts. This, however, happens at games in both Laredo and Nuevo Laredo – as ever, either side of the border have much in common.
Yes, the stadium at Nuevo Laredo is a bit louder than its counterpart in Laredo (especially owing to the presence of a regularly hand-cranked raid siren). But, to someone used to East Coast baseball, home games in the two Laredos are more similar than they are different.
On both sides of the border, many plays (even simple strikes early in the count) are greeted with a stadium-wide chorus of twirling matracas, wooden mechanical noisemakers that one spins and were common sights at British football grounds a half-century ago. Hand-pumped airhorns are also popular and regularly activated.
'In Mexico, compared to MLB, there's always noise, noise, noise until the pitcher pitches, [when] it's silent,' says Alanis. 'You have 12 seconds with the pitch clock, [so] the DJ knows he can play music for ten seconds. It's very normal in Mexico.' Indeed, either English-language pop music (think Michael Jackson and Clearance Clearwater Revival) or Spanish-language genres popular in La Frontera (think Selena and Grupo Frontera) are loudly piped through the stadium's speakers until just before the pitcher begins his windup. The music's constant fading in and out can cause a sensory overload but, given how many fans are actively dancing and singing between pitches, it palpably adds to the atmosphere (and, in line with what every interviewee above said, there is certainly a bit more dancing in the crowd at the game in Nuevo Laredo).
Aside from the acoustic experience, attending an LMB game is a nice mix of the best elements of both major and minor league baseball in the US. As with the minor leagues, a Tecos game is cheap and family friendly; parking is free and just four dollars buys both a hot dog and a small beer, even at the Laredo stadium. Like the US major leagues, however, LMB games feature in-stadium replays on the big screen and significant emotional investment all around the ballpark. Pitchers pound their chest emphatically after a strike out and fans with worried faces clasp their hands in prayer. LMB baseball's existence at la frontera of minor and major league baseball appeals to players as well fans.
'It's been fun – everywhere I've been has been awesome,' says Stephen Gonsalves, a pitcher for the visiting Charros de Jalisco who previously played for the MLB's Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins. Gonsalves is part of a recent wave of US players who've opted to play in the LMB. 'There are fewer jobs stateside,' he adds, referring to the nationwide reduction of minor league teams in the US in 2020. 'So, now … there are a lot of older, veteran guys that have played in the big leagues. Every team has at least three or four former big leaguers on it… It's good competition.'
LMB players also seem to enjoy a higher quality of life than their minor league counterparts.
'Minor league baseball was a hassle,' says Andrew Pérez, another pitcher from the visiting Charros team who spent six years with Chicago White Sox organization, including significant time with their AAA affiliate. 'I was in the minor leagues when you had eight guys in an apartment.' Now, for players like Pérez and Gonsalves, the most annoying logistical hurdles seem to be the multiple border crossings and hotels during away stands at the two Laredos (home games alternate between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo). This cross-border shuffling seems to be a common complaint among visiting teams, and may even represent a homefield advantage for los Tecos.
For many, many residents of both Laredos (including los Tecos), crossing the US-Mexico border is simply a bureaucratic fact of daily life, much like toll roads or paying for public transport in other cities. Recent surges in media coverage may suggest the presence of some new crisis at the border but, based on those responses of those who live around it, it's business as usual. Every person interviewed for this article said that they hadn't noticed a significant change at the border in recent months and, if anything, seemed a little amused by my questions on the subject. In the two Laredos, the border has always been a part of everyday life and will continue to be long after the surge in interest dies down.
By claiming both Laredos as their home, los Tecos' fronteriza identity represents an older, historical and undivided Laredo that predates the United States and was only bifurcated in the 19th century as a result of the Mexican-American War. Here on the Rio Grande, questions of national jurisdiction seem temporary compared to the longevity of many families' and communities' presence in the area. Los Tecos represent the reality of those people. Walking back over the bridge to the US from the game in Nuevo Laredo (the CBP officer, a fan, asks about the game), the river look remarkably un-grande.