A border team’s dream ends
Little League players in Tijuana are barred from World Series over U.S. schooling.
TIJUANA — They were only 6 and 7 years old at the time, but Municipal de Tijuana’s Little League players still remember the 2013 team that made it to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa.
Angel Aguilar, now 12, watched every game on ESPN. One day, he wanted to play in that tournament.
“It was my dream,” said Angel, a power-hitting infielder for Municipal de Tijuana.
That dream almost became a reality.
The Tijuana Little League team cruised through the district and regional tournaments undefeated. So when the team made it to Mexico’s national tournament — the one to determine which team represents the country and plays in front of ESPN cameras at the Little League World Series — Municipal de Tijuana was among the favorites.
Through the first three games of the tournament, which kicked off July 6, the preteens had outscored opponents by a combined score of 39 to 1, boasted a .487 team batting average and had a pitching staff with a 0.6 earned-run average.
“From the start of the tournament, all of the kids showed such high potential,” said coach Francisco Estrada. “Game after game, they showed that they deserved to be in Williamsport.”
But Tijuana’s season ended just five minutes before its fourth game. Its demise had nothing to do with anything that happened on the field — but a rival who accused it of fielding an ineligible team.
One of the teams Tijuana had already beaten, the defending champions from a regional baseball powerhouse of Matamoros, accused Municipal de Tijuana of having players who weren’t qualified to compete. The rival team said three players that Tijuana used in the district and regional tournaments attend school in the United States — which violates Little League International rules.
“This tournament is a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Estrada said. “They’ll never be 12 years old again. They’ll never get another chance to go to the Little League World Series.”
Estrada said he cried “tears of outrage” when he told the team what had happened. A video recording shows the players absorbing the news while sitting quietly in the stands.
Slowly, as the realization of what had happened sank in, they began to cry. One used a headband to wipe tears away from his cheeks, another pulled his baseball cap down over his eyes. Two players hung their heads and covered their faces with their jerseys as the rest of the team looked around aimlessly and cried.
“We didn’t see this coming,” said Karina Cecilia Arredondo, the mother of one of the players. “We were convinced that we had done everything by the book. That’s the hardest part of all of this. It’s not like we showed up with false paperwork and got caught. Everything was aboveboard.”
Tijuana had three players who attended public schools in the United States. All three of them are dual citizens who have lived in Tijuana most of their lives and been a part of that Little League since they were in preschool.
In a border city like Tijuana, it is common for dual citizens to split their lives between two countries. Some are children of divorce and spend half the time with one parent in Tijuana and the other in San Diego.
Others live in Tijuana but have relatives in San Diego and use their address to attend public schools.
The team never tried to hide the fact that some of its players attended U.S. schools.
The players’ registration clearly shows where they go to school.
The parents made a point to let organizers know about the three players before every tournament they participated in.
According to Alejandro Herrera, the parent of one of the dual citizens who was also in charge of registering the team, Municipal de Tijuana was allowed to use the three players in the district and regional tournaments. The heads of both of those tournaments assured Herrera that it would not be a problem.
Before the national tournament, Municipal de Tijuana submitted a roster to the tournament organizers that included where each player goes to school. Organizers there told the team that the three players could not participate, Herrera said.
Reluctantly, the team agreed. So the three stayed home in Tijuana while the rest of their teammates traveled to the small town of Sabinas, about three hours from Laredo, Texas.
Matamoros argued that because Tijuana used the dual-citizen players to qualify for the national tournament, they should not have been allowed to enter in the first place.
The team filed the complaint immediately after losing to Tijuana.
Little League International found Tijuana in violation of rules prohibiting players who attend public schools in the United States from participating in Little League in Mexico.
Those rules, Little League International spokesman Kevin Fountain said, were agreed upon by the Little League Charter Committee, the Latin American Regional Office and Little League Mexico.
“As outlined in the Little League Tournament Rules and Guidelines, if the facts establishing or verifying the ineligibility of a player are known after the ineligible player participated in a game during the International Tournament, that team shall be disqualified and removed from the International Tournament,” Fountain said in a statement.
That rule applies only to the U.S.-Mexico border and was established by Little League Mexico in coordination with Little League International and the Little League Latin America region, Fountain added.
That ruling is final and binding. Municipal de Tijuana cannot appeal, Fountain said. The Matamoros team that filed the protest went on to lose in the finals.
Any mention of Municipal de Tijuana has been removed from Little League Baseball’s official website.
Parents and coaches of the team are still struggling to understand why the kids were allowed to play in the initial two tournaments in the first place.
“I still haven’t found the words to explain to my son that they won three games and were disqualified anyway,” said Gilda Baez Vasquez, the mother of the team’s starting catcher.
Little League baseball is a big deal in Tijuana. Municipal de Tijuana has produced so many professional ballplayers in the U.S. and Mexico that when you ask coaches to name some of them, they ask you to specify the year.
Some of their most notable standouts include Rigo Beltran and Adrian Gonzalez, who played with the Dodgers, San Diego Padres and Boston Red Sox.
Because baseball is so popular in Tijuana, the backlash has gotten nasty.
Aaron Herrera, one of the three dual citizens, has been called a cheater by strangers on the internet. He felt so guilty over the team’s disqualification that he couldn’t face the other players at home in Tijuana.
“When the team came back to Tijuana after being eliminated, my son didn’t want to see them,” said Aaron’s father, Alejandro Herrera. Abraham Fareda Martinez, the catcher whose older brother was on the famous 2013 team, doesn’t want to play baseball anymore.
He says it’s no longer any fun. After he heard the bad news, his older brother called him from La Paz.
“He said, ‘It’s not your fault, this is because of something the other adults did,’ ” recalls their mother.
Other players, like Angel Aguilar, still have dreams of playing in the major leagues one day.
But they too have lost a bit of motivation.
“I’m 12, I’ll never get a chance to play in that tournament again,” Angel said.
For the parents, the worst part isn’t the fact that they spent almost $2,600 in hotel and travel costs. Or the sacrifice of taking their kids to practice every week. The worst part is seeing that their preteens were forced to grow up too soon.