BINATIONAL PASTIME:
Culture and society laid bare on the baseball field. By Alan Klein
So much of academic research begins with passing observations or naive inquiry. My study of baseball on the Rio Grande is a case in point. In 1993 I traveled to the border cities of Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas (Mexico), to talk with officials of the Yucatan Tigres, a baseball team I was interested in researching-my anthropological specialty being the relationship of sport to culture and politics. My meeting scheduled for after the game, I took a seat in the grandstand to enjoy some minor-league baseball. Nine innings and several informal conversations later, I scrapped my study of the Tigres in favor of the home team-the Tecos.
I learned that the Tecos-short for los tecolotes de los dos Laredos (owls of the two Laredos)-were officially binational, the only such sporting arrangement in the world. Since 1985, the Tecos had represented both sides of the border, with home fields in Texas and Tamaulipas. Both the Mexican and American national anthems were played prior to the team's games; the roster was made up of men from both countries. The team's owner resided in Nuevo Laredo, while the vice president, who ran the team, lived in Laredo. Wondering how two countries with a history of conflict and resentment had come to share such a property, I embarked on a study of baseball and nationalism on the border. My findings are discussed at length in my forthcoming book, Baseball on the Border: A Tale of Two Laredos, due out in April from Princeton University Press.
I quickly came to see that conventional notions of nationalism, built around pride and prejudice, formed only a part of the picture. The border does not curb relations, it fosters them. In studying the team and its fans, I observed that the people of the two Laredos have always experienced an uncomfortable interdependence, in which they alternately cooperate and fight with each other. "One week we call each other every name in the book, the next we invite each other to weddings," is the way it was put to me. Along the border, the phrase "national self-interest" is an oxymoron. Whether the issue is water rights, environmental pollution, smuggling, or planning a festival, each side's concern necessitates the inclusion of the other side. This in turn supports the development of middlemen who function smoothly in both countries: people who get things done, cutting through the petty jealousy, political red tape, and national acrimony. Tecos vice president Chito Rodriguez, for example, sent players and electronics parts across the border in both directions with equal aplomb. His fielding of faxes and phone calls from so many different sectors would give any shortstop pause.
I found that a third nationalism is present, distinct from that of Mexico and that of the United States. The people on the two sides of the river have long had more in common with each other than with their respective countries of political affiliation. For borderland peoples, this transnationalism has led them to create their own identity-in the breakaway Republic of the Rio Grande of 1840, for example.
Baseball has been a prominent focus of this borderland identity since the coming of the railroad in 1881. I listened to Fernando Dovalina and Ismael Montalvo, both well into their eighties, as they gathered daily with an ever-shrinking group of cronies at Margarita's Restaurant to relive games played sixty years ago. Compared with the Tecos, the old barnstorming teams of the 1930s were even more interdependent and transnational. The Laredos hosted separate teams then that played hard-fought, even bitter, contests, yet the two cities couldn't keep players from crossing the river to play against their countrymen if they could earn a few more dollars. Should another team come to town, however, differences were put aside and a team comprising the region's best would stand up for borderland pride. The team of the two Laredos held its own against all comers, with the exception of the legendary pitcher Satchel Paige, who shut them down twice in a single week.
During my stay on the border, the North American Free Trade Agreement became effective. Several American newspapers made the team the subject of stories, opining that its binational harmony foretold the future of relations between the U.S. and Mexico. Yet the Tecos's arrangement was quite frail. For two seasons I watched the players cooperate on the field and, with increasing frequency, fight off it. Americans and Mexicans both were resentful. For the former, playing in Mexico was stigmatizing, perhaps signaling an end to their careers. Their bitterness was palpable. Jay Baller started his year with the Tecos on an upbeat note, but degenerated once he realized that the Atlanta Braves had no intention of calling him up during the season. His anger, like that of many of his countrymen, often turned nationalistic, as when he bellowed that he did "the work of any two Mexicans" or railed against the Mexican character of Laredo, which is ninety-three percent Hispanic: "You guys should move this shit border north a couple of miles so you could all be together!" Willie Waite, a former first-round draft pick of the Texas Rangers, took every opportunity to insult the south side of the border. After commenting loudly and at length about the "filthiness" of "this shit country," Waite didn't bat an eye when asking his Mexican roommate whether he was clean enough to room with.
For the Mexicans, having to play with pampered gringos who received much better pay and treatment, and at the same time acted so condescendingly, fueled their preexisting resentment of Americans. Most ignored the insults. Pitcher Juan Alvarez, a Yaqui Indian, encouraged his fellow Mexicans to focus on the "real" Tecos. "These men pass through each year, but we've been together since the beginning. We'll be together again next year, in the championship again. Where will these culeros [assholes] be next year?" Some, like Ernesto Barraza, would snap back. He lashed out one night at Baller for screaming obscenities in a hotel corridor when the front desk didn't respond quickly enough to his demands. An irate Barraza snarled, "You come here to be served? We owe you nothing. We take you in when you're washed up, and you disrespect us? You disgust me!"
Yet, come game time, all the players suited up, saluted each other's national anthems, and synchronized their play in an effort to win. And win they did, for over a decade. The Tecos made it to Mexican League postseason play ten straight years, winning the championship in 1989 and coming close three other times. But in 1994 it all unraveled within months, as eleven of the team's best players were traded and the owner sold the team. In the wake of these deliberate attempts by the Mexican owner to cannibalize the club, the disgusted Laredo contingent severed its contract with the Tecos, ending the binational arrangement. The Tecos of Nuevo Laredo played miserably in 1995 and 1996.
Now, as my book is set to appear, I'm not surprised to learn that in 1997, the club will once again play in Laredo. Following the old border adage that "the river joins and the river divides," the two Laredos will continue to engage and spurn each other in the unending dance of revolving nationalisms.
Alan Klein is a professor of anthropology.
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