Tijuana 1983–2007

We caught weekend games of the Potros in a stadium that looked old the day it opened. The first time they tried to find it, Walt and Jay nearly drowned themselves in a driving rain. The concrete benches weren’t the most comfortable things to sit on, but they were the safest; anything else might fall apart beneath you.

Between innings, an old guy in a Potros uni would do a half–strip, then pour a bucket of dirt over his head. How’s that for entertainment!

The eventual major leaguers we saw here included one Mike Gallego, who would star with the A’s and Yankees.

Los Potros de Tijuana folded in 1991. However, a Triple–A club moved here from Nuevo Laredo to become los Toros de Tijuana and transformed the old Potros Stadium with major renovations. Their reward for a successful debut season was to be run out of town through a series of behind–the–scenes dealings that can charitably be described as “curious.”

Their place has been taken by — drum roll, please — ¡los Potros! That’s right. The Potros are back and playing Triple–A ball in their old home, renamed Estadio Calimax. (Guess we know now who paid for the renovations…)

Tijuana has few of what tourists would consider “sights.” One of the oddest, here or anywhere else, is TJ’s interpretation of Lady Liberty, a 50-foot statue, built in a poor neighborhood by Armando Muñoz, who lives in the statue itself! Walt calls her “La Señorita de Nakedness.” To this day, we’re never quite sure if she’s beckoning to the poor or flipping off the government, whose headquarters are down in the valley below Mesa de Otay.

Other highlights — beef at La Leña, margaritas at La Fogata, Italian food at Villa Saverio. A big treat was the Cerveza Tijuana brewery, a Czech beer, right down to its 20–something brewmaster. A block up from the city coroner. Oh well…

There is one “restaurant” we do avoid. In a shopping mall near the border is a spot with inviting double doors and a sign reading, "Cafe Peligro," minus the "a." In reality, the ‘Cfe’ stands for Comision Federal de Electricidad, and those doors hide a large and potentially lethal electrical transformer. We joke about one day having lunch at the “Cafe Peligro,” but I doubt seriously that we ever will…

Mexicali 1991–2003

When the Potros went belly-up, we headed into the desert to watch Los Aguilas de Mexicali. Our headquarters was the Hotel Lucerna. The Aguilas were entertaining and skilled. Among their opponents was, believe it or not, Fernando Valenzuela, still pitching for Hermosillo. Fans munched on flat, brown things about 12 by 8  inches, drizzled with limon y chile. Walt dubbed them "manila folders."  To this day, we don't know what they were. Weren't brave enough to try one.

The biggest star we ever saw in Mexicali was Willie Mays Aikens, who did time with the Angels, Royals and Blue Jays — before he ended up doing time with the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

A towering bear of a man, Aikens set World Series home–run records with the Royals. When we saw him in 1993, he was strutting around Aguilas Stadium, still wearing his World Series ring, baseball royalty in a smaller realm. The following year, he got himself busted selling crack cocaine to an undercop cop and drew 15 years in federal prison.

He was released in June 2008, a year early, after it was decided that the stricter punishment for selling crack versus powder cocaine was cruel and unusual. By then, however, he had already served 14 years of his sentence — six years longer than he played in the majors.

He ultimately did make one last All–Star lineup, though — Adam Conn’s Cocaine All–Stars. All coke, all the time.

Look at this lineup…and weep for what might have been.

We found unique souvenirs in a local uniform shop -- Mexican military insignia, police and firemen's badges. We also tracked down the old Mexicali brewery, home to a world–class beer until fire gutted it in 1957.

But perhaps our biggest discovery was Bamoa, a Mexican restaurant that specializes in breakfasts and fresh-squeezed juices of all kinds. Orange, pineapple, mango, passionfruit, you name it.

Gradually, though, Mexicali lost its luster and we made what we thought was our farewell trip there in 2001, only to return two winters later. The high point of that weekend was watching a bicycle race up the torturous 4,000–foot mountain pass at La Rumorosa. That's right, I said up!

Thanks to rampant Mexican inflation, our normal stomping ground, the Hotel Lucerna, was priced beyond our reach, so we ended up staying a short distance down the boulevard — in what happened to be the same hotel as that of the visiting Naranjeros of Hermosillo, whom we’d seen in Hermosillo the year before.

Gasoline now costs more here than in the United States. The stadium was somewhat rebuilt, but in the wake of 9–11, not as much fun. No more entertaining, beer–fueld brawls in the stands; Mexicali tactical cops searched everybody coming in, and anything so much as a loud disagreement was swooped down upon like the wrath of God.

Bamoa restaurant, with its mixture of hearty Mexican food and fresh–squeezed fruit juices, was still glorious, but a visit to the big shopping mall in down, across from the state capital center, was downright depressing and the Mexicali branch of La Leña had folded. What few sights there are to be seen here, we’d already seen several times.

For us, the bloom is off this desert rose.

Hermosillo 2001

Some of this city hasn’t changed much since Pancho Villa hung out here. The rest is basic, modern and commercial. Sonoran desert.

Folks here are friendly and they know their baseball. And the stadium here may be the best facility in all of Double–A. Computerized ticketing, comfortable seats, and aisles spacious enough even for 6–foot–7 Walt!

Great food, especially if you’s NOT a vegetarian. This is definitely beef country, as we found out. One steak palace in particular, near our hotel, stood out — mushrooms in garlic sauce, steaks cut to order, ice–cold Bohemias and Casta ales. 

We also saw a Carl’s Jr. the size of a small Mexican town. Three stories tall.

Walt and Jay scored big at the Naranjeros’ uniform shop. Greg was adopted by the Holiday InnRsquo;s stray cat, to whom Geoff donated a NY steak nearly as big as the cat itself!

We also made a very scenic side trip to Guaymas, a seaport town that makes its living fishing, with tourism and seafood second. A beautiful natural harbor and craggy mountains overlooking a gleaming sea.

Given its natural beauty, it looks to be a potentially popular spot for tourist development — probably at the expense of the local fushing industry, as happened in Acapulco, Cancun, the bays of Huatulco and a half&ndash'dozen or so other Mexican seaside towns.

In fact, we saw some pretty sizable seaside communities already going up while we were there. This could turn into a quiet alternative to the noisy coastal tourist zones already on offer along Mexico’s Pacific coast.

Mazatlan 2002

Looking for new venues, the Posse made its only sojourn to Mazatlan that winter. Despite its being one of Mexico’s more important tourist destinations, the place hardly registered on our collective radar. Greg, who had been there before, didn’t even make the trip. We’re not likely to be back any time soon.

On the other hand, now that Tijuana has a team in the Mexican League, they’ll be playing away games in Cancun.

Did someone say Cancun? Hmmmm…