Baseball on the Border: A Tale of Two Laredos

by Alan M. Klein

Overview

From 1985 to 1994 there existed a significant but unheralded experiment in professional baseball. For ten seasons, the Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos (The Owls of the Two Laredos) were the only team in professional sports to represent two nations. Playing in the storied Mexican League (an AAA affiliate of major league baseball), the "Tecos" had home parks on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, in Laredo, Texas and in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. In true border fashion, Mexican and American national anthems were played before each game, and the Tecos were operated by interests in both cities. Baseball on the Border is the story of the rise and unexpected demise of this surprising team.


For Alan Klein, a cultural anthropologist specializing in sport, "the border" is almost a nation of its own. Having formed teams of players from both sides of the Rio Grande for almost a century, organizers and followers of the "Border Birds" often join forces but just as frequently squabble with each other in a chronic border tension. Throughout the book, Klein includes firsthand observations of the team and descriptions of its players. Readers will meet Dan Firova, the Tecos' beleaguered manager, a border-region native who nevertheless finds himself a target of the Mexican media. The "Ugly American," Willie Waite, is a young pitcher whose stunning success does nothing to diminish the disdain he has for his Mexican teammates. Ernesto Barraza, "The Trickster," once threw a no-hitter on only seventy-three pitches (on April Fool's Day, appropriately enough), but occasionally shows up at the park missing part of his uniform. And then there is Andres Mora, an aged slugger who, despite three seasons in major league baseball and a life of personal excesses, came within a few home runs of setting the all-time Mexican League record.


This is just part of the roster of the Tecos and only a fraction of the lineup of Baseball on the Border. Anyone with an interest in baseball will be enlightened and entertained by this informative book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691007441
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	03/21/1999
Series:	Tale of Two Laredos
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Alan M. Klein is Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Northeastern University. He is the author of Sugarball: The American Game, The Dominican Dream, and Little Big Men: Bodybuilding Subculture and Gender Construction.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction	3
Pt. 1	Origins	15
1	A Brief History of the Two Laredos	17
2	Early Baseball on the Border	32
3	Nationalizing the Game	66
Pt. 2	Becoming Tecos	115
4	The Players and the Team	117
5	Culture and Masculinity on the Tecos	151
Pt. 3	The River Joins and the River Divides	171
6	1993: The Best of Times	173
7	1994: The Worst of Times	204
Acknowledgments	239
Appendix A	Bibliographic Essay: Border and Nationalisms	243
Appendix B	Methods and Perspective	260
Notes	267
Index	289

What People are Saying About This

Patricia A. Adler

With Klein's Baseball on the Border we are treated to a glimpse of what an astute observer of social life, popular culture, and sport can teach us about larger cultural issues. With a sensitive eye for detail, a nuanced understanding of culture, and conceptual acumen, Klein provides a fascinating account of baseball as a transnational phenomenon. Not only do we learn about how baseball is played within the context of these diverging cultures, but we also learn about the structural dimensions of nationalism and how this gets borne out through sport.

Adler

With Klein's Baseball on the Border we are treated to a glimpse of what an astute observer of social life, popular culture, and sport can teach us about larger cultural issues. With a sensitive eye for detail, a nuanced understanding of culture, and conceptual acumen, Klein provides a fascinating account of baseball as a transnational phenomenon. Not only do we learn about how baseball is played within the context of these diverging cultures, but we also learn about the structural dimensions of nationalism and how this gets borne out through sport.
— Patricia A. Adler, University of Colorado, and Peter Adler, University of Denver

Joseph Arbena

This stimulating and insightful book enlarges our understanding of nationalism and identity in a borderlands context. Klein skillfully uses baseball and ethnography to get at the dynamics of international relations as well as the harmonious and conflictive interaction among Mexicans, Anglo Americans, and Mexican Americans. A must read for scholars and aficionados of the workings of border society.

Patricia A. and Peter Adler

Read this book, enjoy the characterizations of the players, managers, and administrators ... listen to the crowd cheer for their home town heroes, and pause to think, as Klein paints the picture with a masters stroke, of what this [book] can tell us about transnational relations and the impact of sport.
— Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler, authors of "Backboards and Blackboards"

Douglas E. Foley

Few studies of this nature exist. Klein's general argument about tri-nationalism and sports is interesting, and he has also provided enough historical context and in-depth material on social relationships to make a solid addition to studies of the border and Southwestern race relations, as well.

Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler, authors of Backboards and Blackboards

Read this book, enjoy the characterizations of the players, managers, and administrators ... listen to the crowd cheer for their home town heroes, and pause to think, as Klein paints the picture with a masters stroke, of what this [book] can tell us about transnational relations and the impact of sport.

Foley

Few studies of this nature exist. Klein's general argument about tri-nationalism and sports is interesting, and he has also provided enough historical context and in-depth material on social relationships to make a solid addition to studies of the border and Southwestern race relations, as well.
— Douglas E. Foley, University of Texas at Austin

Patricia A. Adler, University of Colorado, and Peter Adler, University of Denver

With Klein's Baseball on the Border we are treated to a glimpse of what an astute observer of social life, popular culture, and sport can teach us about larger cultural issues. With a sensitive eye for detail, a nuanced understanding of culture, and conceptual acumen, Klein provides a fascinating account of baseball as a transnational phenomenon. Not only do we learn about how baseball is played within the context of these diverging cultures, but we also learn about the structural dimensions of nationalism and how this gets borne out through sport.

Joseph Arbena, Clemson University

This stimulating and insightful book enlarges our understanding of nationalism and identity in a borderlands context. Klein skillfully uses baseball and ethnography to get at the dynamics of international relations as well as the harmonious and conflictive interaction among Mexicans, Anglo Americans, and Mexican Americans. A must read for scholars and aficionados of the workings of border society.

From the Publisher

"Few studies of this nature exist. Klein's general argument about tri-nationalism and sports is interesting, and he has also provided enough historical context and in-depth material on social relationships to make a solid addition to studies of the border and Southwestern race relations, as well."—Douglas E. Foley, University of Texas at Austin

"This stimulating and insightful book enlarges our understanding of nationalism and identity in a borderlands context. Klein skillfully uses baseball and ethnography to get at the dynamics of international relations as well as the harmonious and conflictive interaction among Mexicans, Anglo Americans, and Mexican Americans. A must read for scholars and aficionados of the workings of border society."—Joseph Arbena, Clemson University

"With Klein's Baseball on the Border we are treated to a glimpse of what an astute observer of social life, popular culture, and sport can teach us about larger cultural issues. With a sensitive eye for detail, a nuanced understanding of culture, and conceptual acumen, Klein provides a fascinating account of baseball as a transnational phenomenon. Not only do we learn about how baseball is played within the context of these diverging cultures, but we also learn about the structural dimensions of nationalism and how this gets borne out through sport."—Patricia A. Adler, University of Colorado, and Peter Adler, University of Denver

"Read this book, enjoy the characterizations of the players, managers, and administrators ... listen to the crowd cheer for their home town heroes, and pause to think, as Klein paints the picture with a masters stroke, of what this [book] can tell us about transnational relations and the impact of sport."—Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler, authors of Backboards and Blackboards

Peter & Patricia A. Adler

Read this book, enjoy the characterizations of the players, managers, and administrators ... listen to the crowd cheer for their home town heroes, and pause to think, as Klein paints the picture with a masters stroke, of what this [book] can tell us about transnational relations and the impact of sport.
— Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler, authors of "Backboards and Blackboards"

Douglas E. Foley, University of Texas at Austin

Few studies of this nature exist. Klein's general argument about tri-nationalism and sports is interesting, and he has also provided enough historical context and in-depth material on social relationships to make a solid addition to studies of the border and Southwestern race relations, as well.

Editorial Reviews

[Klein] does a fine job of reporting, and his prose is muscular, insightful, even witty.

Philadelphia Inquirer - Jon Caroulis

This work is a superb lab experiment in the hands of a competent anthropologist like Klein as he tries to separate fantasy from reality in this dual cultural baseball experiment.... An excellent book.

Nine: A Journal of Baseball History and Social Policy Perspectives - Bill Kirwin

The book is very well written. . . . It contributes greatly to the literature on the cultural basis of sport, to our understanding of the manner in which cultural inventions reflect national identity and processes, and substantiates an important insight to the idea that sport may provide a window to ongoing social change.

American Anthropologist - Carlos Velez-Ibanez

The book is very well written. . . . It contributes greatly to the literature on the cultural basis of sport, to our understanding of the manner in which cultural inventions reflect national identity and processes, and substantiates an important insight to the idea that sport may provide a window to ongoing social change.
— Carlos Velez-Ibañez

American Anthropologist

[Klein] does a fine job of reporting, and his prose is muscular, insightful, even witty.
— Jon Caroulis

Philadelphia Inquirer

The book is very well written. . . . It contributes greatly to the literature on the cultural basis of sport, to our understanding of the manner in which cultural inventions reflect national identity and processes, and substantiates an important insight to the idea that sport may provide a window to ongoing social change.

American Anthropologist - Carlos Velez-Ibañez

This work is a superb lab experiment in the hands of a competent anthropologist like Klein as he tries to separate fantasy from reality in this dual cultural baseball experiment.... An excellent book.
— Bill Kirwin

Nine: A Journal of Baseball History and Social Policy Perspectives

This work is a superb lab experiment in the hands of a competent anthropologist like Klein as he tries to separate fantasy from reality in this dual cultural baseball experiment.... An excellent book.
— Bill Kirwin

Nine: A Journal of Baseball History and Social Policy Perspectives

Winner of the 1997 Book of the Year, North American Society for the Sociology of Sport

From the Publisher