MEXICO CITY — A day before Major League Baseball played its first regular season games here, Nick Martinez, a pitcher for the San Diego Padres, had an idea. Accompanied by some teammates, he visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Friday, a day off for both the San Francisco Giants and Padres.
On his way to the church, Martinez saw several shops selling piñatas. He bought a few, hoping they could be crushed by the player of the game after each of the games.
“Being in San Diego, Mexican culture is a big part of our culture,” Martinez said. “And being here in Mexico for this series, the piñatas were a chance to keep that Mexican culture in our clubhouse.”
So after the Padres beat the Giants 16-11 on Saturday in a slugfest made possible by Mexico City conditions, Padres designated hitter Nelson Cruz donned a sombrero in the colors of the Mexican flag as he struggled for a . Breaking Buzz open. Lightyear pinata. His teammates cheered him on while wearing Mexican lucha libre wrestling masks. And after a 6-4 Padres victory on Sunday, first baseman Matt Carpenter sent candy flying into the clubhouse floor when he cracked open a star-shaped piñata.
“It was a very short bat,” Cruz later explained of his piñata troubles. Finally he gave up and tore it open by hand. “If it had been a normal bat, it would have been done in one swing.”
For two days, the MLB games at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helu were a celebration of Mexico and its love of baseball. The league had previously played regular season games in Monterrey in 1996, 1999, 2018 and 2019. In the past, exhibition games were played in Mexico City, but playing games that mattered in the nation’s capital was different.
MLB wanted to do this in Mexico City before, but the $166 million stadium, which can seat 20,000 fans, wasn’t completed until 2019. The facility is home to the Mexican League’s Diablos Rojos, a team owned by Mexican billionaire Alfredo Harp Helu, also a co-owner of the Padres.
Mexico City is one of the largest cities in the world, a metropolis with more people (22 million) than New York City (20 million) and 2,000 feet higher than Denver, home to MLB’s Colorado Rockies and famously standing a mile above sea level. It is also the largest city in North America without a franchise in the region’s four major men’s professional sports leagues (NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB).
Football may be the biggest sport in Mexico, but baseball holds a strong foothold, especially in certain regions of this country of 127 million people. Given that the Toronto Blue Jays are the MLB team for all of Canada, baseball officials and fans alike have been dreaming about the potential of an expansion franchise in Mexico City.
“It would be a great experience,” said Juan Soto, a star outfielder for the Padres who hails from the Dominican Republic. “It reminds me of football, where those players travel from city to city.”
While MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has in the past praised Mexico City’s business prospects and the Mexican market as a whole, he recently said he had “never been close to the idea of Mexico as an expansion opportunity.”
“The challenges are facility-based,” he said last week. “Even the stadium we’re playing in this weekend is probably not big enough for a permanent home for a Premier League club. And then of course our season is so long. I have a union issue there that needs to be negotiated to keep players in Mexico for so long to let live.’
The current goal for Mexico, Manfred said, was to improve the MLB’s relationships with existing professional baseball leagues there and for the country to become a North American equivalent of Japan, with “vibrant, domestic professional play” and “star players who get a chance to play.” and play Major League Baseball.” He said having more Mexican players in MLB baseball would help appeal to the large Mexican American audience in the United States and create more broadcast interest in Mexico.
Judging by the competition weekend in Mexico City, there was indeed an appetite for the sport. The scenes in the stands and on the field reflected a vibrant baseball culture. Tickets for the games sold out quickly in November. About 20,000 fans attended every game, but it sounded like more.
Mexican food – including micheladas, tacos, aguachile and churros – were sold in abundance. A mariachi band played during the games and performed a rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh inning. Hundreds of fans lingered outside the stadium after the final game to send both teams away with cheers and waves.
“It was great,” said Manny Machado, a third baseman for the Padres whose family is from the Dominican Republic. “What impressed me the most was the fans and how passionate they were, especially for us Latinos who play with a lot of passion and energy.”
After each of the seven home runs they hit this weekend, the Padres, the closest MLB team to the Mexican border, placed a sombrero on the head of the player who hit the ball over the fence. Fernando Tatis Jr. bought it on Friday during a trip to the famous canals of Xochimilco in Mexico City. When Padres relievers walked to the bullpen, they did so in lucha libre masks donated to the team by Mexican-American professional wrestler Rey Mysterio.
“It means a lot,” Tatis said of playing in Mexico City. “For us Latin Americans, it’s a beautiful thing to play for our people and bring the game to the kids who don’t normally see us play in the US”
According to MLB, about three-quarters of tickets sold online were purchased in Mexico, with the remaining tickets purchased in the United States, primarily in California. But walking around the stands, it felt like more Padres fans from the United States were visiting and several said they bought their tickets online through secondary market resellers in Mexico.
Felipe Pérez, 44, said he had met many fans from the United States in the left-field stands, as well as several Mexicans who had traveled from around the country. He was one of them; he said he took a seven-hour bus ride from Veracruz, a city on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, on Saturday, arriving in Mexico City just in time for the 4 p.m. game. The next day he returned home at 11:00 am.
All that effort was worth it, Pérez said, because he loves baseball. He added in Spanish, “I’m happy. To see a big league game here, that’s the best thing.”
Pérez had been waiting for these matches. He and his family bought tickets for the April 2020 series in Mexico City between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Padres that were erased by the pandemic. He marveled at the atmosphere around him on Saturday while drinking a beer.
“Mexicans have a way of enjoying shows and life,” Pérez said as fans stomped their feet for Tatis on the record. “People get behind a team. Watch people cheer.”
In recent years, Mexican baseball has improved on the international scene. The opening day of the MLB rosters this season saw 15 players born in Mexico, the most since 2005. In March, the Mexico national team finished third in the World Baseball Classic, its best performance in the tournament. And the most powerful fan in Mexico is the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who hosted a Sunday breakfast at El Palacio Nacional for, among others, Trevor Hoffman, a Hall of Famer who played for the Padres; Sergio Romo, a reliever who won three World Series titles with the Giants; and Harp Helu.
Romo, who is Mexican-American, said he didn’t think the hurdles for Mexico City as a future MLB home were as great as some might think. He said English was widely spoken in the international hub and there was a lot of tourism and history here.
“I feel like Mexico has a bit of a bad reputation in terms of safety and stuff,” he said. “But here in Mexico you’re safe. Lots of cool stuff happening and of course every city has its neighborhoods you don’t want to go to. But this place has so many other places that are so welcoming and open.”
Regular season games are expected to return to Mexico City at the very least. As part of its overseas push in recent years, MLB played games in London for the first time in 2019, expanding a world tour that has already included Japan, Puerto Rico and Australia. In the latest employment agreement, MLB and the players union agreed to play more regular season games in London, some in Paris in 2025 and annual trips to Mexico City from 2023 to 2026.
Mexico City’s elevation and turf will present players with some ongoing challenges – or advantages. On Saturday, the ball whizzed through the thinner air as the teams combined for 11 home runs and 30 hits. Defenders said the ball jumped off the ground and shot past them.
Pitchers said their pitches weren’t moving as usual, clarifying that it was an even bigger problem than at Denver’s Coors Field. After running the bases on Saturday, Cruz said he was more out of breath. Yu Darvish, the Padres pitcher, said umpires told him he could call a trainer during his Sunday start if he felt too breathless. Alex Cobb, a pitcher for the Giants, said his team’s training staff increased fluids and electrolytes to prevent dehydration.
But for a team expected to contend for the playoffs, and who had previously struggled at the plate, a memorable trip to Mexico City may have been just what the Padres needed.
“I’d like to stay here another week,” said Machado, who homered twice.