This calendar year, 2025, is the one hundredth anniversary of the Mexican Baseball League, Liga Mexicana de Béisbol (LMB), founded in 1925.
The Mexican Baseball League is the oldest professional sports league in Mexico. It is the ninth-richest professional sports league (by revenue) in North America and the second-richest baseball league in the Western Hemisphere (after Major League Baseball in the U.S.)
There are 20 teams in the Mexican Baseball League, 10 in the North Division and 10 in the South Division.
Like the World Series of Major League Baseball, the Mexican Baseball League has its own
best of 7 game championship, the Serie del Rey (the King’s Series).
The name of a Mexican Baseball League team may be generic, or it may reflect something about the city, state or region in which it is located.
Some examples of the latter:
1. Saraperos de Saltillo – The serape (sarape in Spanish) is a traditional men’s garment consisting of a woven rectangular cloak like a poncho but without a hole for the head. The city of Saltillo is famous for serapes, thus the team name.
2. Algodoneros de Unión Laguna – Historically, algodón (cotton) has been an important crop in the Laguna area, thus algodonero refers to people who cultivate or deal in cotton.
3. Acereros de Monclova – The “steelers” in honor of the importance of the steel industry in Monclova.
4. Olmecas de Tabasco – The Olmecs were a pre-Hispanic culture that flourished from 1200 B.C. to 400 B.C., in what are now the states of Tabasco and Veracruz.
5. Conspiradores de Querétaro – “Conspirators of Queretaro” – Named after a group of conspirators in the insurgency which became the Mexican independence movement two centuries ago.
The Mexican Baseball League actually has one binational team – the Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos, the Owls of the Two Laredos, with one stadium in Mexico’s Nuevo Laredo and another on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande in Laredo, Texas.
Historically, the most successful team in the league are the Diablos Rojos del México, the “Red Devils of Mexico City”. The second most successful team are the Tigres de Quintana Roo. In third place are the Sultanas de Monterrey.
The Mexican Baseball League began in 1925, founded by sports journalist Alejandro Aguilar Reyes and baseball player Ernesto Carmona. The first game was played on June 28th, 1925.
Besides Mexican players, the Mexican Baseball League was able to recruit Cuban players and players from the Negro Leagues in the U.S. In 1946, there were 22 Major League baseball players enticed away from the U.S. to play in the Mexican league.
One of the Negro League players who went to play in Mexico was Monte Irvin, who after playing for the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League, went to Mexico and played the 1942 season in the Mexican Baseball League.
Irvin played for the Azules de Veracruz, which though it had relocated to Mexico City still bore Veracruz as part of its name.
Even though Monte Irvin arrived to Mexico late in the season and missed almost a third of it, he led the league with a batting average of .397 and hit 20 home runs.
One of these home runs is related to an interesting anecdote involving Jorge Pasquel, then President of the Mexican Baseball League and owner of the Azules.
As reported by Larry Hogan of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) : “In a game in Mexico City when it was Monte’s time to bat, the Blues owner, Pasquel, called him over to his box seat and in effect ordered him to hit a home run. Monte demurred, saying the best he could do was to keep the rally going. Pasquel insisted that it be a home run. When Roy Campanella, catcher for the Monterrey team [another recruit from the Negro Leagues], learned from Monte what was going on, he said, ‘No way.’ After taking a strike, and fouling off the second pitch, Monte, guessing fastball, caught one on the fat of the bat for a game-winning shot over the center-field fence. Campanella was beside himself until Monte came over and said that Pasquel had given him $500 and told him to split it with Campy. “My man, my man,” said Campy in reply.”
As Monte Irvin reminisced, “When I got to home plate, Jorge was there to greet me and he had 500 bucks in his hand.”
Irvin wanted to return the next season but was drafted for the U.S. Army in World War II.
In 1949 Irvin finally made it to the Major Leagues, in the New York Giants, just two years after Jackie Robinson broke the color line.
Bowman Gum
Monte Irvin looked back at his year in Mexico as the best in his life: “For the first time in my life I felt really free. You could go anywhere, go to any theater, do anything, eat in any restaurant, just like anybody else, and it was wonderful.”
Felicidades to the Mexican Baseball League on its 100th anniversary.