Striking Gold in Baja : American Team Wins Medal, Mixes Cultures, in Mexican Softball Tournament

“ Queremos Ganar ,” shouted the wife of my Mexican friend, Victor Castro, over a dinner of chile rellenos, soft tacos and tostadas. It was opening night of the Mexicana Silver Cup, an international mixed slow-pitch softball tournament held here each fall.

“We want to win,” Carmen Castro repeated in Spanish as my wife, Ellen, and I visited with them in their tortilleria. “Win, Paoul , win.”

Four and a half days and eight games later, the Gamblers softball team of Redondo Beach honored her request, becoming the first U.S. team to win a gold medal in the tournament. Previously, only teams from Canada and Mexico participated.

It was a tournament unique to slow-pitch softball, played on silty bone-dry dirt fields in a tropical setting. Like the Olympics, it brought together different cultures, bound thinly by an athletic event. For that reason, none of us will forget the experience.

“I never really expected to come down here and win the tournament,” said Gamblers Coach Jeffrey Babbitt, who sponsored the team, after we had beaten the L.A. Brewers, 14-5, in the Division A championship game. “But it sure feels good.”

The Mexicana Silver Cup is run by Al Decker, a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, as a promotion for his British Columbia travel service. Decker plans to open an office in Southern California in 1989, so he saw the entry of two Los Angeles area teams here as an added plus.

“But,” said his partner Rocky Clelland, “we realize that opening up this tournament to the United States will bring up the quality of play.”

He explained that most Canadians do not play winter softball, choosing instead to play hockey.

Some people, at 35, play golf--I still play softball. I have played in tournaments in Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia and the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. But I had not played in a co-ed tournament in 11 years. After seeing an ad for the Silver Cup in a softball magazine, I was excited to learn that the Gamblers needed another player.

The team gathered on a scorching Labor Day afternoon at the Alta Vista Park home of Babbitt and Lorraine Hollweg, the captain.

“Everyone here is a little wacky, but when it comes time to play ball, we play ball,” Babbitt told me.

Five women formed the core of the Gamblers: second baseman Hollweg, third baseman Georgeanne Jaramillo, first baseman Mona Welsh, left-center fielder June Thome and pitcher Alice Hansen, a 36-year-old grandmother. Rounding out the team was a collection of husbands, boyfriends and acquaintances, including outfielders Brett Lee, Rob Kisling and myself, catcher Babbitt, shortstop Jim Thome and utility players Jack Kramer and Billy Miller. Kathy Lee and Karen Rose also attended.

5 Men, 5 Women on the Field

We were the only team in the tournament to play five men and five women at the same time. The rules said only four women were necessary.

The tournament was divided into three divisions based on a team’s level of competition. There were 20 teams: 15 Canadian, 3 Mexican and the 2 from Southern California.

Decker has worked with the local government to improve the playing site. He built an area nearby for food and dancing, and installed lights on the fields. Three diamonds, including the main one inside a bull ring, served the tournament. A staff of 35 people, mostly Canadian volunteers who accept room and board as pay, run the event.

The games are played under Canadian rules. In Mexico you get accustomed to slow service and warm beer, but the Gamblers never got used to the Canadian strike zone. Even though we posted the highest run differential in the A Division, a statistic that led us into the gold-medal game despite two losses in our last six games, we were constantly adjusting to the rules. The Canadians do not use a mat behind the plate for a strike zone like we do. That made it difficult to judge a strike.

There were other differences. Teams were allowed to score a maximum of 6 runs an inning until the last inning. This keeps the games close, our hosts said. We were not allowed to lead off base. The ball was harder and the bases were 65 feet long, 5 more than we play in the states.

Baffled by the changes, June Thome said: “I don’t know what a strike is or isn’t. What am I supposed to do?”

But if anything will kill this tournament for future Southern California participants, it is the condition of the playing fields. Weeds garnished the third-base line on one, rocks were everywhere in the outfields.

“You don’t really know how to play it out there,” said right-center fielder Kisling.

Decker explained that, despite the tropical location, water is scarce here. A grass field, he said, is not likely in the near future.

As the sun set over jagged mountains, neighbors burned their trash, causing a purple haze, which, along with the dust, made breathing difficult. Then, at night, tiny bats circled above the outfield.

Babbitt, Kramer and Miller pulled thigh muscles early in the tournament. Jim Thome, Kisling and I bloodied knees sliding and diving for balls. Each of the women players suffered skin lacerations on their legs. It became a contest among us to see who could get the worst-looking injury.

Traveling with us to secluded Lovers Beach in Cabo San Lucas one day was a crazy Canadian named Eddie Tomlenovich. We called him E.T., the Extra Canadian. He spent the better part of the week romancing Hansen. Hansen will vacation with him in Canada in February.

The Canadians were obsessed with trading pins and clothing. E.T. gave me $20 for my used Times jacket. He became a good friend.

That is what impressed me most about this tournament: relationships. The Gamblers were here to play softball, but we came away with a better understanding of our continent.

We learned a lot about our Canadian hosts. Canadians are hurting right now after two national disasters. First, they lost Wayne Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League, then Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson embarrassed their nation when he tested positive for anabolic steroids after winning the 100- meter dash in Seoul.

“A national disgrace,” E.T. said.

The Mexicans were also learning about both neighbors to their north, but from a different viewpoint. They seemed to appreciate that Hansen, Jim Thome and I could speak Spanish.

A Canadian player overheard me conversing in Spanish with a bus driver. “You talk Mexican?” he asked.

Explained a Mexican taxi driver: “The biggest problem with the Canadians is that they do not speak Spanish to us. They expect us to understand English.”

Canadians are barato, according to the locals.

“Frugal,” explained Decker. “There’s a different mentality between Americans and Canadians on tipping. We work hard for our money. Canadians are learning that a 10% tip is OK and a 15% tip is better.”

Difference in Humor

We found Canadian humor to be different, and I am sure there were times when they thought we were a bunch of stiffs, too. Kramer toured an American Coast Guard ship in Cabo San Lucas and returned with a huge American flag. But when he hung it up near our bench in 7-6 loss to a team from Alberta, a female player attempted to set it on fire with a cigarette lighter.

“It’s only a joke,” she said.

It did not seem funny to us.

Before one game we were mooned on the field by three Canadian opponents, and after our gold medal victory we were told we had to take steroid tests.

But these were isolated incidents. As we met more Canadians, we learned about their culture and became more tolerant. Besides a few language differences--they say, “eh?,” we say “huh?” at the end of sentences--we got along fine.

Mixing with the Mexican locals was also challenging. At one game a Mexican man in the bleachers said: “This isn’t softball.” Then, eyeing a tray of refreshments nearby, he said: “Softball is fast. This is different. Mind if I have a beer?”

The Mexican teams stayed mostly to themselves, despite our best attempts to communicate with them. A team from San Jose shut down our rallies while wearing only tennis shoes, then, disappeared quickly into the night after an 8-6 win.

Boys Begged to Help

If the Mexican teams kept to themselves, the children and teen-agers did not. Young boys begged in English, “Bat boys?” hoping to earn a few thousand pesos (about 80 cents). On the final day they asked for batting gloves, hats, souvenir pins, socks.

The teen-agers would sit alone, or in groups of two, near our team. They never smiled, but they had to be listening. Not much English is taught in the schools here, so I got the impression that listening to us was an educational experience for them.

“There’s some serious culture mixing going on here,” Kisling said.

But not nearly as much as that which occurred in the men’s all-star game four days after the tournament began. We drew straws to determine who would represent our team, and I won. The bullring was packed and mariachis played as I stepped to the plate and hit a three-run home run in the first inning.

On my next at-bat I told umpire Pat Dooley: “I’ve played in a few all-star games before, but never to a full house and never with mariachis playing while I hit.”

“I know,” he shouted back. “Isn’t it a zoo?”

I hit seven home runs in the series, but it was teamwork that really helped us win. Although I had known the group less than two months, they accepted me like an old friend, and that inspired me to pull for them.

Moments after the final out in the gold-medal game, Hansen kissed my sweaty cheek and asked: “Did you think when you first met us that we could win this thing?”

“Not a chance,” I said.

What transpired may never happen again to any of us.

“This was a ragtag team,” Babbitt said. “For us to come together like this . . . fantastic.”

We said our goodbys quickly on a chilly night at Los Angeles International Airport. We may never play together again. Yet, we all know we shared something special. We gambled together on a lot of things--friendships, pride, the elements--and we won.