Boos, Some Cheers, Greet President at All-Star Game : Politics: Bush, who met with Mexico’s president before the game, said negotiations on a free trade agreement are in ‘the final stage.’

President Bush was booed at the All-Star Game toward the end of his Tuesday swing through San Diego.

Earlier in the day, Bush met with Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and announced that negotiations to reach a free trade agreement with Mexico are in “the final stage” and that he and Salinas are instructing negotiators to bring the pact “to an early conclusion.”

Bush flew into Miramar Naval Air Station Tuesday afternoon and went by motorcade to the Mission San Diego de Alcala, where he and Salinas met for about an hour before attending Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game. On his way to the game, Bush encountered a sprinkling of signs for presidential hopefuls Bill Clinton and Ross Perot and occasional hecklers who made obscene gestures.

But his most hostile reception of the day--and the loudest boos of the baseball evening--came during the President’s brief appearance in pregame ceremonies at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Bush was booed, but also received scattered cheers, when he walked onto the field and was introduced along with Hall of Fame player Ted Williams.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Ted Williams,” the stadium announcer said, “accompanied by his good friend, George Bush.”

Williams, a 72-year-old San Diego native, was cheered as he threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

A spokesman for Major League Baseball said Bush had not been planning to appear on the field but changed his mind at the last minute.

President Bush sat in the owner’s box, which had been equipped with bulletproof glass, with Salinas, baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent and Padre owner Tom Werner, among others.

The two presidents left the game in the middle of the fifth inning, with the American League leading 6-0.

Bush was a first baseman for his team at Yale and captained the squad. He and Williams have been friends for years. Williams has campaigned for Bush and has gone fishing with the president.

Before the game, Bush couched his optimistic remarks about free trade in baseball metaphors.

“We are literally entering the top of the 9th,” Bush said of the free trade agreement negotiations. Talks are scheduled to resume July 25.

“We live in a global economy and the fastest-growing sector of the American economy is our export sector,” the president said. “And Mexico is the fastest-growing market for U.S. exports in the entire world.”

Bush said that during the last five years, U.S. exports to Mexico have increased about 17% a year, twice the rate of U.S. exports worldwide.

This, he said, has added 400,000 jobs to the U.S. economy, bringing the total U.S. jobs built around trade with Mexico to 600,000.

“California alone, this state alone, exported $5.5 billion in goods to Mexico last year,” the president said.

Bush said he and Salinas also discussed environmental issues raised by the proposed free trade agreement.

Before the meeting, U.S. trade representative Carla Anderson Hills told reporters aboard Air Force One, as Bush flew to San Diego, that “seven or eight” of 22 agenda items have been completed in the talks.

On a matter that has nettled U.S.-Mexico relations, Bush said he assured Salinas that the United States has “no intention” of kidnaping another Mexican citizen for trial in this country.

The Supreme Court ruled June 15 that U.S. agents can kidnap suspects abroad for trial in this country. The ruling has drawn sharp criticism from Mexico, where the abduction of Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain, accused of participating in the 1985 murder of Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique S. Camarena, was seen as an infringement of Mexico’s sovereignty.

Alvarez Machain allegedly administered drugs to keep Camarena alive during his torture by narcotics traffickers. The doctor was kidnaped in 1989 and brought to the United States to face trial.

“We are going to try to lay every fear to rest,” Bush said, describing his conversation on the matter as “very frank.”

The court ruled that a criminal suspect kidnaped by the United States from a foreign country over that country’s objection may be put on trial in the United States, unless such a move is specifically barred by an extradition treaty.

The doctor’s abduction from his Guadalajara office was arranged by DEA agents and carried out by Mexicans. He was forcibly taken across the border to the United States and handed over to waiting DEA agents.