Two Cities that are. . . GOING TO TOWN

Parade routes have been mapped. Speeches have been written. A place of honor has been set aside--tentatively--in a local sports museum. Now there is nothing to do but wait.

This city of 3 million, as crazy for baseball as any American town, is looking for auspicious signs and muttering prayers to the Virgin.

Could it happen again 40 years later? Could another team capture its nation’s imagination again by beating California’s best for the Little League championship?

“It would be a wonderful gift for a very proud city,” said Juan Filizola, director of the Baseball Hall of Fame, operated by a local brewery. “You can’t imagine the amount of interest here. When that game starts on television, the attention of Monterrey and all of Mexico will be on it.”

The dazzling performance of the young Vaqueros of Guadalupe, who haven’t given up a run in their last four games, has dominated sports headlines here all week and stirred up a serious case of nostalgia among those old enough to remember 1957, when a Monterrey team wrested the championship from the American boys for the first time in Little League history.

Factories throughout this industrial city sounded their horns all afternoon in honor of the victory over La Mesa of San Diego County 40 years ago today. And the boys--who became known as los pequenos gigantes, the little giants--returned to a heroes’ welcome.

They dined with the president. They received college scholarships. They were immortalized in books and a documentary that, not coincidently, is set to air on local television this morning.

“It was probably the most important moment in my life,” recalled Jose “Pepe” Maiz, an outfielder on the team, who went on to a prosperous career in his family’s construction business but never lost his love for beisbol.

Fifteen years ago, Maiz bought the Sultanes, the local team that has dominated professional ball in Mexico for a decade. Ten years later, he built a 27,000-seat stadium that is said to be the finest in Latin America.

The stadium draws packed crowds nearly every game--one legacy, said Maiz and others, of the little giants’ victory.

“From that game, all this interest grew,” Maiz said, as Angel Macias, star pitcher on that long-ago team and professional player for 15 years, nodded in agreement.

“When we were kids we didn’t know anything about Little League,” Macias added. “We were playing with sticks and homemade balls. We didn’t even have real gloves till 1956, and the next year we were champions.”

Like Monterrey itself, which has grown from a grimy industrial hub to a modern center of finance and international trade, youth baseball here has evolved into a highly organized and sophisticated sport.

There are 50 leagues affiliated with Little League in this state of Nuevo Leon alone and another 85 throughout the country.

Yet for all the interest, Mexico hasn’t repeated the consecutive Little League championship victories of 1957 and 1958.

Macias said the league might have grown too fast, diluting the talent. And the increased cost made it difficult for low-income boys to join.

But the Vaqueros can change all that today, and bring the little giants’ story full circle.

Many Vaqueros are second-generation Little Leaguers, born to men inspired to play ball by Macias and his teammates. These players started at a younger age and were coached by a generation that believed international success was possible through hard work and determination.

“Most of them have played together since they were 6 years old,” said Laura Cristina Reyes, mother of Vaquero pitcher Pablo Torres. “There is a lot of union between them and a lot of support.”

Reyes and her husband, Reynaldo Torres, are among the few parents left behind in the newer middle-class Linda Vista neighborhood of Guadalupe, a section of Monterrey. Along with delegations sent by the mayor and governor, well-wishers in Pennsylvania number about 150.

The Torres family has good reason to be here, however. Tuesday, as son Pablo was hitting two home runs against Japan, his mother was giving birth to a sister.

In his honor, the baby has been named Paola.

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TODAY’S GAME AT WILLIAMSPORT, PA.

Mission Viejo (21-1) vs. Guadalupe, Mexico (26-2)

Channel 7, 12:30 p.m.