Baseball on the border

by Alan M. Klein

From 1985 to 1994 there existed a significant but unheralded experiment in professional baseball. For ten seasons, the Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos (The Owls of the Two Laredos) were the only team in professional sports to represent two nations. Playing in the storied Mexican League (an AAA affiliate of major league baseball), the "Tecos" had home parks on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, in Laredo, Texas and in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. In true border fashion, Mexican and American national anthems were played before each game, and the Tecos were operated by interests in both cities. Baseball on the border is the story of the rise and unexpected demise of this surprising team. For Alan Klein, a cultural anthropologist specializing in sport, "the border" is almost a nation of its own.^ Having formed teams of players from both sides of the Rio Grande for almost a century, organizers and followers of the "border birds" often join forces but just as frequently squabble with each other