Mexico’s president-elect makes a bold prediction, gets an invite to Houston
Although Andrés Manuel López Obrador is busy these days preparing for his inauguration as president of Mexico, the lifelong baseball fan is keeping tabs of the Major League Baseball playoffs.
López Obrador even shared his thoughts on Twitter before the National League and American League championship series started. Mexico’s president-elect predicts that the defending World Series champion Houston Astros and the Los Angeles Dodgers will meet in a rematch of the 2017 Fall Classic.
The forecast prompted Jeff Luhnow, the first Mexican general manager and president of baseball operations in MLB history, to invite López Obrador to watch the Astros in ALCS this week at Minute Maid Park.
“Mr. Luhnow,” López Obrador tweeted back from his account @lopezobrador_ in Spanish, “I appreciate the invitation and although I would like to attend, I have commitments to attend in the country. One thing I will tell you: I’ll be on the lookout, baseball is one of my greatest passions.
“I wish you luck, that factor that influences as much in sport as in politics.”
López Obrador’s decision to decline an invitation to attend Games 3, 4 and 5 in Houston is understandable considering he’ll be sworn in as Mexico’s president of Dec. 1.
Nonetheless, Mexico is being represented quite well in the ALCS and NLCS on the field, in the front office and even in the broadcast booth, where the legendary Fernando Valenzuela serves as a broadcaster for the Dodgers.
Mexican influence
Three of the four remaining teams in the playoffs feature a Mexican native on their championship series roster. The most high profile of those players is hard-throwing Astros closer Roberto Osuna although the Dodgers’ young left-handed pitching prospect Julio Urías, 22, has arguably been Mexico’s most hyped baseball prospect since a young Valenzuela captivated the baseball world in 1981.
Reliever Joakim Soria has thrown well for the Brewers in the NLCS. And former big leaguer Alex Treviño, a Monterrey native who caught Valenzuela with the Dodgers in 1988 and 1989 during a 13-year big league career, is a radio broadcaster for the Astros.
Valenzuela, the 1981 NL Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Award winner, is the biggest reason the Dodgers are MLB’s most popular team throughout Mexico and even among the majority of Mexican-Americans in the United States.
Valenzuela made his debut in the majors on Sept. 15, 1980, as a late-season call-up. He captivated the baseball world with Fernandomania in 1981 while helping the Dodgers win the 1981 World Series.
El Toro, as Valenzuela was affectionately nicknamed, was Mexico’s first true crossover superstar in the majors although three-time All-Star Bobby Avila was Mexico’s first MLB star and the first Latino to win a batting crown in 1954 with the Indians.
Houston rising
Luhnow was born in Mexico to U.S. parents working in Mexico City. He was raised in Mexico City before attending college in the United States. The Astros executive is fluent in Spanish and bicultural, giving him the type of understanding of Latino culture that few baseball executives have ever had.
He’s a proud Mexican who dispatches his sports coat, dress shirt and tie every once in a while to don a jersey of Mexico’s famed El Tri national soccer team.
It may take years for any baseball team to displace the Dodgers as the most popular MLB team among Mexicans, but Luhnow’s Astros have the potential with a Mexican president of baseball operations and a talented young core of Latino superstars such as Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa and George Springer and a young superstar third baseman from New Mexico who taught himself Spanish, Alex Bregman.
Equally important, Houston has a strong Latino population that is predominantly Mexican or Mexican American.
Whatever the case, Mexico’s president-elect had some history on his mind when he predicted an Astros-Dodgers World Series repeat.
“Contradicting the great philosopher who said that history shouldn’t repeat itself, the big league finals will be like last year’s,” López Obrador tweeted on Oct. 10. “I bet on Houston for its Latino ballplayers and I’m going with the Dodgers because of its Mexican fan base. That’s my pool.”
Luhnow, who has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Mexico, welcomed López Obrador’s prediction.
The first Latino general manager to guide a team to a World Series title obviously would like to have the Astros in the Fall Classic for a second year in a row after claiming the franchise’s first title last year.
“Of course we have a big Mexican fan base in Houston as well,” Luhnow said. “So I invited him to a game. He politely turned me down because he has other duties to attend to because he’s about to get sworn in as the president of Mexico.
“I’m hoping that in the back of his mind he’s thinking that at some point he’ll come to Minute Maid Park and watch us play. If not I told him maybe we’d see each other in Monterrey when we go down there for our regular season games.”
Mexico’s president-elect is watching, and the Astros hope his prediction comes true.
Featured Image: Courtesy Houston Astros