Mexican American Baseball in El Paso

Book excerpt: Mexican American Baseball in El Paso chronicles the vibrant and colorful history of baseball in the El Paso-Juárez border region. For more than a century, baseball along the border has served as a means of bringing together people of all backgrounds, races, and nationalities, from the fly-by-night teams of the Pancho Villa era to the fabled semiprofessional clubs of the Lower Valley League. For the area's Mexican and Mexican American citizens, storied teams like the Juárez Indios, Fabens Merchants, 1949 Bowie Bears, and El Paso Diablos served as both community rallying points and signposts of cultural identity. From the legendary semiprofessional players of decades past to the most recent major leaguers, this book presents the photographic history of baseball in America's largest border community.