MEXICO’S BABE RUTH

Another famous clown visited the Little League Baseball World Series. Emmett Kelly was under contract to the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the Dodgers released him for the week to perform. By the time the 1957 Little League World Series ended Little League Baseball had found a new star. Exactly one year after Fred Shapiro pitched the first perfect game in Little League World Series history, Mexico’s Angel Macias duplicated the effort—only this time it was in the final game. Macias accomplished the feat while pitching right-handed, but he also was capable of throwing left-handed. The story captivated journalists covering the Series in Williamsport, and the team members—Macias in particular—became instant celebrities and fan favorites.
    The Mexican team, Monterrey Industrial Little League, arrived in Williamsport for the Series carrying paper bags for luggage. They had good manners and voracious appetites. The players were smaller than most Little League teams, yet won their way up the chain by claiming titles in their native Mexico, then in three cities in Texas (McAllen, Fort Worth, and Corpus Christi), then in Louisville, Kentucky, at the Southern Region Tournament. When asked by reporters whether the larger American kids were of concern to the Mexican team, first baseman Ricardo Trevino replied, "We have to play them, not carry them."
    Upon their arrival at the World Series, all players were examined by Williamsport doctor Robert Yasui, the physician-consultant for the Little League World Series from the mid-1950s until he retired from the position in 1998. Yasui expressed amazement that Monterrey’s players had nearly perfect teeth—not a single cavity. The reason, he surmised, was that they couldn’t afford candy and that the water in Monterrey was heavily fluoridated.
    At an average height of four-foot-eleven, most were too small to fit into any of the uniforms provided by Little League, so the team wore their home uniforms emblazoned with "Monterrey" across the front of the jersey. They had been eating well since leaving Mexico, and they gorged on food provided by Lycoming College. In fact, before the team entered the United States two weeks earlier for tournament play, the average weight per player was eighty pounds. When the World Series games actually started, many on the Mexican team had gained ten to fifteen pounds each.
    By the time the final game rolled around, the boys from Monterrey were everyone’s darlings. Then Angel Macias topped all the hoopla by retiring all eighteen batters he faced—the first and last perfect game in Little League World Series championship game history. He did not allow a single ball to leave the infield.
    Monterrey winning team to the White House for a visit. They also met future Presidents (then U.S. Senators) Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Hollywood came calling too. A year later the team was in the film "The Little Giants," which failed to make a dent at the box office but enjoyed good public reaction when televised twice in 1960 and once in 1961 on NBC (with a new title, "How Tall Is a Giant?"). The film’s distributor, Continental Distributing, Inc., wanted Little Leaguers around the country to sell tickets for the movie, but Little League Baseball—almost fervent in opposing exploitation of players by commercial interests—would not allow it. Little League continues to receive requests to use its trademarked name in movies, books, and television programs, but rarely gives permission.
    The same league, Monterrey Industrial, earned a rare repeat trip to the Little League World Series in 1958 when the number of teams increased from four to seven, with three of the regions (Latin America, Canada, and Pacific) producing teams from outside the United States. Because players must be either eleven or twelve years old, most Little League Tournament teams include only a few players who are eleven, which means the bulk of the team will be too old for the Little League Division in the following season. In Mexico’s case, only one player, first baseman Ricardo Trevino, participated in both tournaments. The hero the second time around was Hector Torres, who went on to a career in Major League Baseball.
    Angel Macias was drafted by the California Angels in 1962 and played twelve years in the Mexican League. He earned a degree in business administration and is a public relations supervisor in Monterrey. Macias was one of nine Little League World Series participants invited back to Williamsport in 1996 to celebrate the fiftieth Series, as a member of a commemorative team made up of players from various eras. In a Little League news release in 1996, Macias said: "In the championship, I was concentrating so much on trying to win that I didn’t realize I was pitching a perfect game. At the end of the game, I remember most of all [coaches] Cesar Faz and Pepe Gonzalez celebrating the triumph with us. That was the most important thing." Faz had been a batboy and clubhouse attendant for the San Antonio (Texas) Missions in the minor leagues. Gonzalez, a photographer, continues to make a pilgrimage to Williamsport every year for the Little League World Series 

Play Ball! The Story of Little League Baseball by Lance and Robin Van Auken

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