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The Death Of A Pitcher
Eric, March 18, 2009, 20 Comments
So this piece has been selected for the 2010 edition of Best American Sports
Writing. Pretty amazing. It�s one of the first serious posts I ever did for this
website and something that honored or not, I�m very proud to have written. If
you�ve found it via the book (or news of it being in the book), then thanks for
dropping by. I hope you enjoy it. -eric.

I.

They ran the bases for Jaime Irogoyen. His family, his friends, and his teammates
were all there at Estadio Carta Blanca in Juarez, Mexico at 11:00 AM on January 17.
I like to imagine they were still dressed up from the funeral; that they came
straight from church. I like to imagine that they filed out of the dugout in their
suits and lined up behind home plate like Little Leaguers.

In my version they all stand silently for a while, unsure of what to do. There is
no pitcher to get things started. No base coach to windmill them around the
diamond. They stand silently in the quiet sanctuary of the empty stadium. They
scratch their heads and ponder life and death and the way a baseball field can make
everything outside its lines or walls or fences disappear. Finally an old man
(maybe a grandparent or a coach) grumbles impatiently; he knows death well. Let�s
do something, he says. Vamanos.

The first person to run is Jaime Irogoyen�s sister. She jogs with her eyes on the
dry clay in front of her, rounding each base perfectly, so that her foot only
barely touches the inside corners of the bags. The old man who grumbled before nods
at her technique. The next mourner runs and the next one. Each waits for the person
before to reach first base before taking off. Each runs with his or her head down
so as not to offend the imagined pitcher. After all, Jaime Irogoyen was a pitcher.

II.

Estadio Carta Blanca was built in the early 1970s, an era of rapid and unregulated
economic growth for Mexico. Oil production and manufacturing rose sharply, but
rampant corruption and poor fiscal management marred all that. Times that should
have been prosperous became trying; as jagged and hard-to-navigate as the Sierra
Madre mountain range that begins just a couple hundred miles southwest of Ciudad
Juarez.

The reason for Estadio Carta Blanca�s construction was hopeful: the return of big
league baseball to Juarez. The city hadn�t had a franchise in the top league, La
Liga Mexicana, since los Indios de Juarez of the 1930s. Now, after years of second
tier American minor league and Mexican semi-pro clubs, los Indios de Juarez were
coming back. They threw their second first pitch as a franchise in 1973.

Like any expansion team, los Indios struggled their first few seasons. But in 1976,
they tied for first in their division. In �82, led by former Dodger and Red pitcher
Jose Pena, they won the championship. Celebrations were short-lived. At the end of
the �84 season, after two years of hectic swirling rumors, the franchise was sold
and moved to Laguna. After just a dozen seasons, seasons that saw a stadium built,
a championship won, and a fan base develop, the Indios de Juarez were defeated for
good.

But the name of the team, like the stadium, still lingers. Now the name, los Indios
de Juarez, belongs to a local university. In the springtime, you can watch the kids
play under the lights at Estadio Carta Blanca. You can close your eyes and imagine
all the empty bleachers are full of screaming fans from a bygone era. It seems that
in Mexico, the institutions of baseball can outlive governments. Regardless of the
times, history is echoed through stadium speakers even as it is occurring.

III.

More than 7,000 people have died in Mexico�s drug war since 2007. A plurality of
those deaths, nearly 2,000 of them, have occurred in Chihuahua, the border state in
which Juarez is the largest city and Estadio Carta Blanca the largest baseball
stadium. The persistent, increasingly macabre march of murder in Juarez is almost
cinematic in its over-the top gruesomeness. But this is not a movie. Decapitated
heads really are being found in ice chests across the country. Bodies really are
piling up in the alleyway behind the Starbucks in Tijuana. Morgues really are
overflowing. A New York Times headline called Mexico�s drug war a Wild Wild West
Bloodbath.

To be sure, not all of the dead have been innocent. Many of the faceless (or
headless) corpses belong to corrupt police officers, wily drug-runners, and gutless
gunmen. But many more don�t. Many are mothers struck by stray bullets, innocents
misidentified by flailing cops and soldiers, well-meaning immigrants trekking to
America, robbed, raped and killed by their hired protectors. Some even are students
and baseball players.

IV.

There was precious little media coverage of Jaime Irigoyen�s death. In the United
States, our press has not yet begun putting human faces on the bedlam below our
Southern border. In Mexico, there are so many dead, so many exceptionally tragic
stories, that it is hard for journalists to single them out. Why is Jaime
Irigoyen�s death more notable than that of any other innocent civilian caught in
the crosshairs of anarchy?

From what is available, in both English and Spanish, it becomes possible to piece
together a story. Jaime Irigoyen was 19 years old, a law-student at Universidad
Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez and a pitcher for the school�s baseball team, los Indios.
Judging from available information, he was a good one too. As he got ready for bed
on the night of January 12, 2009, that was his reality: baseball, school, girls
probably.

But those interests were soon to become historical facts; the kind that are
recollected in obituaries and recalled years later by nostalgic relatives. As the
Irigoyen family watched television in their Juarez townhome, just miles from the
Texas border, a group of masked commandos approached their house and knocked the
front door down. They surrounded the family in the living room. �Him with the
glasses,� a soldier said, pointing at Jaime who sat quietly in just his shorts and
socks and those glasses. They dragged him from the couch, gagging him and
blindfolding him as his family stood by screaming. Then, with no explanation they
took him away.

The soldiers forced his son into an unmarked SUV and sped off down the dark
residential streets. Jaime�s father was able to follow them at first. But after ten
or fifteen desperate minutes, the captors lost him and disappeared into the Juarez
night.

Jaime�s mother reported that like many of the 3,000 soldiers patrolling Juarez on
President Felipe Calderon�s orders, the men who took her son spoke in Southern
Mexican accents. But otherwise, the family had no clue as to who they were or why
they had come. Her son was merely a student, a baseball player. He was just a good
kid.

The next day, with some friends, the Irigoyens staged a protest outside a local
military base. Jaime�s parents demanded to know the whereabouts of their son. But
the military denied any involvement, releasing the following statement:

That whoever deprived him of liberty were dressed in military-style uniforms in no

way says they were soldiers. We call on the general public not to be fooled by
criminal gangs.

As if it made any difference to Jaime�s family whether the men who took him were
soldiers or not. As if criminal gangs were somebody else�s responsibility
completely, and the military had more important things to worry about. Regardless,
it was not long before the Irigoyen family got its answer. Just 30 hours after he
was taken, as his family stood outside the chain-link fence that kept helpless
desperate people like them from spoiling orderly military procedure, Jaime
Irigoyen�s body was found dumped on a Juarez street. His eyes were still
blindfolded and his mouth was still gagged.

The military never accepted responsibility for Jaime�s death, but most in the media
have chalked the murder up to a case of mistaken identity. Some speculate that a
low-level informant, perhaps under the strain of torture, misinformed some police
or military officer. But nobody will ever really know. Nobody but the men in the
masks.

V.

The memorial at the stadium did not happen quite as I imagined. The real version is
much more organized. Jaime Irigoyen�s casket is brought to home plate on the
shoulders of his teammates. The teammates, dressed in jeans and their blue caps and
jerseys crowd alongside family and friends. There are strangers there, come to
mourn the death of a pitcher, the death of potential, the state of a nation so
unraveled it could let things come to this. Photographers from local and national
newspapers take pictures, and reporters try to make themselves invisible but still
get a sense of things.

The bleachers really are empty, and some of the mourners really are dressed up in
suits. The service at the church is to take place right after the baseball stadium
memorial. Once everyone has spoken, everyone who was going to cry has cried, and
every available memory has been shared if not digested, Jaime�s teammates lift the
casket once again.

They hoist the heavy box upon their shoulders, in it their friend and the idea of
their friend and the weight of symbolism nobody can help but feel. They make their
way around the base paths; a gesture they realize is cumbersome and ironic. After
all, Jaime Irigoyen was a pitcher. But nobody says anything like that.

VI.

December 2, 2008. 46 days before the kidnapping

An editorial by Luis Carlos Martinez on out27.com, a Mexican baseball website,

addresses the growing violence in his city of Juarez. He suggests that fans turn to
baseball for comfort, for relief. In the column, he refers to a promising young
pitcher named Jaime Irigoyen.

Talk is unavoidable, but in the midst of these violent outbreaks that reign in our
city, we must turn to something that offers a more flattering panorama. Baseball
continues as an interesting alternative to divert our attention from these
lamentable events.

Bullets come and bullets go, but the sport is still king. Those of us who love
baseball are convinced that the show must go on, that praying to our Creator; we
can remain a part of this baseball family. And through it all, the various
tournaments in all categories and of all ages will continue to unfold throughout
our beleaguered city.

Our most recent major tournament went off without a hitch. Behind great work on the
pitcher�s mound by youngster Jaime Irigoyen, los Indios de La Universidad de
Juarez, won the first division at the third annual Hector Molina Interleague
Baseball Tournament.

A nation can�t let violence get in the way of living, especially when living is
sometimes the only thing one can do to escape from the mental prison that violence
creates. Bullets come, bullets go, but baseball stays. What other option do we
have? Even when those bullets are spraying the infield dirt, splitting bats, and
landing in the bleachers, baseball has to go on. Even as war plucks off baseball�s
innocents and blood seeps over its innocence, it must go on. Even as the clubhouse
ranks are thinned, baseball must go on.

Luis Carlos Martinez could never have known that less than two months after his
column was published, Jaime Irigoyen, the youngster who led his Indios to victory,
would become a casualty. He could have never known that the game he turned to as a
refuge from tragedy would soon bear witness to one. Or that Jaime Irigoyen would
soon become a story much more prescient than any strikeout or tournament victory.
He could have never known that so soon, the only option left on earth would be to
run the bases and try to forget.

Features and Politics, 20 Comments

20 Responses to �The Death Of A Pitcher�
Feed for this Entry
PMW
March 27, 2009 at 8:44 am
Great post! I have lived in and traveled throughout Mexico, and am often appalled
at the lack of coverage US-based media gives to stories like this one. I�m also a
fan of the Liga, and have been fortunate enough to make it to several games.
Thanks!

ManOutOfTime
August 17, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Congratulations on the acclaim for this moving essay. Whether it was the military
or the syndicate who murdered this young man, doesn�t it seems too much of a
coincidence that his name was in Sr. Martinez�s editorial. Does the syndicate want
people to think the military murdered an innocent symbol of peace? Is one side or
the other sending the message that baseball is NOT a refuge and diversion? What a
tragedy.

Daddy-O
August 17, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Congratulations, Eric. This post is a masterpiece. TPM led me here, and I�m damn
glad they did!
Janet Peters
August 17, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Eric, I just read your wonderful essay, which leaves me with great sadness.
Sometimes I�m the grammar fairy, and I�m wondering if, in the line 3rd from the end
of the essay, shouldn�t read �bear witness.� I don�t mean to nit-pick, but that
usage jumped out and smacked me as not quite right. That does nothing, however, to
diminish the beauty of your writing and its meaning for all of us who love baseball
and read this terrible, sad, painful story.

Eric
August 17, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Thanks for the comments all. And I�ll fix that typo.

Sean
August 17, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Outstanding piece; congratulations on the well deserved honor.

Stephanie
August 17, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Congratulations Eric, what a beautiful eulogy and frame on the ongoing violence in
Mexico.

mepmep09
August 17, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Congratulations from another TPM reader. Such tragic stories need wider
distribution, and I hope this recognition of your fine writing does just that, and
in so doing, perhaps might just offer a slender reed of comfort to the family and
friends of Jaime Irogoyen.

Jason Clinkscales
August 18, 2010 at 6:50 am
Fantastic work here, Eric. Curious, how did you come upon this story with the lack
of attention it received at the time of his death?

Nick
August 18, 2010 at 6:57 am
Congratulations from yet another TPM reader � a very moving essay about the game
and the ongoing violence in Mexico. And I will be back to read more � something
about baseball that has always inspired good writing.

Rick Wisotsky
August 19, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Eric,
Your dad sent me the link to TPM. First, I want to say how proud I am of you for
getting this excellent piece of writing included in The Best American Sports
Writing 2010. Thank you for sharing the truth of what�s happening across the border
and for bringing the story of Jaime Irgoyen to light. Job well done!

Rob B.
September 1, 2010 at 11:36 pm
Eric, what a great piece. this story with out a doubt has a spot in the upcoming
book.

Ron H.
September 6, 2010 at 6:48 pm
Eric: We knew you had a talent for writing. Great story, and a testament to both
your storytelling skill and your command of the language. This is only the
beginning of a solid career or avocation for you as a writer. Congratulations on
this moving piece of writing. Keep up the effort � keep looking for great subject
matter � and keep writing at or beyond this caliber. You have a gift.

cheryl
September 7, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Felicidades�beautifully written�I felt like I was in the stadium with the Irigoyen
family�thank you so much for sharing!

Jerry Grillo
October 22, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Powerful. So glad I found this (totally by accident, too). Congratulations on a
much deserved honor.

Roberts Smilga
December 11, 2010 at 11:50 am
Bravo! Well done.

Andy
July 7, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Incredible job, a beautifully narrated tale that you handled deftly. I was
incredibly moved.

vero irigoyen
January 20, 2012 at 8:23 am
I am Jaime Irigoyen aunt, thhee years ago my family got the worst news ever. Thanks
to the violence in Juarez, Mexico the life of my nephew was taken�but his memory
will last in our hearts and great memories forever!! may he rest in peace and you
will be missed forever!! You was the best pitcher, son, nephew and friend ever !!!
I love you Jaime and we miss you!! Hechale Jaime !!!!!!! R.I.P.

Eric
January 20, 2012 at 2:40 pm
Thanks for the comment, Vero. Hard to believe that was three years ago and things
have only gotten worse in Juarez. Hope your family is doing okay. You still have,
always have, my condolences.

Veronica
June 24, 2012 at 10:26 pm
It is a sad possibility that Luis Carlos Martinez� editorial extolling the civic
pride of baseball and in particilar the virtues embodied in Jaime, may have sealed
his fate; there may have been no informer after all, no mistaken identity. He was
life itself unconnected to the war but in his murder Juarez was told that there can
be no life unconnected to the war. As this poignant and superb piece makes clear it
is not a city or an area or one or a thousand individuals but life itself in Mexico
that is threatened.

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Rogue�s Baseball Index
� Poem Of The Week: �The Crowd At The Ball Game�Baseball Funnies: Ichiro, Lasorda,
& The Babe (Sorta) �
The Death Of A Pitcher
Eric, March 18, 2009, 20 Comments
So this piece has been selected for the 2010 edition of Best American Sports
Writing. Pretty amazing. It�s one of the first serious posts I ever did for this
website and something that honored or not, I�m very proud to have written. If
you�ve found it via the book (or news of it being in the book), then thanks for
dropping by. I hope you enjoy it. -eric.

I.

They ran the bases for Jaime Irogoyen. His family, his friends, and his teammates
were all there at Estadio Carta Blanca in Juarez, Mexico at 11:00 AM on January 17.
I like to imagine they were still dressed up from the funeral; that they came
straight from church. I like to imagine that they filed out of the dugout in their
suits and lined up behind home plate like Little Leaguers.

In my version they all stand silently for a while, unsure of what to do. There is
no pitcher to get things started. No base coach to windmill them around the
diamond. They stand silently in the quiet sanctuary of the empty stadium. They
scratch their heads and ponder life and death and the way a baseball field can make
everything outside its lines or walls or fences disappear. Finally an old man
(maybe a grandparent or a coach) grumbles impatiently; he knows death well. Let�s
do something, he says. Vamanos.

The first person to run is Jaime Irogoyen�s sister. She jogs with her eyes on the
dry clay in front of her, rounding each base perfectly, so that her foot only
barely touches the inside corners of the bags. The old man who grumbled before nods
at her technique. The next mourner runs and the next one. Each waits for the person
before to reach first base before taking off. Each runs with his or her head down
so as not to offend the imagined pitcher. After all, Jaime Irogoyen was a pitcher.

II.
Estadio Carta Blanca was built in the early 1970s, an era of rapid and unregulated
economic growth for Mexico. Oil production and manufacturing rose sharply, but
rampant corruption and poor fiscal management marred all that. Times that should
have been prosperous became trying; as jagged and hard-to-navigate as the Sierra
Madre mountain range that begins just a couple hundred miles southwest of Ciudad
Juarez.

The reason for Estadio Carta Blanca�s construction was hopeful: the return of big
league baseball to Juarez. The city hadn�t had a franchise in the top league, La
Liga Mexicana, since los Indios de Juarez of the 1930s. Now, after years of second
tier American minor league and Mexican semi-pro clubs, los Indios de Juarez were
coming back. They threw their second first pitch as a franchise in 1973.

Like any expansion team, los Indios struggled their first few seasons. But in 1976,
they tied for first in their division. In �82, led by former Dodger and Red pitcher
Jose Pena, they won the championship. Celebrations were short-lived. At the end of
the �84 season, after two years of hectic swirling rumors, the franchise was sold
and moved to Laguna. After just a dozen seasons, seasons that saw a stadium built,
a championship won, and a fan base develop, the Indios de Juarez were defeated for
good.

But the name of the team, like the stadium, still lingers. Now the name, los Indios
de Juarez, belongs to a local university. In the springtime, you can watch the kids
play under the lights at Estadio Carta Blanca. You can close your eyes and imagine
all the empty bleachers are full of screaming fans from a bygone era. It seems that
in Mexico, the institutions of baseball can outlive governments. Regardless of the
times, history is echoed through stadium speakers even as it is occurring.

III.

More than 7,000 people have died in Mexico�s drug war since 2007. A plurality of
those deaths, nearly 2,000 of them, have occurred in Chihuahua, the border state in
which Juarez is the largest city and Estadio Carta Blanca the largest baseball
stadium. The persistent, increasingly macabre march of murder in Juarez is almost
cinematic in its over-the top gruesomeness. But this is not a movie. Decapitated
heads really are being found in ice chests across the country. Bodies really are
piling up in the alleyway behind the Starbucks in Tijuana. Morgues really are
overflowing. A New York Times headline called Mexico�s drug war a Wild Wild West
Bloodbath.

To be sure, not all of the dead have been innocent. Many of the faceless (or
headless) corpses belong to corrupt police officers, wily drug-runners, and gutless
gunmen. But many more don�t. Many are mothers struck by stray bullets, innocents
misidentified by flailing cops and soldiers, well-meaning immigrants trekking to
America, robbed, raped and killed by their hired protectors. Some even are students
and baseball players.

IV.

There was precious little media coverage of Jaime Irigoyen�s death. In the United
States, our press has not yet begun putting human faces on the bedlam below our
Southern border. In Mexico, there are so many dead, so many exceptionally tragic
stories, that it is hard for journalists to single them out. Why is Jaime
Irigoyen�s death more notable than that of any other innocent civilian caught in
the crosshairs of anarchy?

From what is available, in both English and Spanish, it becomes possible to piece
together a story. Jaime Irigoyen was 19 years old, a law-student at Universidad
Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez and a pitcher for the school�s baseball team, los Indios.
Judging from available information, he was a good one too. As he got ready for bed
on the night of January 12, 2009, that was his reality: baseball, school, girls
probably.

But those interests were soon to become historical facts; the kind that are
recollected in obituaries and recalled years later by nostalgic relatives. As the
Irigoyen family watched television in their Juarez townhome, just miles from the
Texas border, a group of masked commandos approached their house and knocked the
front door down. They surrounded the family in the living room. �Him with the
glasses,� a soldier said, pointing at Jaime who sat quietly in just his shorts and
socks and those glasses. They dragged him from the couch, gagging him and
blindfolding him as his family stood by screaming. Then, with no explanation they
took him away.

The soldiers forced his son into an unmarked SUV and sped off down the dark
residential streets. Jaime�s father was able to follow them at first. But after ten
or fifteen desperate minutes, the captors lost him and disappeared into the Juarez
night.

Jaime�s mother reported that like many of the 3,000 soldiers patrolling Juarez on
President Felipe Calderon�s orders, the men who took her son spoke in Southern
Mexican accents. But otherwise, the family had no clue as to who they were or why
they had come. Her son was merely a student, a baseball player. He was just a good
kid.

The next day, with some friends, the Irigoyens staged a protest outside a local
military base. Jaime�s parents demanded to know the whereabouts of their son. But
the military denied any involvement, releasing the following statement:

That whoever deprived him of liberty were dressed in military-style uniforms in no

way says they were soldiers. We call on the general public not to be fooled by
criminal gangs.

As if it made any difference to Jaime�s family whether the men who took him were
soldiers or not. As if criminal gangs were somebody else�s responsibility
completely, and the military had more important things to worry about. Regardless,
it was not long before the Irigoyen family got its answer. Just 30 hours after he
was taken, as his family stood outside the chain-link fence that kept helpless
desperate people like them from spoiling orderly military procedure, Jaime
Irigoyen�s body was found dumped on a Juarez street. His eyes were still
blindfolded and his mouth was still gagged.

The military never accepted responsibility for Jaime�s death, but most in the media
have chalked the murder up to a case of mistaken identity. Some speculate that a
low-level informant, perhaps under the strain of torture, misinformed some police
or military officer. But nobody will ever really know. Nobody but the men in the
masks.

V.

The memorial at the stadium did not happen quite as I imagined. The real version is
much more organized. Jaime Irigoyen�s casket is brought to home plate on the
shoulders of his teammates. The teammates, dressed in jeans and their blue caps and
jerseys crowd alongside family and friends. There are strangers there, come to
mourn the death of a pitcher, the death of potential, the state of a nation so
unraveled it could let things come to this. Photographers from local and national
newspapers take pictures, and reporters try to make themselves invisible but still
get a sense of things.
The bleachers really are empty, and some of the mourners really are dressed up in
suits. The service at the church is to take place right after the baseball stadium
memorial. Once everyone has spoken, everyone who was going to cry has cried, and
every available memory has been shared if not digested, Jaime�s teammates lift the
casket once again.

They hoist the heavy box upon their shoulders, in it their friend and the idea of
their friend and the weight of symbolism nobody can help but feel. They make their
way around the base paths; a gesture they realize is cumbersome and ironic. After
all, Jaime Irigoyen was a pitcher. But nobody says anything like that.

VI.

December 2, 2008. 46 days before the kidnapping

An editorial by Luis Carlos Martinez on out27.com, a Mexican baseball website,

addresses the growing violence in his city of Juarez. He suggests that fans turn to
baseball for comfort, for relief. In the column, he refers to a promising young
pitcher named Jaime Irigoyen.

Talk is unavoidable, but in the midst of these violent outbreaks that reign in our
city, we must turn to something that offers a more flattering panorama. Baseball
continues as an interesting alternative to divert our attention from these
lamentable events.

Bullets come and bullets go, but the sport is still king. Those of us who love
baseball are convinced that the show must go on, that praying to our Creator; we
can remain a part of this baseball family. And through it all, the various
tournaments in all categories and of all ages will continue to unfold throughout
our beleaguered city.

Our most recent major tournament went off without a hitch. Behind great work on the
pitcher�s mound by youngster Jaime Irigoyen, los Indios de La Universidad de
Juarez, won the first division at the third annual Hector Molina Interleague
Baseball Tournament.

A nation can�t let violence get in the way of living, especially when living is
sometimes the only thing one can do to escape from the mental prison that violence
creates. Bullets come, bullets go, but baseball stays. What other option do we
have? Even when those bullets are spraying the infield dirt, splitting bats, and
landing in the bleachers, baseball has to go on. Even as war plucks off baseball�s
innocents and blood seeps over its innocence, it must go on. Even as the clubhouse
ranks are thinned, baseball must go on.

Luis Carlos Martinez could never have known that less than two months after his
column was published, Jaime Irigoyen, the youngster who led his Indios to victory,
would become a casualty. He could have never known that the game he turned to as a
refuge from tragedy would soon bear witness to one. Or that Jaime Irigoyen would
soon become a story much more prescient than any strikeout or tournament victory.
He could have never known that so soon, the only option left on earth would be to
run the bases and try to forget.

Features and Politics, 20 Comments

20 Responses to �The Death Of A Pitcher�
Feed for this Entry
PMW
March 27, 2009 at 8:44 am
Great post! I have lived in and traveled throughout Mexico, and am often appalled
at the lack of coverage US-based media gives to stories like this one. I�m also a
fan of the Liga, and have been fortunate enough to make it to several games.
Thanks!

ManOutOfTime
August 17, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Congratulations on the acclaim for this moving essay. Whether it was the military
or the syndicate who murdered this young man, doesn�t it seems too much of a
coincidence that his name was in Sr. Martinez�s editorial. Does the syndicate want
people to think the military murdered an innocent symbol of peace? Is one side or
the other sending the message that baseball is NOT a refuge and diversion? What a
tragedy.

Daddy-O
August 17, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Congratulations, Eric. This post is a masterpiece. TPM led me here, and I�m damn
glad they did!

Janet Peters
August 17, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Eric, I just read your wonderful essay, which leaves me with great sadness.
Sometimes I�m the grammar fairy, and I�m wondering if, in the line 3rd from the end
of the essay, shouldn�t read �bear witness.� I don�t mean to nit-pick, but that
usage jumped out and smacked me as not quite right. That does nothing, however, to
diminish the beauty of your writing and its meaning for all of us who love baseball
and read this terrible, sad, painful story.

Eric
August 17, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Thanks for the comments all. And I�ll fix that typo.

Sean
August 17, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Outstanding piece; congratulations on the well deserved honor.

Stephanie
August 17, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Congratulations Eric, what a beautiful eulogy and frame on the ongoing violence in
Mexico.

mepmep09
August 17, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Congratulations from another TPM reader. Such tragic stories need wider
distribution, and I hope this recognition of your fine writing does just that, and
in so doing, perhaps might just offer a slender reed of comfort to the family and
friends of Jaime Irogoyen.

Jason Clinkscales
August 18, 2010 at 6:50 am
Fantastic work here, Eric. Curious, how did you come upon this story with the lack
of attention it received at the time of his death?

Nick
August 18, 2010 at 6:57 am
Congratulations from yet another TPM reader � a very moving essay about the game
and the ongoing violence in Mexico. And I will be back to read more � something
about baseball that has always inspired good writing.

Rick Wisotsky
August 19, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Eric,
Your dad sent me the link to TPM. First, I want to say how proud I am of you for
getting this excellent piece of writing included in The Best American Sports
Writing 2010. Thank you for sharing the truth of what�s happening across the border
and for bringing the story of Jaime Irgoyen to light. Job well done!

Rob B.
September 1, 2010 at 11:36 pm
Eric, what a great piece. this story with out a doubt has a spot in the upcoming
book.

Ron H.
September 6, 2010 at 6:48 pm
Eric: We knew you had a talent for writing. Great story, and a testament to both
your storytelling skill and your command of the language. This is only the
beginning of a solid career or avocation for you as a writer. Congratulations on
this moving piece of writing. Keep up the effort � keep looking for great subject
matter � and keep writing at or beyond this caliber. You have a gift.

cheryl
September 7, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Felicidades�beautifully written�I felt like I was in the stadium with the Irigoyen
family�thank you so much for sharing!

Jerry Grillo
October 22, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Powerful. So glad I found this (totally by accident, too). Congratulations on a
much deserved honor.

Roberts Smilga
December 11, 2010 at 11:50 am
Bravo! Well done.

Andy
July 7, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Incredible job, a beautifully narrated tale that you handled deftly. I was
incredibly moved.

vero irigoyen
January 20, 2012 at 8:23 am
I am Jaime Irigoyen aunt, thhee years ago my family got the worst news ever. Thanks
to the violence in Juarez, Mexico the life of my nephew was taken�but his memory
will last in our hearts and great memories forever!! may he rest in peace and you
will be missed forever!! You was the best pitcher, son, nephew and friend ever !!!
I love you Jaime and we miss you!! Hechale Jaime !!!!!!! R.I.P.

Eric
January 20, 2012 at 2:40 pm
Thanks for the comment, Vero. Hard to believe that was three years ago and things
have only gotten worse in Juarez. Hope your family is doing okay. You still have,
always have, my condolences.

Veronica
June 24, 2012 at 10:26 pm
It is a sad possibility that Luis Carlos Martinez� editorial extolling the civic
pride of baseball and in particilar the virtues embodied in Jaime, may have sealed
his fate; there may have been no informer after all, no mistaken identity. He was
life itself unconnected to the war but in his murder Juarez was told that there can
be no life unconnected to the war. As this poignant and superb piece makes clear it
is not a city or an area or one or a thousand individuals but life itself in Mexico
that is threatened.

The Big Announcement | pitchers & poets

Pingback on Aug 17th, 2010 at 9:37 am
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Pingback on Aug 18th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
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Pingback on Oct 28th, 2011 at 5:46 am
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� Poem Of The Week: �The Crowd At The Ball Game�Baseball Funnies: Ichiro, Lasorda,
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The Death Of A Pitcher
Eric, March 18, 2009, 20 Comments
So this piece has been selected for the 2010 edition of Best American Sports
Writing. Pretty amazing. It�s one of the first serious posts I ever did for this
website and something that honored or not, I�m very proud to have written. If
you�ve found it via the book (or news of it being in the book), then thanks for
dropping by. I hope you enjoy it. -eric.

I.

They ran the bases for Jaime Irogoyen. His family, his friends, and his teammates
were all there at Estadio Carta Blanca in Juarez, Mexico at 11:00 AM on January 17.
I like to imagine they were still dressed up from the funeral; that they came
straight from church. I like to imagine that they filed out of the dugout in their
suits and lined up behind home plate like Little Leaguers.
In my version they all stand silently for a while, unsure of what to do. There is
no pitcher to get things started. No base coach to windmill them around the
diamond. They stand silently in the quiet sanctuary of the empty stadium. They
scratch their heads and ponder life and death and the way a baseball field can make
everything outside its lines or walls or fences disappear. Finally an old man
(maybe a grandparent or a coach) grumbles impatiently; he knows death well. Let�s
do something, he says. Vamanos.

The first person to run is Jaime Irogoyen�s sister. She jogs with her eyes on the
dry clay in front of her, rounding each base perfectly, so that her foot only
barely touches the inside corners of the bags. The old man who grumbled before nods
at her technique. The next mourner runs and the next one. Each waits for the person
before to reach first base before taking off. Each runs with his or her head down
so as not to offend the imagined pitcher. After all, Jaime Irogoyen was a pitcher.

II.

Estadio Carta Blanca was built in the early 1970s, an era of rapid and unregulated
economic growth for Mexico. Oil production and manufacturing rose sharply, but
rampant corruption and poor fiscal management marred all that. Times that should
have been prosperous became trying; as jagged and hard-to-navigate as the Sierra
Madre mountain range that begins just a couple hundred miles southwest of Ciudad
Juarez.

The reason for Estadio Carta Blanca�s construction was hopeful: the return of big
league baseball to Juarez. The city hadn�t had a franchise in the top league, La
Liga Mexicana, since los Indios de Juarez of the 1930s. Now, after years of second
tier American minor league and Mexican semi-pro clubs, los Indios de Juarez were
coming back. They threw their second first pitch as a franchise in 1973.

Like any expansion team, los Indios struggled their first few seasons. But in 1976,
they tied for first in their division. In �82, led by former Dodger and Red pitcher
Jose Pena, they won the championship. Celebrations were short-lived. At the end of
the �84 season, after two years of hectic swirling rumors, the franchise was sold
and moved to Laguna. After just a dozen seasons, seasons that saw a stadium built,
a championship won, and a fan base develop, the Indios de Juarez were defeated for
good.

But the name of the team, like the stadium, still lingers. Now the name, los Indios
de Juarez, belongs to a local university. In the springtime, you can watch the kids
play under the lights at Estadio Carta Blanca. You can close your eyes and imagine
all the empty bleachers are full of screaming fans from a bygone era. It seems that
in Mexico, the institutions of baseball can outlive governments. Regardless of the
times, history is echoed through stadium speakers even as it is occurring.

III.

More than 7,000 people have died in Mexico�s drug war since 2007. A plurality of
those deaths, nearly 2,000 of them, have occurred in Chihuahua, the border state in
which Juarez is the largest city and Estadio Carta Blanca the largest baseball
stadium. The persistent, increasingly macabre march of murder in Juarez is almost
cinematic in its over-the top gruesomeness. But this is not a movie. Decapitated
heads really are being found in ice chests across the country. Bodies really are
piling up in the alleyway behind the Starbucks in Tijuana. Morgues really are
overflowing. A New York Times headline called Mexico�s drug war a Wild Wild West
Bloodbath.

To be sure, not all of the dead have been innocent. Many of the faceless (or
headless) corpses belong to corrupt police officers, wily drug-runners, and gutless
gunmen. But many more don�t. Many are mothers struck by stray bullets, innocents
misidentified by flailing cops and soldiers, well-meaning immigrants trekking to
America, robbed, raped and killed by their hired protectors. Some even are students
and baseball players.

IV.

There was precious little media coverage of Jaime Irigoyen�s death. In the United
States, our press has not yet begun putting human faces on the bedlam below our
Southern border. In Mexico, there are so many dead, so many exceptionally tragic
stories, that it is hard for journalists to single them out. Why is Jaime
Irigoyen�s death more notable than that of any other innocent civilian caught in
the crosshairs of anarchy?

From what is available, in both English and Spanish, it becomes possible to piece
together a story. Jaime Irigoyen was 19 years old, a law-student at Universidad
Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez and a pitcher for the school�s baseball team, los Indios.
Judging from available information, he was a good one too. As he got ready for bed
on the night of January 12, 2009, that was his reality: baseball, school, girls
probably.

But those interests were soon to become historical facts; the kind that are
recollected in obituaries and recalled years later by nostalgic relatives. As the
Irigoyen family watched television in their Juarez townhome, just miles from the
Texas border, a group of masked commandos approached their house and knocked the
front door down. They surrounded the family in the living room. �Him with the
glasses,� a soldier said, pointing at Jaime who sat quietly in just his shorts and
socks and those glasses. They dragged him from the couch, gagging him and
blindfolding him as his family stood by screaming. Then, with no explanation they
took him away.

The soldiers forced his son into an unmarked SUV and sped off down the dark
residential streets. Jaime�s father was able to follow them at first. But after ten
or fifteen desperate minutes, the captors lost him and disappeared into the Juarez
night.

Jaime�s mother reported that like many of the 3,000 soldiers patrolling Juarez on
President Felipe Calderon�s orders, the men who took her son spoke in Southern
Mexican accents. But otherwise, the family had no clue as to who they were or why
they had come. Her son was merely a student, a baseball player. He was just a good
kid.

The next day, with some friends, the Irigoyens staged a protest outside a local
military base. Jaime�s parents demanded to know the whereabouts of their son. But
the military denied any involvement, releasing the following statement:

That whoever deprived him of liberty were dressed in military-style uniforms in no

way says they were soldiers. We call on the general public not to be fooled by
criminal gangs.

As if it made any difference to Jaime�s family whether the men who took him were
soldiers or not. As if criminal gangs were somebody else�s responsibility
completely, and the military had more important things to worry about. Regardless,
it was not long before the Irigoyen family got its answer. Just 30 hours after he
was taken, as his family stood outside the chain-link fence that kept helpless
desperate people like them from spoiling orderly military procedure, Jaime
Irigoyen�s body was found dumped on a Juarez street. His eyes were still
blindfolded and his mouth was still gagged.
The military never accepted responsibility for Jaime�s death, but most in the media
have chalked the murder up to a case of mistaken identity. Some speculate that a
low-level informant, perhaps under the strain of torture, misinformed some police
or military officer. But nobody will ever really know. Nobody but the men in the
masks.

V.

The memorial at the stadium did not happen quite as I imagined. The real version is
much more organized. Jaime Irigoyen�s casket is brought to home plate on the
shoulders of his teammates. The teammates, dressed in jeans and their blue caps and
jerseys crowd alongside family and friends. There are strangers there, come to
mourn the death of a pitcher, the death of potential, the state of a nation so
unraveled it could let things come to this. Photographers from local and national
newspapers take pictures, and reporters try to make themselves invisible but still
get a sense of things.

The bleachers really are empty, and some of the mourners really are dressed up in
suits. The service at the church is to take place right after the baseball stadium
memorial. Once everyone has spoken, everyone who was going to cry has cried, and
every available memory has been shared if not digested, Jaime�s teammates lift the
casket once again.

They hoist the heavy box upon their shoulders, in it their friend and the idea of
their friend and the weight of symbolism nobody can help but feel. They make their
way around the base paths; a gesture they realize is cumbersome and ironic. After
all, Jaime Irigoyen was a pitcher. But nobody says anything like that.

VI.

December 2, 2008. 46 days before the kidnapping

An editorial by Luis Carlos Martinez on out27.com, a Mexican baseball website,

addresses the growing violence in his city of Juarez. He suggests that fans turn to
baseball for comfort, for relief. In the column, he refers to a promising young
pitcher named Jaime Irigoyen.

Talk is unavoidable, but in the midst of these violent outbreaks that reign in our
city, we must turn to something that offers a more flattering panorama. Baseball
continues as an interesting alternative to divert our attention from these
lamentable events.

Bullets come and bullets go, but the sport is still king. Those of us who love
baseball are convinced that the show must go on, that praying to our Creator; we
can remain a part of this baseball family. And through it all, the various
tournaments in all categories and of all ages will continue to unfold throughout
our beleaguered city.

Our most recent major tournament went off without a hitch. Behind great work on the
pitcher�s mound by youngster Jaime Irigoyen, los Indios de La Universidad de
Juarez, won the first division at the third annual Hector Molina Interleague
Baseball Tournament.

A nation can�t let violence get in the way of living, especially when living is
sometimes the only thing one can do to escape from the mental prison that violence
creates. Bullets come, bullets go, but baseball stays. What other option do we
have? Even when those bullets are spraying the infield dirt, splitting bats, and
landing in the bleachers, baseball has to go on. Even as war plucks off baseball�s
innocents and blood seeps over its innocence, it must go on. Even as the clubhouse
ranks are thinned, baseball must go on.

Luis Carlos Martinez could never have known that less than two months after his
column was published, Jaime Irigoyen, the youngster who led his Indios to victory,
would become a casualty. He could have never known that the game he turned to as a
refuge from tragedy would soon bear witness to one. Or that Jaime Irigoyen would
soon become a story much more prescient than any strikeout or tournament victory.
He could have never known that so soon, the only option left on earth would be to
run the bases and try to forget.

Features and Politics, 20 Comments

20 Responses to �The Death Of A Pitcher�
Feed for this Entry
PMW
March 27, 2009 at 8:44 am
Great post! I have lived in and traveled throughout Mexico, and am often appalled
at the lack of coverage US-based media gives to stories like this one. I�m also a
fan of the Liga, and have been fortunate enough to make it to several games.
Thanks!

ManOutOfTime
August 17, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Congratulations on the acclaim for this moving essay. Whether it was the military
or the syndicate who murdered this young man, doesn�t it seems too much of a
coincidence that his name was in Sr. Martinez�s editorial. Does the syndicate want
people to think the military murdered an innocent symbol of peace? Is one side or
the other sending the message that baseball is NOT a refuge and diversion? What a
tragedy.

Daddy-O
August 17, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Congratulations, Eric. This post is a masterpiece. TPM led me here, and I�m damn
glad they did!

Janet Peters
August 17, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Eric, I just read your wonderful essay, which leaves me with great sadness.
Sometimes I�m the grammar fairy, and I�m wondering if, in the line 3rd from the end
of the essay, shouldn�t read �bear witness.� I don�t mean to nit-pick, but that
usage jumped out and smacked me as not quite right. That does nothing, however, to
diminish the beauty of your writing and its meaning for all of us who love baseball
and read this terrible, sad, painful story.

Eric
August 17, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Thanks for the comments all. And I�ll fix that typo.

Sean
August 17, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Outstanding piece; congratulations on the well deserved honor.

Stephanie
August 17, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Congratulations Eric, what a beautiful eulogy and frame on the ongoing violence in
Mexico.

mepmep09
August 17, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Congratulations from another TPM reader. Such tragic stories need wider
distribution, and I hope this recognition of your fine writing does just that, and
in so doing, perhaps might just offer a slender reed of comfort to the family and
friends of Jaime Irogoyen.

Jason Clinkscales
August 18, 2010 at 6:50 am
Fantastic work here, Eric. Curious, how did you come upon this story with the lack
of attention it received at the time of his death?

Nick
August 18, 2010 at 6:57 am
Congratulations from yet another TPM reader � a very moving essay about the game
and the ongoing violence in Mexico. And I will be back to read more � something
about baseball that has always inspired good writing.

Rick Wisotsky
August 19, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Eric,
Your dad sent me the link to TPM. First, I want to say how proud I am of you for
getting this excellent piece of writing included in The Best American Sports
Writing 2010. Thank you for sharing the truth of what�s happening across the border
and for bringing the story of Jaime Irgoyen to light. Job well done!

Rob B.
September 1, 2010 at 11:36 pm
Eric, what a great piece. this story with out a doubt has a spot in the upcoming
book.

Ron H.
September 6, 2010 at 6:48 pm
Eric: We knew you had a talent for writing. Great story, and a testament to both
your storytelling skill and your command of the language. This is only the
beginning of a solid career or avocation for you as a writer. Congratulations on
this moving piece of writing. Keep up the effort � keep looking for great subject
matter � and keep writing at or beyond this caliber. You have a gift.

cheryl
September 7, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Felicidades�beautifully written�I felt like I was in the stadium with the Irigoyen
family�thank you so much for sharing!

Jerry Grillo
October 22, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Powerful. So glad I found this (totally by accident, too). Congratulations on a
much deserved honor.

Roberts Smilga
December 11, 2010 at 11:50 am
Bravo! Well done.

Andy
July 7, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Incredible job, a beautifully narrated tale that you handled deftly. I was
incredibly moved.

vero irigoyen
January 20, 2012 at 8:23 am
I am Jaime Irigoyen aunt, thhee years ago my family got the worst news ever. Thanks
to the violence in Juarez, Mexico the life of my nephew was taken�but his memory
will last in our hearts and great memories forever!! may he rest in peace and you
will be missed forever!! You was the best pitcher, son, nephew and friend ever !!!
I love you Jaime and we miss you!! Hechale Jaime !!!!!!! R.I.P.

Eric
January 20, 2012 at 2:40 pm
Thanks for the comment, Vero. Hard to believe that was three years ago and things
have only gotten worse in Juarez. Hope your family is doing okay. You still have,
always have, my condolences.

Veronica
June 24, 2012 at 10:26 pm
It is a sad possibility that Luis Carlos Martinez� editorial extolling the civic
pride of baseball and in particilar the virtues embodied in Jaime, may have sealed
his fate; there may have been no informer after all, no mistaken identity. He was
life itself unconnected to the war but in his murder Juarez was told that there can
be no life unconnected to the war. As this poignant and superb piece makes clear it
is not a city or an area or one or a thousand individuals but life itself in Mexico
that is threatened.

The Big Announcement | pitchers & poets

Pingback on Aug 17th, 2010 at 9:37 am
Things you should read � The Junkballer
Pingback on Aug 18th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Friday | Allied Public Affairs
Pingback on Oct 28th, 2011 at 5:46 am
Comments are currently closed.
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ShareThis Copy and Paste:)Skip to content pitchers & poets both have their moments
Blog About Rogue�s Baseball Index � Poem Of The Week: �The Crowd At The Ball
Game�Baseball Funnies: Ichiro, Lasorda, & The Babe (Sorta) � The Death Of A Pitcher
Eric, March 18, 2009, 20 Comments So this piece has been selected for the 2010
edition of Best American Sports Writing. Pretty amazing. It�s one of the first
serious posts I ever did for this website and something that honored or not, I�m
very proud to have written. If you�ve found it via the book (or news of it being in
the book), then thanks for dropping by. I hope you enjoy it. -eric. I. They ran the
bases for Jaime Irogoyen. His family, his friends, and his teammates were all there
at Estadio Carta Blanca in Juarez, Mexico at 11:00 AM on January 17. I like to
imagine they were still dressed up from the funeral; that they came straight from
church. I like to imagine that they filed out of the dugout in their suits and
lined up behind home plate like Little Leaguers. In my version they all stand
silently for a while, unsure of what to do. There is no pitcher to get things
started. No base coach to windmill them around the diamond. They stand silently in
the quiet sanctuary of the empty stadium. They scratch their heads and ponder life
and death and the way a baseball field can make everything outside its lines or
walls or fences disappear. Finally an old man (maybe a grandparent or a coach)
grumbles impatiently; he knows death well. Let�s do something, he says. Vamanos.
The first person to run is Jaime Irogoyen�s sister. She jogs with her eyes on the
dry clay in front of her, rounding each base perfectly, so that her foot only
barely touches the inside corners of the bags. The old man who grumbled before nods
at her technique. The next mourner runs and the next one. Each waits for the person
before to reach first base before taking off. Each runs with his or her head down
so as not to offend the imagined pitcher. After all, Jaime Irogoyen was a pitcher.
II. Estadio Carta Blanca was built in the early 1970s, an era of rapid and
unregulated economic growth for Mexico. Oil production and manufacturing rose
sharply, but rampant corruption and poor fiscal management marred all that. Times
that should have been prosperous became trying; as jagged and hard-to-navigate as
the Sierra Madre mountain range that begins just a couple hundred miles southwest
of Ciudad Juarez. The reason for Estadio Carta Blanca�s construction was hopeful:
the return of big league baseball to Juarez. The city hadn�t had a franchise in the
top league, La Liga Mexicana, since los Indios de Juarez of the 1930s. Now, after
years of second tier American minor league and Mexican semi-pro clubs, los Indios
de Juarez were coming back. They threw their second first pitch as a franchise in
1973. Like any expansion team, los Indios struggled their first few seasons. But in
1976, they tied for first in their division. In �82, led by former Dodger and Red
pitcher Jose Pena, they won the championship. Celebrations were short-lived. At the
end of the �84 season, after two years of hectic swirling rumors, the franchise was
sold and moved to Laguna. After just a dozen seasons, seasons that saw a stadium
built, a championship won, and a fan base develop, the Indios de Juarez were
defeated for good. But the name of the team, like the stadium, still lingers. Now
the name, los Indios de Juarez, belongs to a local university. In the springtime,
you can watch the kids play under the lights at Estadio Carta Blanca. You can close
your eyes and imagine all the empty bleachers are full of screaming fans from a
bygone era. It seems that in Mexico, the institutions of baseball can outlive
governments. Regardless of the times, history is echoed through stadium speakers
even as it is occurring. III. More than 7,000 people have died in Mexico�s drug war
since 2007. A plurality of those deaths, nearly 2,000 of them, have occurred in
Chihuahua, the border state in which Juarez is the largest city and Estadio Carta
Blanca the largest baseball stadium. The persistent, increasingly macabre march of
murder in Juarez is almost cinematic in its over-the top gruesomeness. But this is
not a movie. Decapitated heads really are being found in ice chests across the
country. Bodies really are piling up in the alleyway behind the Starbucks in
Tijuana. Morgues really are overflowing. A New York Times headline called Mexico�s
drug war a Wild Wild West Bloodbath. To be sure, not all of the dead have been
innocent. Many of the faceless (or headless) corpses belong to corrupt police
officers, wily drug-runners, and gutless gunmen. But many more don�t. Many are
mothers struck by stray bullets, innocents misidentified by flailing cops and
soldiers, well-meaning immigrants trekking to America, robbed, raped and killed by
their hired protectors. Some even are students and baseball players. IV. There was
precious little media coverage of Jaime Irigoyen�s death. In the United States, our
press has not yet begun putting human faces on the bedlam below our Southern
border. In Mexico, there are so many dead, so many exceptionally tragic stories,
that it is hard for journalists to single them out. Why is Jaime Irigoyen�s death
more notable than that of any other innocent civilian caught in the crosshairs of
anarchy? From what is available, in both English and Spanish, it becomes possible
to piece together a story. Jaime Irigoyen was 19 years old, a law-student at
Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez and a pitcher for the school�s baseball team,
los Indios. Judging from available information, he was a good one too. As he got
ready for bed on the night of January 12, 2009, that was his reality: baseball,
school, girls probably. But those interests were soon to become historical facts;
the kind that are recollected in obituaries and recalled years later by nostalgic
relatives. As the Irigoyen family watched television in their Juarez townhome, just
miles from the Texas border, a group of masked commandos approached their house and
knocked the front door down. They surrounded the family in the living room. �Him
with the glasses,� a soldier said, pointing at Jaime who sat quietly in just his
shorts and socks and those glasses. They dragged him from the couch, gagging him
and blindfolding him as his family stood by screaming. Then, with no explanation
they took him away. The soldiers forced his son into an unmarked SUV and sped off
down the dark residential streets. Jaime�s father was able to follow them at first.
But after ten or fifteen desperate minutes, the captors lost him and disappeared
into the Juarez night. Jaime�s mother reported that like many of the 3,000 soldiers
patrolling Juarez on President Felipe Calderon�s orders, the men who took her son
spoke in Southern Mexican accents. But otherwise, the family had no clue as to who
they were or why they had come. Her son was merely a student, a baseball player. He
was just a good kid. The next day, with some friends, the Irigoyens staged a
protest outside a local military base. Jaime�s parents demanded to know the
whereabouts of their son. But the military denied any involvement, releasing the
following statement: That whoever deprived him of liberty were dressed in military-
style uniforms in no way says they were soldiers. We call on the general public not
to be fooled by criminal gangs. As if it made any difference to Jaime�s family
whether the men who took him were soldiers or not. As if criminal gangs were
somebody else�s responsibility completely, and the military had more important
things to worry about. Regardless, it was not long before the Irigoyen family got
its answer. Just 30 hours after he was taken, as his family stood outside the
chain-link fence that kept helpless desperate people like them from spoiling
orderly military procedure, Jaime Irigoyen�s body was found dumped on a Juarez
street. His eyes were still blindfolded and his mouth was still gagged. The
military never accepted responsibility for Jaime�s death, but most in the media
have chalked the murder up to a case of mistaken identity. Some speculate that a
low-level informant, perhaps under the strain of torture, misinformed some police
or military officer. But nobody will ever really know. Nobody but the men in the
masks. V. The memorial at the stadium did not happen quite as I imagined. The real
version is much more organized. Jaime Irigoyen�s casket is brought to home plate on
the shoulders of his teammates. The teammates, dressed in jeans and their blue caps
and jerseys crowd alongside family and friends. There are strangers there, come to
mourn the death of a pitcher, the death of potential, the state of a nation so
unraveled it could let things come to this. Photographers from local and national
newspapers take pictures, and reporters try to make themselves invisible but still
get a sense of things. The bleachers really are empty, and some of the mourners
really are dressed up in suits. The service at the church is to take place right
after the baseball stadium memorial. Once everyone has spoken, everyone who was
going to cry has cried, and every available memory has been shared if not digested,
Jaime�s teammates lift the casket once again. They hoist the heavy box upon their
shoulders, in it their friend and the idea of their friend and the weight of
symbolism nobody can help but feel. They make their way around the base paths; a
gesture they realize is cumbersome and ironic. After all, Jaime Irigoyen was a
pitcher. But nobody says anything like that. VI. December 2, 2008. 46 days before
the kidnapping An editorial by Luis Carlos Martinez on out27.com, a Mexican
baseball website, addresses the growing violence in his city of Juarez. He suggests
that fans turn to baseball for comfort, for relief. In the column, he refers to a
promising
young pitcher named Jaime Irigoyen. Talk is unavoidable, but in the midst of these
violent outbreaks that reign in our city, we must turn to something that offers a
more flattering panorama. Baseball continues as an interesting alternative to
divert our attention from these lamentable events. Bullets come and bullets go, but
the sport is still king. Those of us who love baseball are convinced that the show
must go on, that praying to our Creator; we can remain a part of this baseball
family. And through it all, the various tournaments in all categories and of all
ages will continue to unfold throughout our beleaguered city. Our most recent major
tournament went off without a hitch. Behind great work on the pitcher�s mound by
youngster Jaime Irigoyen, los Indios de La Universidad de Juarez, won the first
division at the third annual Hector Molina Interleague Baseball Tournament. A
nation can�t let violence get in the way of living, especially when living is
sometimes the only thing one can do to escape from the mental prison that violence
creates. Bullets come, bullets go, but baseball stays. What other option do we
have? Even when those bullets are spraying the infield dirt, splitting bats, and
landing in the bleachers, baseball has to go on. Even as war plucks off baseball�s
innocents and blood seeps over its innocence, it must go on. Even as the clubhouse
ranks are thinned, baseball must go on. Luis Carlos Martinez could never have known
that less than two months after his column was published, Jaime Irigoyen, the
youngster who led his Indios to victory, would become a casualty. He could have
never known that the game he turned to as a refuge from tragedy would soon bear
witness to one. Or that Jaime Irigoyen would soon become a story much more
prescient than any strikeout or tournament victory. He could have never known that
so soon, the only option left on earth would be to run the bases and try to forget.
Features and Politics, 20 Comments 20 Responses to �The Death Of A Pitcher� Feed
for this Entry PMW March 27, 2009 at 8:44 am Great post! I have lived in and
traveled throughout Mexico, and am often appalled at the lack of coverage US-based
media gives to stories like this one. I�m also a fan of the Liga, and have been
fortunate enough to make it to several games. Thanks! ManOutOfTime August 17, 2010
at 12:25 pm Congratulations on the acclaim for this moving essay. Whether it was
the military or the syndicate who murdered this young man, doesn�t it seems too
much of a coincidence that his name was in Sr. Martinez�s editorial. Does the
syndicate want people to think the military murdered an innocent symbol of peace?
Is one side or the other sending the message that baseball is NOT a refuge and
diversion? What a tragedy. Daddy-O August 17, 2010 at 12:52 pm Congratulations,
Eric. This post is a masterpiece. TPM led me here, and I�m damn glad they did!
Janet Peters August 17, 2010 at 1:56 pm Eric, I just read your wonderful essay,
which leaves me with great sadness. Sometimes I�m the grammar fairy, and I�m
wondering if, in the line 3rd from the end of the essay, shouldn�t read �bear
witness.� I don�t mean to nit-pick, but that usage jumped out and smacked me as not
quite right. That does nothing, however, to diminish the beauty of your writing and
its meaning for all of us who love baseball and read this terrible, sad, painful
story. Eric August 17, 2010 at 2:29 pm Thanks for the comments all. And I�ll fix
that typo. Sean August 17, 2010 at 3:46 pm Outstanding piece; congratulations on
the well deserved honor. Stephanie August 17, 2010 at 4:37 pm Congratulations Eric,
what a beautiful eulogy and frame on the ongoing violence in Mexico. mepmep09
August 17, 2010 at 5:17 pm Congratulations from another TPM reader. Such tragic
stories need wider distribution, and I hope this recognition of your fine writing
does just that, and in so doing, perhaps might just offer a slender reed of comfort
to the family and friends of Jaime Irogoyen. Jason Clinkscales August 18, 2010 at
6:50 am Fantastic work here, Eric. Curious, how did you come upon this story with
the lack of attention it received at the time of his death? Nick August 18, 2010 at
6:57 am Congratulations from yet another TPM reader � a very moving essay about the
game and the ongoing violence in Mexico. And I will be back to read more �
something about baseball that has always inspired good writing. Rick Wisotsky
August 19, 2010 at 2:50 pm Eric, Your dad sent me the link to TPM. First, I want to
say how proud I am of you for getting this excellent piece of writing included in
The Best American Sports Writing 2010. Thank you for sharing the truth of what�s
happening across the border and for bringing the story of Jaime Irgoyen to light.
Job well done! Rob B. September 1, 2010 at 11:36 pm Eric, what a great piece. this
story with out a doubt has a spot in the upcoming book. Ron H. September 6, 2010 at
6:48 pm Eric: We knew you had a talent for writing. Great story, and a testament to
both your storytelling skill and your command of the language. This is only the
beginning of a solid career or avocation for you as a writer. Congratulations on
this moving piece of writing. Keep up the effort � keep looking for great subject
matter � and keep writing at or beyond this caliber. You have a gift. cheryl
September 7, 2010 at 4:33 pm Felicidades�beautifully written�I felt like I was in
the stadium with the Irigoyen family�thank you so much for sharing! Jerry Grillo
October 22, 2010 at 12:38 pm Powerful. So glad I found this (totally by accident,
too). Congratulations on a much deserved honor. Roberts Smilga December 11, 2010 at
11:50 am Bravo! Well done. Andy July 7, 2011 at 2:32 pm Incredible job, a
beautifully narrated tale that you handled deftly. I was incredibly moved. vero
irigoyen January 20, 2012 at 8:23 am I am Jaime Irigoyen aunt, thhee years ago my
family got the worst news ever. Thanks to the violence in Juarez, Mexico the life
of my nephew was taken�but his memory will last in our hearts and great memories
forever!! may he rest in peace and you will be missed forever!! You was the best
pitcher, son, nephew and friend ever !!! I love you Jaime and we miss you!! Hechale
Jaime !!!!!!! R.I.P. Eric January 20, 2012 at 2:40 pm Thanks for the comment, Vero.
Hard to believe that was three years ago and things have only gotten worse in
Juarez. Hope your family is doing okay. You still have, always have, my
condolences. Veronica June 24, 2012 at 10:26 pm It is a sad possibility that Luis
Carlos Martinez� editorial extolling the civic pride of baseball and in particilar
the virtues embodied in Jaime, may have sealed his fate; there may have been no
informer after all, no mistaken identity. He was life itself unconnected to the war
but in his murder Juarez was told that there can be no life unconnected to the war.
As this poignant and superb piece makes clear it is not a city or an area or one or
a thousand individuals but life itself in Mexico that is threatened. The Big
Announcement | pitchers & poets Pingback on Aug 17th, 2010 at 9:37 am Things you
should read � The Junkballer Pingback on Aug 18th, 2010 at 1:59 pm Friday | Allied
Public Affairs Pingback on Oct 28th, 2011 at 5:46 am Comments are currently closed.
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Ball Game�Baseball Funnies: Ichiro, Lasorda, & The Babe (Sorta) � The Death Of A
Pitcher Eric, March 18, 2009, 20 Comments So this piece has been selected for the
2010 edition of Best American Sports Writing. Pretty amazing. It�s one of the first
serious posts I ever did for this website and something that honored or not, I�m
very proud to have written. If you�ve found it via the book (or news of it being in
the book), then thanks for dropping by. I hope you enjoy it. -eric. I. They ran the
bases for Jaime Irogoyen. His family, his friends, and his teammates were all there
at Estadio Carta Blanca in Juarez, Mexico at 11:00 AM on January 17. I like to
imagine they were still dressed up from the funeral; that they came straight from
church. I like to imagine that they filed out of the dugout in their suits and
lined up behind home plate like Little Leaguers. In my version they all stand
silently for a while, unsure of what to do. There is no pitcher to get things
started. No base coach to windmill them around the diamond. They stand silently in
the quiet sanctuary of the empty stadium. They scratch their heads and ponder life
and death and the way a baseball field can make everything outside its lines or
walls or fences disappear. Finally an old man (maybe a grandparent or a coach)
grumbles impatiently; he knows death well. Let�s do something, he says. Vamanos.
The first person
to run is Jaime Irogoyen�s sister. She jogs with her eyes on the dry clay in front
of her, rounding each base perfectly, so that her foot only barely touches the
inside corners of the bags. The old man who grumbled before nods at her technique.
The next mourner runs and the next one. Each waits for the person before to reach
first base before taking off. Each runs with his or her head down so as not to
offend the imagined pitcher. After all, Jaime Irogoyen was a pitcher. II. Estadio
Carta Blanca was built in the early 1970s, an era of rapid and unregulated economic
growth for Mexico. Oil production and manufacturing rose sharply, but rampant
corruption and poor fiscal management marred all that. Times that should have been
prosperous became trying; as jagged and hard-to-navigate as the Sierra Madre
mountain range that begins just a couple hundred miles southwest of Ciudad Juarez.
The reason for Estadio Carta Blanca�s construction was hopeful: the return of big
league baseball to Juarez. The city hadn�t had a franchise in the top league, La
Liga Mexicana, since los Indios de Juarez of the 1930s. Now, after years of second
tier American minor league and Mexican semi-pro clubs, los Indios de Juarez were
coming back. They threw their second first pitch as a franchise in 1973. Like any
expansion team, los Indios struggled their first few seasons. But in 1976, they
tied for first in their division. In �82, led by former Dodger and Red pitcher Jose
Pena, they won the championship. Celebrations were short-lived. At the end of the
�84 season, after two years of hectic swirling rumors, the franchise was sold and
moved to Laguna. After just a dozen seasons, seasons that saw a stadium built, a
championship won, and a fan base develop, the Indios de Juarez were defeated for
good. But the name of the team, like the stadium, still lingers. Now the name, los
Indios de Juarez, belongs to a local university. In the springtime, you can watch
the kids play under the lights at Estadio Carta Blanca. You can close your eyes and
imagine all the empty bleachers are full of screaming fans from a bygone era. It
seems that in Mexico, the institutions of baseball can outlive governments.
Regardless of the times, history is echoed through stadium speakers even as it is
occurring. III. More than 7,000 people have died in Mexico�s drug war since 2007. A
plurality of those deaths, nearly 2,000 of them, have occurred in Chihuahua, the
border state in which Juarez is the largest city and Estadio Carta Blanca the
largest baseball stadium. The persistent, increasingly macabre march of murder in
Juarez is almost cinematic in its over-the top gruesomeness. But this is not a
movie. Decapitated heads really are being found in ice chests across the country.
Bodies really are piling up in the alleyway behind the Starbucks in Tijuana.
Morgues really are overflowing. A New York Times headline called Mexico�s drug war
a Wild Wild West Bloodbath. To be sure, not all of the dead have been innocent.
Many of the faceless (or headless) corpses belong to corrupt police officers, wily
drug-runners, and gutless gunmen. But many more don�t. Many are mothers struck by
stray bullets, innocents misidentified by flailing cops and soldiers, well-meaning
immigrants trekking to America, robbed, raped and killed by their hired protectors.
Some even are students and baseball players. IV. There was precious little media
coverage of Jaime Irigoyen�s death. In the United States, our press has not yet
begun putting human faces on the bedlam below our Southern border. In Mexico, there
are so many dead, so many exceptionally tragic stories, that it is hard for
journalists to single them out. Why is Jaime Irigoyen�s death more notable than
that of any other innocent civilian caught in the crosshairs of anarchy? From what
is available, in both English and Spanish, it becomes possible to piece together a
story. Jaime Irigoyen was 19 years old, a law-student at Universidad Autonoma de
Ciudad Juarez and a pitcher for the school�s baseball team, los Indios. Judging
from available information, he was a good one too. As he got ready for bed on the
night of January 12, 2009, that was his reality: baseball, school, girls probably.
But those interests were soon to become historical facts; the kind that are
recollected in obituaries and recalled years later by nostalgic relatives. As the
Irigoyen family watched television in their Juarez townhome, just miles from the
Texas border, a group of masked commandos approached their house and knocked the
front door down. They surrounded the family in the living room. �Him with the
glasses,� a soldier said, pointing at Jaime who sat quietly in just his shorts and
socks and those glasses. They dragged him from the couch, gagging him and
blindfolding him as his family stood by screaming. Then, with no explanation they
took him away. The soldiers forced his son into an unmarked SUV and sped off down
the dark residential streets. Jaime�s father was able to follow them at first. But
after ten or fifteen desperate minutes, the captors lost him and disappeared into
the Juarez night. Jaime�s mother reported that like many of the 3,000 soldiers
patrolling Juarez on President Felipe Calderon�s orders, the men who took her son
spoke in Southern Mexican accents. But otherwise, the family had no clue as to who
they were or why they had come. Her son was merely a student, a baseball player. He
was just a good kid. The next day, with some friends, the Irigoyens staged a
protest outside a local military base. Jaime�s parents demanded to know the
whereabouts of their son. But the military denied any involvement, releasing the
following statement: That whoever deprived him of liberty were dressed in military-
style uniforms in no way says they were soldiers. We call on the general public not
to be fooled by criminal gangs. As if it made any difference to Jaime�s family
whether the men who took him were soldiers or not. As if criminal gangs were
somebody else�s responsibility completely, and the military had more important
things to worry about. Regardless, it was not long before the Irigoyen family got
its answer. Just 30 hours after he was taken, as his family stood outside the
chain-link fence that kept helpless desperate people like them from spoiling
orderly military procedure, Jaime Irigoyen�s body was found dumped on a Juarez
street. His eyes were still blindfolded and his mouth was still gagged. The
military never accepted responsibility for Jaime�s death, but most in the media
have chalked the murder up to a case of mistaken identity. Some speculate that a
low-level informant, perhaps under the strain of torture, misinformed some police
or military officer. But nobody will ever really know. Nobody but the men in the
masks. V. The memorial at the stadium did not happen quite as I imagined. The real
version is much more organized. Jaime Irigoyen�s casket is brought to home plate on
the shoulders of his teammates. The teammates, dressed in jeans and their blue caps
and jerseys crowd alongside family and friends. There are strangers there, come to
mourn the death of a pitcher, the death of potential, the state of a nation so
unraveled it could let things come to this. Photographers from local and national
newspapers take pictures, and reporters try to make themselves invisible but still
get a sense of things. The bleachers really are empty, and some of the mourners
really are dressed up in suits. The service at the church is to take place right
after the baseball stadium memorial. Once everyone has spoken, everyone who was
going to cry has cried, and every available memory has been shared if not digested,
Jaime�s teammates lift the casket once again. They hoist the heavy box upon their
shoulders, in it their friend and the idea of their friend and the weight of
symbolism nobody can help but feel. They make their way around the base paths; a
gesture they realize is cumbersome and ironic. After all, Jaime Irigoyen was a
pitcher. But nobody says anything like that. VI. December 2, 2008. 46 days before
the kidnapping An editorial by Luis Carlos Martinez on out27.com, a Mexican
baseball website, addresses the growing violence in his city of Juarez. He suggests
that fans turn to baseball for comfort, for relief. In the column, he refers to a
promising young pitcher named Jaime Irigoyen. Talk is unavoidable, but in the midst
of these violent outbreaks that reign in our city, we must turn to something that
offers a more flattering panorama. Baseball continues as an interesting alternative
to divert our attention from these lamentable events. Bullets come and bullets go,
but the sport is still king. Those of us who love baseball are convinced that the
show must go on, that praying to our Creator; we can remain a part of this baseball
family. And through it all, the various tournaments in all categories and of all
ages will continue to unfold throughout our beleaguered city. Our most recent major
tournament went off without a hitch. Behind great work on the pitcher�s mound by
youngster Jaime Irigoyen, los Indios de La Universidad de Juarez, won the first
division at the third annual Hector Molina Interleague Baseball Tournament. A
nation can�t let violence get in the way of living, especially when living is
sometimes the only thing one can do to escape from the mental prison that violence
creates. Bullets come, bullets go, but baseball stays. What other option do we
have? Even when those bullets are spraying the infield dirt, splitting bats, and
landing in the bleachers, baseball has to go on. Even as war plucks off baseball�s
innocents and blood seeps over its innocence, it must go on. Even as the clubhouse
ranks are thinned, baseball must go on. Luis Carlos Martinez could never have known
that less than two months after his column was published, Jaime Irigoyen, the
youngster
who led his Indios to victory, would become a casualty. He could have never known
that the game he turned to as a refuge from tragedy would soon bear witness to one.
Or that Jaime Irigoyen would soon become a story much more prescient than any
strikeout or tournament victory. He could have never known that so soon, the only
option left on earth would be to run the bases and try to forget. Features and
Politics, 20 Comments 20 Responses to �The Death Of A Pitcher� Feed for this Entry
PMW March 27, 2009 at 8:44 am Great post! I have lived in and traveled throughout
Mexico, and am often appalled at the lack of coverage US-based media gives to
stories like this one. I�m also a fan of the Liga, and have been fortunate enough
to make it to several games. Thanks! ManOutOfTime August 17, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Congratulations on the acclaim for this moving essay. Whether it was the military
or the syndicate who murdered this young man, doesn�t it seems too much of a
coincidence that his name was in Sr. Martinez�s editorial. Does the syndicate want
people to think the military murdered an innocent symbol of peace? Is one side or
the other sending the message that baseball is NOT a refuge and diversion? What a
tragedy. Daddy-O August 17, 2010 at 12:52 pm Congratulations, Eric. This post is a
masterpiece. TPM led me here, and I�m damn glad they did! Janet Peters August 17,
2010 at 1:56 pm Eric, I just read your wonderful essay, which leaves me with great
sadness. Sometimes I�m the grammar fairy, and I�m wondering if, in the line 3rd
from the end of the essay, shouldn�t read �bear witness.� I don�t mean to nit-pick,
but that usage jumped out and smacked me as not quite right. That does nothing,
however, to diminish the beauty of your writing and its meaning for all of us who
love baseball and read this terrible, sad, painful story. Eric August 17, 2010 at
2:29 pm Thanks for the comments all. And I�ll fix that typo. Sean August 17, 2010
at 3:46 pm Outstanding piece; congratulations on the well deserved honor. Stephanie
August 17, 2010 at 4:37 pm Congratulations Eric, what a beautiful eulogy and frame
on the ongoing violence in Mexico. mepmep09 August 17, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Congratulations from another TPM reader. Such tragic stories need wider
distribution, and I hope this recognition of your fine writing does just that, and
in so doing, perhaps might just offer a slender reed of comfort to the family and
friends of Jaime Irogoyen. Jason Clinkscales August 18, 2010 at 6:50 am Fantastic
work here, Eric. Curious, how did you come upon this story with the lack of
attention it received at the time of his death? Nick August 18, 2010 at 6:57 am
Congratulations from yet another TPM reader � a very moving essay about the game
and the ongoing violence in Mexico. And I will be back to read more � something
about baseball that has always inspired good writing. Rick Wisotsky August 19, 2010
at 2:50 pm Eric, Your dad sent me the link to TPM. First, I want to say how proud I
am of you for getting this excellent piece of writing included in The Best American
Sports Writing 2010. Thank you for sharing the truth of what�s happening across the
border and for bringing the story of Jaime Irgoyen to light. Job well done! Rob B.
September 1, 2010 at 11:36 pm Eric, what a great piece. this story with out a doubt
has a spot in the upcoming book. Ron H. September 6, 2010 at 6:48 pm Eric: We knew
you had a talent for writing. Great story, and a testament to both your
storytelling skill and your command of the language. This is only the beginning of
a solid career or avocation for you as a writer. Congratulations on this moving
piece of writing. Keep up the effort � keep looking for great subject matter � and
keep writing at or beyond this caliber. You have a gift. cheryl September 7, 2010
at 4:33 pm Felicidades�beautifully written�I felt like I was in the stadium with
the Irigoyen family�thank you so much for sharing! Jerry Grillo October 22, 2010 at
12:38 pm Powerful. So glad I found this (totally by accident, too). Congratulations
on a much deserved honor. Roberts Smilga December 11, 2010 at 11:50 am Bravo! Well
done. Andy July 7, 2011 at 2:32 pm Incredible job, a beautifully narrated tale that
you handled deftly. I was incredibly moved. vero irigoyen January 20, 2012 at 8:23
am I am Jaime Irigoyen aunt, thhee years ago my family got the worst news ever.
Thanks to the violence in Juarez, Mexico the life of my nephew was taken�but his
memory will last in our hearts and great memories forever!! may he rest in peace
and you will be missed forever!! You was the best pitcher, son, nephew and friend
ever !!! I love you Jaime and we miss you!! Hechale Jaime !!!!!!! R.I.P. Eric
January 20, 2012 at 2:40 pm Thanks for the comment, Vero. Hard to believe that was
three years ago and things have only gotten worse in Juarez. Hope your family is
doing okay. You still have, always have, my condolences. Veronica June 24, 2012 at
10:26 pm It is a sad possibility that Luis Carlos Martinez� editorial extolling the
civic pride of baseball and in particilar the virtues embodied in Jaime, may have
sealed his fate; there may have been no informer after all, no mistaken identity.
He was life itself unconnected to the war but in his murder Juarez was told that
there can be no life unconnected to the war. As this poignant and superb piece
makes clear it is not a city or an area or one or a thousand individuals but life
itself in Mexico that is threatened. The Big Announcement | pitchers & poets
Pingback on Aug 17th, 2010 at 9:37 am Things you should read � The Junkballer
Pingback on Aug 18th, 2010 at 1:59 pm Friday | Allied Public Affairs Pingback on
Oct 28th, 2011 at 5:46 am Comments are currently closed. � Poem Of The Week: �The
Crowd At The Ball Game�Baseball Funnies: Ichiro, Lasorda, & The Babe (Sorta) �
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Funnies: Ichiro, Lasorda, & The Babe (Sorta) � The Death Of A Pitcher Eric, March
18, 2009, 20 Comments So this piece has been selected for the 2010 edition of Best
American Sports Writing. Pretty amazing. It�s one of the first serious posts I ever
did for this website and something that honored or not, I�m very proud to have
written. If you�ve found it via the book (or news of it being in the book), then
thanks for dropping by. I hope you enjoy it. -eric. I. They ran the bases for Jaime
Irogoyen. His family, his friends, and his teammates were all there at Estadio
Carta Blanca in Juarez, Mexico at 11:00 AM on January 17. I like to imagine they
were still dressed up from the funeral; that they came straight from church. I like
to imagine that they filed out of the dugout in their suits and lined up behind
home plate like Little Leaguers. In my version they all stand silently for a while,
unsure of what to do. There is no pitcher to get things started. No base coach to
windmill them around the diamond. They stand silently in the quiet sanctuary of the
empty stadium. They scratch their heads and ponder life and death and the way a
baseball field can make everything outside its lines or walls or fences disappear.
Finally an old man (maybe a grandparent or a coach) grumbles impatiently; he knows
death well. Let�s do something, he says. Vamanos. The first person to run is Jaime
Irogoyen�s sister. She jogs with her eyes on the dry clay in front of her, rounding
each base perfectly, so that her foot only barely touches the inside corners of the
bags. The old man who grumbled before nods at her technique. The next mourner runs
and the next one. Each waits for the person before to reach first base before
taking off. Each runs with his or her head down so as not to offend the imagined
pitcher. After all, Jaime Irogoyen was a pitcher. II. Estadio Carta Blanca was
built in the early 1970s, an era of rapid and unregulated economic growth for
Mexico. Oil production and manufacturing rose sharply, but rampant corruption and
poor fiscal management marred all that. Times that should have been prosperous
became trying; as jagged and hard-to-navigate as the Sierra Madre mountain range
that begins just a couple hundred miles southwest of Ciudad Juarez. The reason for
Estadio Carta Blanca�s construction was hopeful: the return of big league baseball
to Juarez. The city hadn�t had a franchise in the top league, La Liga Mexicana,
since los Indios de Juarez of the 1930s. Now, after years of second tier American
minor league and Mexican semi-pro clubs, los Indios de Juarez were coming back.
They threw their second first pitch as a franchise in 1973. Like any expansion
team, los Indios struggled their first few seasons. But in 1976, they tied for
first in their division. In �82, led by former Dodger and Red pitcher Jose Pena,
they won the championship. Celebrations were short-lived.
At the end of the �84 season, after two years of hectic swirling rumors, the
franchise was sold and moved to Laguna. After just a dozen seasons, seasons that
saw a stadium built, a championship won, and a fan base develop, the Indios de
Juarez were defeated for good. But the name of the team, like the stadium, still
lingers. Now the name, los Indios de Juarez, belongs to a local university. In the
springtime, you can watch the kids play under the lights at Estadio Carta Blanca.
You can close your eyes and imagine all the empty bleachers are full of screaming
fans from a bygone era. It seems that in Mexico, the institutions of baseball can
outlive governments. Regardless of the times, history is echoed through stadium
speakers even as it is occurring. III. More than 7,000 people have died in Mexico�s
drug war since 2007. A plurality of those deaths, nearly 2,000 of them, have
occurred in Chihuahua, the border state in which Juarez is the largest city and
Estadio Carta Blanca the largest baseball stadium. The persistent, increasingly
macabre march of murder in Juarez is almost cinematic in its over-the top
gruesomeness. But this is not a movie. Decapitated heads really are being found in
ice chests across the country. Bodies really are piling up in the alleyway behind
the Starbucks in Tijuana. Morgues really are overflowing. A New York Times headline
called Mexico�s drug war a Wild Wild West Bloodbath. To be sure, not all of the
dead have been innocent. Many of the faceless (or headless) corpses belong to
corrupt police officers, wily drug-runners, and gutless gunmen. But many more
don�t. Many are mothers struck by stray bullets, innocents misidentified by
flailing cops and soldiers, well-meaning immigrants trekking to America, robbed,
raped and killed by their hired protectors. Some even are students and baseball
players. IV. There was precious little media coverage of Jaime Irigoyen�s death. In
the United States, our press has not yet begun putting human faces on the bedlam
below our Southern border. In Mexico, there are so many dead, so many exceptionally
tragic stories, that it is hard for journalists to single them out. Why is Jaime
Irigoyen�s death more notable than that of any other innocent civilian caught in
the crosshairs of anarchy? From what is available, in both English and Spanish, it
becomes possible to piece together a story. Jaime Irigoyen was 19 years old, a law-
student at Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez and a pitcher for the school�s
baseball team, los Indios. Judging from available information, he was a good one
too. As he got ready for bed on the night of January 12, 2009, that was his
reality: baseball, school, girls probably. But those interests were soon to become
historical facts; the kind that are recollected in obituaries and recalled years
later by nostalgic relatives. As the Irigoyen family watched television in their
Juarez townhome, just miles from the Texas border, a group of masked commandos
approached their house and knocked the front door down. They surrounded the family
in the living room. �Him with the glasses,� a soldier said, pointing at Jaime who
sat quietly in just his shorts and socks and those glasses. They dragged him from
the couch, gagging him and blindfolding him as his family stood by screaming. Then,
with no explanation they took him away. The soldiers forced his son into an
unmarked SUV and sped off down the dark residential streets. Jaime�s father was
able to follow them at first. But after ten or fifteen desperate minutes, the
captors lost him and disappeared into the Juarez night. Jaime�s mother reported
that like many of the 3,000 soldiers patrolling Juarez on President Felipe
Calderon�s orders, the men who took her son spoke in Southern Mexican accents. But
otherwise, the family had no clue as to who they were or why they had come. Her son
was merely a student, a baseball player. He was just a good kid. The next day, with
some friends, the Irigoyens staged a protest outside a local military base. Jaime�s
parents demanded to know the whereabouts of their son. But the military denied any
involvement, releasing the following statement: That whoever deprived him of
liberty were dressed in military-style uniforms in no way says they were soldiers.
We call on the general public not to be fooled by criminal gangs. As if it made any
difference to Jaime�s family whether the men who took him were soldiers or not. As
if criminal gangs were somebody else�s responsibility completely, and the military
had more important things to worry about. Regardless, it was not long before the
Irigoyen family got its answer. Just 30 hours after he was taken, as his family
stood outside the chain-link fence that kept helpless desperate people like them
from spoiling orderly military procedure, Jaime Irigoyen�s body was found dumped on
a Juarez street. His eyes were still blindfolded and his mouth was still gagged.
The military never accepted responsibility for Jaime�s death, but most in the media
have chalked the murder up to a case of mistaken identity. Some speculate that a
low-level informant, perhaps under the strain of torture, misinformed some police
or military officer. But nobody will ever really know. Nobody but the men in the
masks. V. The memorial at the stadium did not happen quite as I imagined. The real
version is much more organized. Jaime Irigoyen�s casket is brought to home plate on
the shoulders of his teammates. The teammates, dressed in jeans and their blue caps
and jerseys crowd alongside family and friends. There are strangers there, come to
mourn the death of a pitcher, the death of potential, the state of a nation so
unraveled it could let things come to this. Photographers from local and national
newspapers take pictures, and reporters try to make themselves invisible but still
get a sense of things. The bleachers really are empty, and some of the mourners
really are dressed up in suits. The service at the church is to take place right
after the baseball stadium memorial. Once everyone has spoken, everyone who was
going to cry has cried, and every available memory has been shared if not digested,
Jaime�s teammates lift the casket once again. They hoist the heavy box upon their
shoulders, in it their friend and the idea of their friend and the weight of
symbolism nobody can help but feel. They make their way around the base paths; a
gesture they realize is cumbersome and ironic. After all, Jaime Irigoyen was a
pitcher. But nobody says anything like that. VI. December 2, 2008. 46 days before
the kidnapping An editorial by Luis Carlos Martinez on out27.com, a Mexican
baseball website, addresses the growing violence in his city of Juarez. He suggests
that fans turn to baseball for comfort, for relief. In the column, he refers to a
promising young pitcher named Jaime Irigoyen. Talk is unavoidable, but in the midst
of these violent outbreaks that reign in our city, we must turn to something that
offers a more flattering panorama. Baseball continues as an interesting alternative
to divert our attention from these lamentable events. Bullets come and bullets go,
but the sport is still king. Those of us who love baseball are convinced that the
show must go on, that praying to our Creator; we can remain a part of this baseball
family. And through it all, the various tournaments in all categories and of all
ages will continue to unfold throughout our beleaguered city. Our most recent major
tournament went off without a hitch. Behind great work on the pitcher�s mound by
youngster Jaime Irigoyen, los Indios de La Universidad de Juarez, won the first
division at the third annual Hector Molina Interleague Baseball Tournament. A
nation can�t let violence get in the way of living, especially when living is
sometimes the only thing one can do to escape from the mental prison that violence
creates. Bullets come, bullets go, but baseball stays. What other option do we
have? Even when those bullets are spraying the infield dirt, splitting bats, and
landing in the bleachers, baseball has to go on. Even as war plucks off baseball�s
innocents and blood seeps over its innocence, it must go on. Even as the clubhouse
ranks are thinned, baseball must go on. Luis Carlos Martinez could never have known
that less than two months after his column was published, Jaime Irigoyen, the
youngster who led his Indios to victory, would become a casualty. He could have
never known that the game he turned to as a refuge from tragedy would soon bear
witness to one. Or that Jaime Irigoyen would soon become a story much more
prescient than any strikeout or tournament victory. He could have never known that
so soon, the only option left on earth would be to run the bases and try to forget.
Features and Politics, 20 Comments 20 Responses to �The Death Of A Pitcher� Feed
for this Entry PMW March 27, 2009 at 8:44 am Great post! I have lived in and
traveled throughout Mexico, and am often appalled at the lack of coverage US-based
media gives to stories like this one. I�m also a fan of the Liga, and have been
fortunate enough to make it to several games. Thanks! ManOutOfTime August 17, 2010
at 12:25 pm Congratulations on the acclaim for this moving essay. Whether it was
the military or the syndicate who murdered this young man, doesn�t it seems too
much of a coincidence that his name was in Sr. Martinez�s editorial. Does the
syndicate want people to think the military murdered an innocent symbol of peace?
Is one side or the other sending the message that baseball is NOT a refuge and
diversion? What a tragedy. Daddy-O August 17, 2010 at 12:52 pm Congratulations,
Eric. This post is a masterpiece. TPM led me here, and I�m damn glad they did!
Janet Peters August 17, 2010 at 1:56 pm Eric, I just read your wonderful essay,
which leaves me with great sadness. Sometimes I�m the grammar fairy, and I�m
wondering if, in
the line 3rd from the end of the essay, shouldn�t read �bear witness.� I don�t
mean to nit-pick, but that usage jumped out and smacked me as not quite right. That
does nothing, however, to diminish the beauty of your writing and its meaning for
all of us who love baseball and read this terrible, sad, painful story. Eric August
17, 2010 at 2:29 pm Thanks for the comments all. And I�ll fix that typo. Sean
August 17, 2010 at 3:46 pm Outstanding piece; congratulations on the well deserved
honor. Stephanie August 17, 2010 at 4:37 pm Congratulations Eric, what a beautiful
eulogy and frame on the ongoing violence in Mexico. mepmep09 August 17, 2010 at
5:17 pm Congratulations from another TPM reader. Such tragic stories need wider
distribution, and I hope this recognition of your fine writing does just that, and
in so doing, perhaps might just offer a slender reed of comfort to the family and
friends of Jaime Irogoyen. Jason Clinkscales August 18, 2010 at 6:50 am Fantastic
work here, Eric. Curious, how did you come upon this story with the lack of
attention it received at the time of his death? Nick August 18, 2010 at 6:57 am
Congratulations from yet another TPM reader � a very moving essay about the game
and the ongoing violence in Mexico. And I will be back to read more � something
about baseball that has always inspired good writing. Rick Wisotsky August 19, 2010
at 2:50 pm Eric, Your dad sent me the link to TPM. First, I want to say how proud I
am of you for getting this excellent piece of writing included in The Best American
Sports Writing 2010. Thank you for sharing the truth of what�s happening across the
border and for bringing the story of Jaime Irgoyen to light. Job well done! Rob B.
September 1, 2010 at 11:36 pm Eric, what a great piece. this story with out a doubt
has a spot in the upcoming book. Ron H. September 6, 2010 at 6:48 pm Eric: We knew
you had a talent for writing. Great story, and a testament to both your
storytelling skill and your command of the language. This is only the beginning of
a solid career or avocation for you as a writer. Congratulations on this moving
piece of writing. Keep up the effort � keep looking for great subject matter � and
keep writing at or beyond this caliber. You have a gift. cheryl September 7, 2010
at 4:33 pm Felicidades�beautifully written�I felt like I was in the stadium with
the Irigoyen family�thank you so much for sharing! Jerry Grillo October 22, 2010 at
12:38 pm Powerful. So glad I found this (totally by accident, too). Congratulations
on a much deserved honor. Roberts Smilga December 11, 2010 at 11:50 am Bravo! Well
done. Andy July 7, 2011 at 2:32 pm Incredible job, a beautifully narrated tale that
you handled deftly. I was incredibly moved. vero irigoyen January 20, 2012 at 8:23
am I am Jaime Irigoyen aunt, thhee years ago my family got the worst news ever.
Thanks to the violence in Juarez, Mexico the life of my nephew was taken�but his
memory will last in our hearts and great memories forever!! may he rest in peace
and you will be missed forever!! You was the best pitcher, son, nephew and friend
ever !!! I love you Jaime and we miss you!! Hechale Jaime !!!!!!! R.I.P. Eric
January 20, 2012 at 2:40 pm Thanks for the comment, Vero. Hard to believe that was
three years ago and things have only gotten worse in Juarez. Hope your family is
doing okay. You still have, always have, my condolences. Veronica June 24, 2012 at
10:26 pm It is a sad possibility that Luis Carlos Martinez� editorial extolling the
civic pride of baseball and in particilar the virtues embodied in Jaime, may have
sealed his fate; there may have been no informer after all, no mistaken identity.
He was life itself unconnected to the war but in his murder Juarez was told that
there can be no life unconnected to the war. As this poignant and superb piece
makes clear it is not a city or an area or one or a thousand individuals but life
itself in Mexico that is threatened. The Big Announcement | pitchers & poets
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March 2009 Powered by WordPress and K2 Entries Feed and Comments Feed Skip to
content pitchers & poets both have their moments Blog About Rogue�s Baseball Index
� Poem Of The Week: �The Crowd At The Ball Game�Baseball Funnies: Ichiro, Lasorda,
& The Babe (Sorta) � The Death Of A Pitcher Eric, March 18, 2009, 20 Comments So
this piece has been selected for the 2010 edition of Best American Sports Writing.
Pretty amazing. It�s one of the first serious posts I ever did for this website and
something that honored or not, I�m very proud to have written. If you�ve found it
via the book (or news of it being in the book), then thanks for dropping by. I hope
you enjoy it. -eric. I. They ran the bases for Jaime Irogoyen. His family, his
friends, and his teammates were all there at Estadio Carta Blanca in Juarez, Mexico
at 11:00 AM on January 17. I like to imagine they were still dressed up from the
funeral; that they came straight from church. I like to imagine that they filed out
of the dugout in their suits and lined up behind home plate like Little Leaguers.
In my version they all stand silently for a while, unsure of what to do. There is
no pitcher to get things started. No base coach to windmill them around the
diamond. They stand silently in the quiet sanctuary of the empty stadium. They
scratch their heads and ponder life and death and the way a baseball field can make
everything outside its lines or walls or fences disappear. Finally an old man
(maybe a grandparent or a coach) grumbles impatiently; he knows death well. Let�s
do something, he says. Vamanos. The first person to run is Jaime Irogoyen�s sister.
She jogs with her eyes on the dry clay in front of her, rounding each base
perfectly, so that her foot only barely touches the inside corners of the bags. The
old man who grumbled before nods at her technique. The next mourner runs and the
next one. Each waits for the person before to reach first base before taking off.
Each runs with his or her head down so as not to offend the imagined pitcher. After
all, Jaime Irogoyen was a pitcher. II. Estadio Carta Blanca was built in the early
1970s, an era of rapid and unregulated economic growth for Mexico. Oil production
and manufacturing rose sharply, but rampant corruption and poor fiscal management
marred all that. Times that should have been prosperous became trying; as jagged
and hard-to-navigate as the Sierra Madre mountain range that begins just a couple
hundred miles southwest of Ciudad Juarez. The reason for Estadio Carta Blanca�s
construction was hopeful: the return of big league baseball to Juarez. The city
hadn�t had a franchise in the top league, La Liga Mexicana, since los Indios de
Juarez of the 1930s. Now, after years of second tier American minor league and
Mexican semi-pro clubs, los Indios de Juarez were coming back. They threw their
second first pitch as a franchise in 1973. Like any expansion team, los Indios
struggled their first few seasons. But in 1976, they tied for first in their
division. In �82, led by former Dodger and Red pitcher Jose Pena, they won the
championship. Celebrations were short-lived. At the end of the �84 season, after
two years of hectic swirling rumors, the franchise was sold and moved to Laguna.
After just a dozen seasons, seasons that saw a stadium built, a championship won,
and a fan base develop, the Indios de Juarez were defeated for good. But the name
of the team, like the stadium, still lingers. Now the name, los Indios de Juarez,
belongs to a local university. In the springtime, you can watch the kids play under
the lights at Estadio Carta Blanca. You can close your eyes and imagine all the
empty bleachers are full of screaming fans from a bygone era. It seems that in
Mexico, the institutions of baseball can outlive governments. Regardless of the
times, history is echoed through stadium speakers even as it is occurring. III.
More than 7,000 people have died in Mexico�s drug war since 2007. A plurality of
those deaths, nearly 2,000 of them, have occurred in Chihuahua, the border state in
which Juarez is the largest city and Estadio Carta Blanca the largest baseball
stadium. The persistent, increasingly macabre march of murder in Juarez is almost
cinematic in its over-the top gruesomeness. But this is not a movie. Decapitated
heads really are being found in ice chests across the country. Bodies really are
piling up in the alleyway behind the Starbucks in Tijuana. Morgues really are
overflowing. A New York Times headline called Mexico�s drug war a Wild Wild West
Bloodbath. To be sure, not all of the dead have been innocent. Many of the faceless
(or headless) corpses belong to corrupt police officers,
wily drug-runners, and gutless gunmen. But many more don�t. Many are mothers
struck by stray bullets, innocents misidentified by flailing cops and soldiers,
well-meaning immigrants trekking to America, robbed, raped and killed by their
hired protectors. Some even are students and baseball players. IV. There was
precious little media coverage of Jaime Irigoyen�s death. In the United States, our
press has not yet begun putting human faces on the bedlam below our Southern
border. In Mexico, there are so many dead, so many exceptionally tragic stories,
that it is hard for journalists to single them out. Why is Jaime Irigoyen�s death
more notable than that of any other innocent civilian caught in the crosshairs of
anarchy? From what is available, in both English and Spanish, it becomes possible
to piece together a story. Jaime Irigoyen was 19 years old, a law-student at
Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez and a pitcher for the school�s baseball team,
los Indios. Judging from available information, he was a good one too. As he got
ready for bed on the night of January 12, 2009, that was his reality: baseball,
school, girls probably. But those interests were soon to become historical facts;
the kind that are recollected in obituaries and recalled years later by nostalgic
relatives. As the Irigoyen family watched television in their Juarez townhome, just
miles from the Texas border, a group of masked commandos approached their house and
knocked the front door down. They surrounded the family in the living room. �Him
with the glasses,� a soldier said, pointing at Jaime who sat quietly in just his
shorts and socks and those glasses. They dragged him from the couch, gagging him
and blindfolding him as his family stood by screaming. Then, with no explanation
they took him away. The soldiers forced his son into an unmarked SUV and sped off
down the dark residential streets. Jaime�s father was able to follow them at first.
But after ten or fifteen desperate minutes, the captors lost him and disappeared
into the Juarez night. Jaime�s mother reported that like many of the 3,000 soldiers
patrolling Juarez on President Felipe Calderon�s orders, the men who took her son
spoke in Southern Mexican accents. But otherwise, the family had no clue as to who
they were or why they had come. Her son was merely a student, a baseball player. He
was just a good kid. The next day, with some friends, the Irigoyens staged a
protest outside a local military base. Jaime�s parents demanded to know the
whereabouts of their son. But the military denied any involvement, releasing the
following statement: That whoever deprived him of liberty were dressed in military-
style uniforms in no way says they were soldiers. We call on the general public not
to be fooled by criminal gangs. As if it made any difference to Jaime�s family
whether the men who took him were soldiers or not. As if criminal gangs were
somebody else�s responsibility completely, and the military had more important
things to worry about. Regardless, it was not long before the Irigoyen family got
its answer. Just 30 hours after he was taken, as his family stood outside the
chain-link fence that kept helpless desperate people like them from spoiling
orderly military procedure, Jaime Irigoyen�s body was found dumped on a Juarez
street. His eyes were still blindfolded and his mouth was still gagged. The
military never accepted responsibility for Jaime�s death, but most in the media
have chalked the murder up to a case of mistaken identity. Some speculate that a
low-level informant, perhaps under the strain of torture, misinformed some police
or military officer. But nobody will ever really know. Nobody but the men in the
masks. V. The memorial at the stadium did not happen quite as I imagined. The real
version is much more organized. Jaime Irigoyen�s casket is brought to home plate on
the shoulders of his teammates. The teammates, dressed in jeans and their blue caps
and jerseys crowd alongside family and friends. There are strangers there, come to
mourn the death of a pitcher, the death of potential, the state of a nation so
unraveled it could let things come to this. Photographers from local and national
newspapers take pictures, and reporters try to make themselves invisible but still
get a sense of things. The bleachers really are empty, and some of the mourners
really are dressed up in suits. The service at the church is to take place right
after the baseball stadium memorial. Once everyone has spoken, everyone who was
going to cry has cried, and every available memory has been shared if not digested,
Jaime�s teammates lift the casket once again. They hoist the heavy box upon their
shoulders, in it their friend and the idea of their friend and the weight of
symbolism nobody can help but feel. They make their way around the base paths; a
gesture they realize is cumbersome and ironic. After all, Jaime Irigoyen was a
pitcher. But nobody says anything like that. VI. December 2, 2008. 46 days before
the kidnapping An editorial by Luis Carlos Martinez on out27.com, a Mexican
baseball website, addresses the growing violence in his city of Juarez. He suggests
that fans turn to baseball for comfort, for relief. In the column, he refers to a
promising young pitcher named Jaime Irigoyen. Talk is unavoidable, but in the midst
of these violent outbreaks that reign in our city, we must turn to something that
offers a more flattering panorama. Baseball continues as an interesting alternative
to divert our attention from these lamentable events. Bullets come and bullets go,
but the sport is still king. Those of us who love baseball are convinced that the
show must go on, that praying to our Creator; we can remain a part of this baseball
family. And through it all, the various tournaments in all categories and of all
ages will continue to unfold throughout our beleaguered city. Our most recent major
tournament went off without a hitch. Behind great work on the pitcher�s mound by
youngster Jaime Irigoyen, los Indios de La Universidad de Juarez, won the first
division at the third annual Hector Molina Interleague Baseball Tournament. A
nation can�t let violence get in the way of living, especially when living is
sometimes the only thing one can do to escape from the mental prison that violence
creates. Bullets come, bullets go, but baseball stays. What other option do we
have? Even when those bullets are spraying the infield dirt, splitting bats, and
landing in the bleachers, baseball has to go on. Even as war plucks off baseball�s
innocents and blood seeps over its innocence, it must go on. Even as the clubhouse
ranks are thinned, baseball must go on. Luis Carlos Martinez could never have known
that less than two months after his column was published, Jaime Irigoyen, the
youngster who led his Indios to victory, would become a casualty. He could have
never known that the game he turned to as a refuge from tragedy would soon bear
witness to one. Or that Jaime Irigoyen would soon become a story much more
prescient than any strikeout or tournament victory. He could have never known that
so soon, the only option left on earth would be to run the bases and try to forget.
Features and Politics, 20 Comments 20 Responses to �The Death Of A Pitcher� Feed
for this Entry PMW March 27, 2009 at 8:44 am Great post! I have lived in and
traveled throughout Mexico, and am often appalled at the lack of coverage US-based
media gives to stories like this one. I�m also a fan of the Liga, and have been
fortunate enough to make it to several games. Thanks! ManOutOfTime August 17, 2010
at 12:25 pm Congratulations on the acclaim for this moving essay. Whether it was
the military or the syndicate who murdered this young man, doesn�t it seems too
much of a coincidence that his name was in Sr. Martinez�s editorial. Does the
syndicate want people to think the military murdered an innocent symbol of peace?
Is one side or the other sending the message that baseball is NOT a refuge and
diversion? What a tragedy. Daddy-O August 17, 2010 at 12:52 pm Congratulations,
Eric. This post is a masterpiece. TPM led me here, and I�m damn glad they did!
Janet Peters August 17, 2010 at 1:56 pm Eric, I just read your wonderful essay,
which leaves me with great sadness. Sometimes I�m the grammar fairy, and I�m
wondering if, in the line 3rd from the end of the essay, shouldn�t read �bear
witness.� I don�t mean to nit-pick, but that usage jumped out and smacked me as not
quite right. That does nothing, however, to diminish the beauty of your writing and
its meaning for all of us who love baseball and read this terrible, sad, painful
story. Eric August 17, 2010 at 2:29 pm Thanks for the comments all. And I�ll fix
that typo. Sean August 17, 2010 at 3:46 pm Outstanding piece; congratulations on
the well deserved honor. Stephanie August 17, 2010 at 4:37 pm Congratulations Eric,
what a beautiful eulogy and frame on the ongoing violence in Mexico. mepmep09
August 17, 2010 at 5:17 pm Congratulations from another TPM reader. Such tragic
stories need wider distribution, and I hope this recognition of your fine writing
does just that, and in so doing, perhaps might just offer a slender reed of comfort
to the family and friends of Jaime Irogoyen. Jason Clinkscales August 18, 2010 at
6:50 am Fantastic work here, Eric. Curious, how did you come upon this story with
the lack of attention it received at the time of his death? Nick August 18, 2010 at
6:57 am Congratulations from yet another TPM reader � a very moving essay about the
game and the ongoing violence in Mexico. And I will be back to read more �
something about baseball that has always inspired good writing. Rick Wisotsky
August 19, 2010 at 2:50 pm Eric, Your dad sent me the link to TPM. First, I want to
say how proud I am of you for getting this excellent piece of writing included in
The Best American Sports
Writing 2010. Thank you for sharing the truth of what�s happening across the
border and for bringing the story of Jaime Irgoyen to light. Job well done! Rob B.
September 1, 2010 at 11:36 pm Eric, what a great piece. this story with out a doubt
has a spot in the upcoming book. Ron H. September 6, 2010 at 6:48 pm Eric: We knew
you had a talent for writing. Great story, and a testament to both your
storytelling skill and your command of the language. This is only the beginning of
a solid career or avocation for you as a writer. Congratulations on this moving
piece of writing. Keep up the effort � keep looking for great subject matter � and
keep writing at or beyond this caliber. You have a gift. cheryl September 7, 2010
at 4:33 pm Felicidades�beautifully written�I felt like I was in the stadium with
the Irigoyen family�thank you so much for sharing! Jerry Grillo October 22, 2010 at
12:38 pm Powerful. So glad I found this (totally by accident, too). Congratulations
on a much deserved honor. Roberts Smilga December 11, 2010 at 11:50 am Bravo! Well
done. Andy July 7, 2011 at 2:32 pm Incredible job, a beautifully narrated tale that
you handled deftly. I was incredibly moved. vero irigoyen January 20, 2012 at 8:23
am I am Jaime Irigoyen aunt, thhee years ago my family got the worst news ever.
Thanks to the violence in Juarez, Mexico the life of my nephew was taken�but his
memory will last in our hearts and great memories forever!! may he rest in peace
and you will be missed forever!! You was the best pitcher, son, nephew and friend
ever !!! I love you Jaime and we miss you!! Hechale Jaime !!!!!!! R.I.P. Eric
January 20, 2012 at 2:40 pm Thanks for the comment, Vero. Hard to believe that was
three years ago and things have only gotten worse in Juarez. Hope your family is
doing okay. You still have, always have, my condolences. Veronica June 24, 2012 at
10:26 pm It is a sad possibility that Luis Carlos Martinez� editorial extolling the
civic pride of baseball and in particilar the virtues embodied in Jaime, may have
sealed his fate; there may have been no informer after all, no mistaken identity.
He was life itself unconnected to the war but in his murder Juarez was told that
there can be no life unconnected to the war. As this poignant and superb piece
makes clear it is not a city or an area or one or a thousand individuals but life
itself in Mexico that is threatened. The Big Announcement | pitchers & poets
Pingback on Aug 17th, 2010 at 9:37 am Things you should read � The Junkballer
Pingback on Aug 18th, 2010 at 1:59 pm Friday | Allied Public Affairs Pingback on
Oct 28th, 2011 at 5:46 am Comments are currently closed. � Poem Of The Week: �The
Crowd At The Ball Game�Baseball Funnies: Ichiro, Lasorda, & The Babe (Sorta) �
About RSS Facebook Twitter Type and Wait to Search Featured Pitchrs & Poets
Tumblr Rogue's Baseball Index Foamer Night Pitches Alex Belth's Bronx Banter
Cardboard Gods Eephus League Flip Flop Flyball Foamer Night Free Darko Ghostrunnner
on First Go Yago Jonah Keri No I in Blog Norman Einstein's Old Time Family Baseball
Rogue's Baseball Index Sons of Steve Garvey The Baseball Chronicle The Sports Show
Blog Wezen-Ball Archives May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January
2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011
June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010
November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010
April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009
October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009
March 2009 Powered by WordPress and K2 Entries Feed and Comments Feed Skip to
content pitchers & poets both have their moments Blog About Rogue�s Baseball Index
� Poem Of The Week: �The Crowd At The Ball Game�Baseball Funnies: Ichiro, Lasorda,
& The Babe (Sorta) � The Death Of A Pitcher Eric, March 18, 2009, 20 Comments So
this piece has been selected for the 2010 edition of Best American Sports Writing.
Pretty amazing. It�s one of the first serious posts I ever did for this website and
something that honored or not, I�m very proud to have written. If you�ve found it
via the book (or news of it being in the book), then thanks for dropping by. I hope
you enjoy it. -eric. I. They ran the bases for Jaime Irogoyen. His family, his
friends, and his teammates were all there at Estadio Carta Blanca in Juarez, Mexico
at 11:00 AM on January 17. I like to imagine they were still dressed up from the
funeral; that they came straight from church. I like to imagine that they filed out
of the dugout in their suits and lined up behind home plate like Little Leaguers.
In my version they all stand silently for a while, unsure of what to do. There is
no pitcher to get things started. No base coach to windmill them around the
diamond. They stand silently in the quiet sanctuary of the empty stadium. They
scratch their heads and ponder life and death and the way a baseball field can make
everything outside its lines or walls or fences disappear. Finally an old man
(maybe a grandparent or a coach) grumbles impatiently; he knows death well. Let�s
do something, he says. Vamanos. The first person to run is Jaime Irogoyen�s sister.
She jogs with her eyes on the dry clay in front of her, rounding each base
perfectly, so that her foot only barely touches the inside corners of the bags. The
old man who grumbled before nods at her technique. The next mourner runs and the
next one. Each waits for the person before to reach first base before taking off.
Each runs with his or her head down so as not to offend the imagined pitcher. After
all, Jaime Irogoyen was a pitcher. II. Estadio Carta Blanca was built in the early
1970s, an era of rapid and unregulated economic growth for Mexico. Oil production
and manufacturing rose sharply, but rampant corruption and poor fiscal management
marred all that. Times that should have been prosperous became trying; as jagged
and hard-to-navigate as the Sierra Madre mountain range that begins just a couple
hundred miles southwest of Ciudad Juarez. The reason for Estadio Carta Blanca�s
construction was hopeful: the return of big league baseball to Juarez. The city
hadn�t had a franchise in the top league, La Liga Mexicana, since los Indios de
Juarez of the 1930s. Now, after years of second tier American minor league and
Mexican semi-pro clubs, los Indios de Juarez were coming back. They threw their
second first pitch as a franchise in 1973. Like any expansion team, los Indios
struggled their first few seasons. But in 1976, they tied for first in their
division. In �82, led by former Dodger and Red pitcher Jose Pena, they won the
championship. Celebrations were short-lived. At the end of the �84 season, after
two years of hectic swirling rumors, the franchise was sold and moved to Laguna.
After just a dozen seasons, seasons that saw a stadium built, a championship won,
and a fan base develop, the Indios de Juarez were defeated for good. But the name
of the team, like the stadium, still lingers. Now the name, los Indios de Juarez,
belongs to a local university. In the springtime, you can watch the kids play under
the lights at Estadio Carta Blanca. You can close your eyes and imagine all the
empty bleachers are full of screaming fans from a bygone era. It seems that in
Mexico, the institutions of baseball can outlive governments. Regardless of the
times, history is echoed through stadium speakers even as it is occurring. III.
More than 7,000 people have died in Mexico�s drug war since 2007. A plurality of
those deaths, nearly 2,000 of them, have occurred in Chihuahua, the border state in
which Juarez is the largest city and Estadio Carta Blanca the largest baseball
stadium. The persistent, increasingly macabre march of murder in Juarez is almost
cinematic in its over-the top gruesomeness. But this is not a movie. Decapitated
heads really are being found in ice chests across the country. Bodies really are
piling up in the alleyway behind the Starbucks in Tijuana. Morgues really are
overflowing. A New York Times headline called Mexico�s drug war a Wild Wild West
Bloodbath. To be sure, not all of the dead have been innocent. Many of the faceless
(or headless) corpses belong to corrupt police officers, wily drug-runners, and
gutless gunmen. But many more don�t. Many are mothers struck by stray bullets,
innocents misidentified by flailing cops and soldiers, well-meaning immigrants
trekking to America, robbed, raped and killed by their hired protectors. Some even
are students and baseball players. IV. There was precious little media coverage of
Jaime Irigoyen�s death. In the United States, our press has not yet begun putting
human faces on the bedlam below our Southern border. In Mexico, there are so many
dead, so many exceptionally tragic stories, that it is hard for journalists to
single them out. Why is Jaime Irigoyen�s death more notable than that of any other
innocent civilian caught in the crosshairs of anarchy? From what is available, in
both English and Spanish, it becomes possible to piece together a story. Jaime
Irigoyen was 19 years old, a law-student at Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez
and a pitcher for the school�s baseball team, los Indios. Judging from available
information, he was a good one too. As he got ready for bed on the night of January
12, 2009, that was his reality: baseball, school, girls probably. But those
interests were soon to become historical facts; the kind that are recollected in
obituaries and recalled years later by nostalgic relatives. As the Irigoyen family
watched television in their Juarez townhome, just miles from the Texas border, a
group of masked commandos approached their house and knocked the front door down.
They surrounded the family in the living room. �Him with the glasses,�
a soldier said, pointing at Jaime who sat quietly in just his shorts and socks and
those glasses. They dragged him from the couch, gagging him and blindfolding him as
his family stood by screaming. Then, with no explanation they took him away. The
soldiers forced his son into an unmarked SUV and sped off down the dark residential
streets. Jaime�s father was able to follow them at first. But after ten or fifteen
desperate minutes, the captors lost him and disappeared into the Juarez night.
Jaime�s mother reported that like many of the 3,000 soldiers patrolling Juarez on
President Felipe Calderon�s orders, the men who took her son spoke in Southern
Mexican accents. But otherwise, the family had no clue as to who they were or why
they had come. Her son was merely a student, a baseball player. He was just a good
kid. The next day, with some friends, the Irigoyens staged a protest outside a
local military base. Jaime�s parents demanded to know the whereabouts of their son.
But the military denied any involvement, releasing the following statement: That
whoever deprived him of liberty were dressed in military-style uniforms in no way
says they were soldiers. We call on the general public not to be fooled by criminal
gangs. As if it made any difference to Jaime�s family whether the men who took him
were soldiers or not. As if criminal gangs were somebody else�s responsibility
completely, and the military had more important things to worry about. Regardless,
it was not long before the Irigoyen family got its answer. Just 30 hours after he
was taken, as his family stood outside the chain-link fence that kept helpless
desperate people like them from spoiling orderly military procedure, Jaime
Irigoyen�s body was found dumped on a Juarez street. His eyes were still
blindfolded and his mouth was still gagged. The military never accepted
responsibility for Jaime�s death, but most in the media have chalked the murder up
to a case of mistaken identity. Some speculate that a low-level informant, perhaps
under the strain of torture, misinformed some police or military officer. But
nobody will ever really know. Nobody but the men in the masks. V. The memorial at
the stadium did not happen quite as I imagined. The real version is much more
organized. Jaime Irigoyen�s casket is brought to home plate on the shoulders of his
teammates. The teammates, dressed in jeans and their blue caps and jerseys crowd
alongside family and friends. There are strangers there, come to mourn the death of
a pitcher, the death of potential, the state of a nation so unraveled it could let
things come to this. Photographers from local and national newspapers take
pictures, and reporters try to make themselves invisible but still get a sense of
things. The bleachers really are empty, and some of the mourners really are dressed
up in suits. The service at the church is to take place right after the baseball
stadium memorial. Once everyone has spoken, everyone who was going to cry has
cried, and every available memory has been shared if not digested, Jaime�s
teammates lift the casket once again. They hoist the heavy box upon their
shoulders, in it their friend and the idea of their friend and the weight of
symbolism nobody can help but feel. They make their way around the base paths; a
gesture they realize is cumbersome and ironic. After all, Jaime Irigoyen was a
pitcher. But nobody says anything like that. VI. December 2, 2008. 46 days before
the kidnapping An editorial by Luis Carlos Martinez on out27.com, a Mexican
baseball website, addresses the growing violence in his city of Juarez. He suggests
that fans turn to baseball for comfort, for relief. In the column, he refers to a
promising young pitcher named Jaime Irigoyen. Talk is unavoidable, but in the midst
of these violent outbreaks that reign in our city, we must turn to something that
offers a more flattering panorama. Baseball continues as an interesting alternative
to divert our attention from these lamentable events. Bullets come and bullets go,
but the sport is still king. Those of us who love baseball are convinced that the
show must go on, that praying to our Creator; we can remain a part of this baseball
family. And through it all, the various tournaments in all categories and of all
ages will continue to unfold throughout our beleaguered city. Our most recent major
tournament went off without a hitch. Behind great work on the pitcher�s mound by
youngster Jaime Irigoyen, los Indios de La Universidad de Juarez, won the first
division at the third annual Hector Molina Interleague Baseball Tournament. A
nation can�t let violence get in the way of living, especially when living is
sometimes the only thing one can do to escape from the mental prison that violence
creates. Bullets come, bullets go, but baseball stays. What other option do we
have? Even when those bullets are spraying the infield dirt, splitting bats, and
landing in the bleachers, baseball has to go on. Even as war plucks off baseball�s
innocents and blood seeps over its innocence, it must go on. Even as the clubhouse
ranks are thinned, baseball must go on. Luis Carlos Martinez could never have known
that less than two months after his column was published, Jaime Irigoyen, the
youngster who led his Indios to victory, would become a casualty. He could have
never known that the game he turned to as a refuge from tragedy would soon bear
witness to one. Or that Jaime Irigoyen would soon become a story much more
prescient than any strikeout or tournament victory. He could have never known that
so soon, the only option left on earth would be to run the bases and try to forget.
Features and Politics, 20 Comments 20 Responses to �The Death Of A Pitcher� Feed
for this Entry PMW March 27, 2009 at 8:44 am Great post! I have lived in and
traveled throughout Mexico, and am often appalled at the lack of coverage US-based
media gives to stories like this one. I�m also a fan of the Liga, and have been
fortunate enough to make it to several games. Thanks! ManOutOfTime August 17, 2010
at 12:25 pm Congratulations on the acclaim for this moving essay. Whether it was
the military or the syndicate who murdered this young man, doesn�t it seems too
much of a coincidence that his name was in Sr. Martinez�s editorial. Does the
syndicate want people to think the military murdered an innocent symbol of peace?
Is one side or the other sending the message that baseball is NOT a refuge and
diversion? What a tragedy. Daddy-O August 17, 2010 at 12:52 pm Congratulations,
Eric. This post is a masterpiece. TPM led me here, and I�m damn glad they did!
Janet Peters August 17, 2010 at 1:56 pm Eric, I just read your wonderful essay,
which leaves me with great sadness. Sometimes I�m the grammar fairy, and I�m
wondering if, in the line 3rd from the end of the essay, shouldn�t read �bear
witness.� I don�t mean to nit-pick, but that usage jumped out and smacked me as not
quite right. That does nothing, however, to diminish the beauty of your writing and
its meaning for all of us who love baseball and read this terrible, sad, painful
story. Eric August 17, 2010 at 2:29 pm Thanks for the comments all. And I�ll fix
that typo. Sean August 17, 2010 at 3:46 pm Outstanding piece; congratulations on
the well deserved honor. Stephanie August 17, 2010 at 4:37 pm Congratulations Eric,
what a beautiful eulogy and frame on the ongoing violence in Mexico. mepmep09
August 17, 2010 at 5:17 pm Congratulations from another TPM reader. Such tragic
stories need wider distribution, and I hope this recognition of your fine writing
does just that, and in so doing, perhaps might just offer a slender reed of comfort
to the family and friends of Jaime Irogoyen. Jason Clinkscales August 18, 2010 at
6:50 am Fantastic work here, Eric. Curious, how did you come upon this story with
the lack of attention it received at the time of his death? Nick August 18, 2010 at
6:57 am Congratulations from yet another TPM reader � a very moving essay about the
game and the ongoing violence in Mexico. And I will be back to read more �
something about baseball that has always inspired good writing. Rick Wisotsky
August 19, 2010 at 2:50 pm Eric, Your dad sent me the link to TPM. First, I want to
say how proud I am of you for getting this excellent piece of writing included in
The Best American Sports Writing 2010. Thank you for sharing the truth of what�s
happening across the border and for bringing the story of Jaime Irgoyen to light.
Job well done! Rob B. September 1, 2010 at 11:36 pm Eric, what a great piece. this
story with out a doubt has a spot in the upcoming book. Ron H. September 6, 2010 at
6:48 pm Eric: We knew you had a talent for writing. Great story, and a testament to
both your storytelling skill and your command of the language. This is only the
beginning of a solid career or avocation for you as a writer. Congratulations on
this moving piece of writing. Keep up the effort � keep looking for great subject
matter � and keep writing at or beyond this caliber. You have a gift. cheryl
September 7, 2010 at 4:33 pm Felicidades�beautifully written�I felt like I was in
the stadium with the Irigoyen family�thank you so much for sharing! Jerry Grillo
October 22, 2010 at 12:38 pm Powerful. So glad I found this (totally by accident,
too). Congratulations on a much deserved honor. Roberts Smilga December 11, 2010 at
11:50 am Bravo! Well done. Andy July 7, 2011 at 2:32 pm Incredible job, a
beautifully narrated tale that you handled deftly. I was incredibly moved. vero
irigoyen January 20, 2012 at 8:23 am I am Jaime Irigoyen aunt, thhee years ago my
family got the worst news ever. Thanks to the violence in Juarez, Mexico the life
of my nephew was taken�but his memory will last in our hearts and great memories
forever!! may he rest in peace and you will be missed forever!! You was the best
pitcher, son, nephew and friend ever
!!! I love you Jaime and we miss you!! Hechale Jaime !!!!!!! R.I.P. Eric January
20, 2012 at 2:40 pm Thanks for the comment, Vero. Hard to believe that was three
years ago and things have only gotten worse in Juarez. Hope your family is doing
okay. You still have, always have, my condolences. Veronica June 24, 2012 at 10:26
pm It is a sad possibility that Luis Carlos Martinez� editorial extolling the civic
pride of baseball and in particilar the virtues embodied in Jaime, may have sealed
his fate; there may have been no informer after all, no mistaken identity. He was
life itself unconnected to the war but in his murder Juarez was told that there can
be no life unconnected to the war. As this poignant and superb piece makes clear it
is not a city or an area or one or a thousand individuals but life itself in Mexico
that is threatened. The Big Announcement | pitchers & poets Pingback on Aug 17th,
2010 at 9:37 am Things you should read � The Junkballer Pingback on Aug 18th, 2010
at 1:59 pm Friday | Allied Public Affairs Pingback on Oct 28th, 2011 at 5:46 am
Comments are currently closed. � Poem Of The Week: �The Crowd At The Ball
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Twitter Type and Wait to Search Featured Pitchrs & Poets Tumblr Rogue's
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Yago Jonah Keri No I in Blog Norman Einstein's Old Time Family Baseball Rogue's
Baseball Index Sons of Steve Garvey The Baseball Chronicle The Sports Show Blog
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October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009
March 2009 Powered by WordPress and K2 Entries Feed and Comments Feed ShareThis
Copy and PasteSkip to content pitchers & poets both have their moments Blog About
Rogue�s Baseball Index � Poem Of The Week: �The Crowd At The Ball Game�Baseball
Funnies: Ichiro, Lasorda, & The Babe (Sorta) � The Death Of A Pitcher Eric, March
18, 2009, 20 Comments So this piece has been selected for the 2010 edition of Best
American Sports Writing. Pretty amazing. It�s one of the first serious posts I ever
did for this website and something that honored or not, I�m very proud to have
written. If you�ve found it via the book (or news of it being in the book), then
thanks for dropping by. I hope you enjoy it. -eric. I. They ran the bases for Jaime
Irogoyen. His family, his friends, and his teammates were all there at Estadio
Carta Blanca in Juarez, Mexico at 11:00 AM on January 17. I like to imagine they
were still dressed up from the funeral; that they came straight from church. I like
to imagine that they filed out of the dugout in their suits and lined up behind
home plate like Little Leaguers. In my version they all stand silently for a while,
unsure of what to do. There is no pitcher to get things started. No base coach to
windmill them around the diamond. They stand silently in the quiet sanctuary of the
empty stadium. They scratch their heads and ponder life and death and the way a
baseball field can make everything outside its lines or walls or fences disappear.
Finally an old man (maybe a grandparent or a coach) grumbles impatiently; he knows
death well. Let�s do something, he says. Vamanos. The first person to run is Jaime
Irogoyen�s sister. She jogs with her eyes on the dry clay in front of her, rounding
each base perfectly, so that her foot only barely touches the inside corners of the
bags. The old man who grumbled before nods at her technique. The next mourner runs
and the next one. Each waits for the person before to reach first base before
taking off. Each runs with his or her head down so as not to offend the imagined
pitcher. After all, Jaime Irogoyen was a pitcher. II. Estadio Carta Blanca was
built in the early 1970s, an era of rapid and unregulated economic growth for
Mexico. Oil production and manufacturing rose sharply, but rampant corruption and
poor fiscal management marred all that. Times that should have been prosperous
became trying; as jagged and hard-to-navigate as the Sierra Madre mountain range
that begins just a couple hundred miles southwest of Ciudad Juarez. The reason for
Estadio Carta Blanca�s construction was hopeful: the return of big league baseball
to Juarez. The city hadn�t had a franchise in the top league, La Liga Mexicana,
since los Indios de Juarez of the 1930s. Now, after years of second tier American
minor league and Mexican semi-pro clubs, los Indios de Juarez were coming back.
They threw their second first pitch as a franchise in 1973. Like any expansion
team, los Indios struggled their first few seasons. But in 1976, they tied for
first in their division. In �82, led by former Dodger and Red pitcher Jose Pena,
they won the championship. Celebrations were short-lived. At the end of the �84
season, after two years of hectic swirling rumors, the franchise was sold and moved
to Laguna. After just a dozen seasons, seasons that saw a stadium built, a
championship won, and a fan base develop, the Indios de Juarez were defeated for
good. But the name of the team, like the stadium, still lingers. Now the name, los
Indios de Juarez, belongs to a local university. In the springtime, you can watch
the kids play under the lights at Estadio Carta Blanca. You can close your eyes and
imagine all the empty bleachers are full of screaming fans from a bygone era. It
seems that in Mexico, the institutions of baseball can outlive governments.
Regardless of the times, history is echoed through stadium speakers even as it is
occurring. III. More than 7,000 people have died in Mexico�s drug war since 2007. A
plurality of those deaths, nearly 2,000 of them, have occurred in Chihuahua, the
border state in which Juarez is the largest city and Estadio Carta Blanca the
largest baseball stadium. The persistent, increasingly macabre march of murder in
Juarez is almost cinematic in its over-the top gruesomeness. But this is not a
movie. Decapitated heads really are being found in ice chests across the country.
Bodies really are piling up in the alleyway behind the Starbucks in Tijuana.
Morgues really are overflowing. A New York Times headline called Mexico�s drug war
a Wild Wild West Bloodbath. To be sure, not all of the dead have been innocent.
Many of the faceless (or headless) corpses belong to corrupt police officers, wily
drug-runners, and gutless gunmen. But many more don�t. Many are mothers struck by
stray bullets, innocents misidentified by flailing cops and soldiers, well-meaning
immigrants trekking to America, robbed, raped and killed by their hired protectors.
Some even are students and baseball players. IV. There was precious little media
coverage of Jaime Irigoyen�s death. In the United States, our press has not yet
begun putting human faces on the bedlam below our Southern border. In Mexico, there
are so many dead, so many exceptionally tragic stories, that it is hard for
journalists to single them out. Why is Jaime Irigoyen�s death more notable than
that of any other innocent civilian caught in the crosshairs of anarchy? From what
is available, in both English and Spanish, it becomes possible to piece together a
story. Jaime Irigoyen was 19 years old, a law-student at Universidad Autonoma de
Ciudad Juarez and a pitcher for the school�s baseball team, los Indios. Judging
from available information, he was a good one too. As he got ready for bed on the
night of January 12, 2009, that was his reality: baseball, school, girls probably.
But those interests were soon to become historical facts; the kind that are
recollected in obituaries and recalled years later by nostalgic relatives. As the
Irigoyen family watched television in their Juarez townhome, just miles from the
Texas border, a group of masked commandos approached their house and knocked the
front door down. They surrounded the family in the living room. �Him with the
glasses,� a soldier said, pointing at Jaime who sat quietly in just his shorts and
socks and those glasses. They dragged him from the couch, gagging him and
blindfolding him as his family stood by screaming. Then, with no explanation they
took him away. The soldiers forced his son into an unmarked SUV and sped off down
the dark residential streets. Jaime�s father was able to follow them at first. But
after ten or fifteen desperate minutes, the captors lost him and disappeared into
the Juarez night. Jaime�s mother reported that like many of the 3,000 soldiers
patrolling Juarez on President Felipe Calderon�s orders, the men who took her son
spoke in Southern Mexican accents. But otherwise, the family had no clue as to who
they were or why they had come. Her son was merely a student, a baseball player. He
was just a good kid. The next day, with some friends, the Irigoyens staged a
protest outside a local military base. Jaime�s parents demanded to know the
whereabouts of their son. But the military denied any involvement, releasing the
following statement: That whoever deprived him of liberty were dressed in military-
style uniforms in no way says they were soldiers. We call on the general public not
to be fooled by criminal gangs. As if it made any difference to Jaime�s family
whether the men who took him were soldiers or not. As if criminal gangs were
somebody else�s responsibility completely, and the military had more important
things to worry about. Regardless, it was not long before the Irigoyen family got
its answer.
Just 30 hours after he was taken, as his family stood outside the chain-link fence
that kept helpless desperate people like them from spoiling orderly military
procedure, Jaime Irigoyen�s body was found dumped on a Juarez street. His eyes were
still blindfolded and his mouth was still gagged. The military never accepted
responsibility for Jaime�s death, but most in the media have chalked the murder up
to a case of mistaken identity. Some speculate that a low-level informant, perhaps
under the strain of torture, misinformed some police or military officer. But
nobody will ever really know. Nobody but the men in the masks. V. The memorial at
the stadium did not happen quite as I imagined. The real version is much more
organized. Jaime Irigoyen�s casket is brought to home plate on the shoulders of his
teammates. The teammates, dressed in jeans and their blue caps and jerseys crowd
alongside family and friends. There are strangers there, come to mourn the death of
a pitcher, the death of potential, the state of a nation so unraveled it could let
things come to this. Photographers from local and national newspapers take
pictures, and reporters try to make themselves invisible but still get a sense of
things. The bleachers really are empty, and some of the mourners really are dressed
up in suits. The service at the church is to take place right after the baseball
stadium memorial. Once everyone has spoken, everyone who was going to cry has
cried, and every available memory has been shared if not digested, Jaime�s
teammates lift the casket once again. They hoist the heavy box upon their
shoulders, in it their friend and the idea of their friend and the weight of
symbolism nobody can help but feel. They make their way around the base paths; a
gesture they realize is cumbersome and ironic. After all, Jaime Irigoyen was a
pitcher. But nobody says anything like that. VI. December 2, 2008. 46 days before
the kidnapping An editorial by Luis Carlos Martinez on out27.com, a Mexican
baseball website, addresses the growing violence in his city of Juarez. He suggests
that fans turn to baseball for comfort, for relief. In the column, he refers to a
promising young pitcher named Jaime Irigoyen. Talk is unavoidable, but in the midst
of these violent outbreaks that reign in our city, we must turn to something that
offers a more flattering panorama. Baseball continues as an interesting alternative
to divert our attention from these lamentable events. Bullets come and bullets go,
but the sport is still king. Those of us who love baseball are convinced that the
show must go on, that praying to our Creator; we can remain a part of this baseball
family. And through it all, the various tournaments in all categories and of all
ages will continue to unfold throughout our beleaguered city. Our most recent major
tournament went off without a hitch. Behind great work on the pitcher�s mound by
youngster Jaime Irigoyen, los Indios de La Universidad de Juarez, won the first
division at the third annual Hector Molina Interleague Baseball Tournament. A
nation can�t let violence get in the way of living, especially when living is
sometimes the only thing one can do to escape from the mental prison that violence
creates. Bullets come, bullets go, but baseball stays. What other option do we
have? Even when those bullets are spraying the infield dirt, splitting bats, and
landing in the bleachers, baseball has to go on. Even as war plucks off baseball�s
innocents and blood seeps over its innocence, it must go on. Even as the clubhouse
ranks are thinned, baseball must go on. Luis Carlos Martinez could never have known
that less than two months after his column was published, Jaime Irigoyen, the
youngster who led his Indios to victory, would become a casualty. He could have
never known that the game he turned to as a refuge from tragedy would soon bear
witness to one. Or that Jaime Irigoyen would soon become a story much more
prescient than any strikeout or tournament victory. He could have never known that
so soon, the only option left on earth would be to run the bases and try to forget.
Features and Politics, 20 Comments 20 Responses to �The Death Of A Pitcher� Feed
for this Entry PMW March 27, 2009 at 8:44 am Great post! I have lived in and
traveled throughout Mexico, and am often appalled at the lack of coverage US-based
media gives to stories like this one. I�m also a fan of the Liga, and have been
fortunate enough to make it to several games. Thanks! ManOutOfTime August 17, 2010
at 12:25 pm Congratulations on the acclaim for this moving essay. Whether it was
the military or the syndicate who murdered this young man, doesn�t it seems too
much of a coincidence that his name was in Sr. Martinez�s editorial. Does the
syndicate want people to think the military murdered an innocent symbol of peace?
Is one side or the other sending the message that baseball is NOT a refuge and
diversion? What a tragedy. Daddy-O August 17, 2010 at 12:52 pm Congratulations,
Eric. This post is a masterpiece. TPM led me here, and I�m damn glad they did!
Janet Peters August 17, 2010 at 1:56 pm Eric, I just read your wonderful essay,
which leaves me with great sadness. Sometimes I�m the grammar fairy, and I�m
wondering if, in the line 3rd from the end of the essay, shouldn�t read �bear
witness.� I don�t mean to nit-pick, but that usage jumped out and smacked me as not
quite right. That does nothing, however, to diminish the beauty of your writing and
its meaning for all of us who love baseball and read this terrible, sad, painful
story. Eric August 17, 2010 at 2:29 pm Thanks for the comments all. And I�ll fix
that typo. Sean August 17, 2010 at 3:46 pm Outstanding piece; congratulations on
the well deserved honor. Stephanie August 17, 2010 at 4:37 pm Congratulations Eric,
what a beautiful eulogy and frame on the ongoing violence in Mexico. mepmep09
August 17, 2010 at 5:17 pm Congratulations from another TPM reader. Such tragic
stories need wider distribution, and I hope this recognition of your fine writing
does just that, and in so doing, perhaps might just offer a slender reed of comfort
to the family and friends of Jaime Irogoyen. Jason Clinkscales August 18, 2010 at
6:50 am Fantastic work here, Eric. Curious, how did you come upon this story with
the lack of attention it received at the time of his death? Nick August 18, 2010 at
6:57 am Congratulations from yet another TPM reader � a very moving essay about the
game and the ongoing violence in Mexico. And I will be back to read more �
something about baseball that has always inspired good writing. Rick Wisotsky
August 19, 2010 at 2:50 pm Eric, Your dad sent me the link to TPM. First, I want to
say how proud I am of you for getting this excellent piece of writing included in
The Best American Sports Writing 2010. Thank you for sharing the truth of what�s
happening across the border and for bringing the story of Jaime Irgoyen to light.
Job well done! Rob B. September 1, 2010 at 11:36 pm Eric, what a great piece. this
story with out a doubt has a spot in the upcoming book. Ron H. September 6, 2010 at
6:48 pm Eric: We knew you had a talent for writing. Great story, and a testament to
both your storytelling skill and your command of the language. This is only the
beginning of a solid career or avocation for you as a writer. Congratulations on
this moving piece of writing. Keep up the effort � keep looking for great subject
matter � and keep writing at or beyond this caliber. You have a gift. cheryl
September 7, 2010 at 4:33 pm Felicidades�beautifully written�I felt like I was in
the stadium with the Irigoyen family�thank you so much for sharing! Jerry Grillo
October 22, 2010 at 12:38 pm Powerful. So glad I found this (totally by accident,
too). Congratulations on a much deserved honor. Roberts Smilga December 11, 2010 at
11:50 am Bravo! Well done. Andy July 7, 2011 at 2:32 pm Incredible job, a
beautifully narrated tale that you handled deftly. I was incredibly moved. vero
irigoyen January 20, 2012 at 8:23 am I am Jaime Irigoyen aunt, thhee years ago my
family got the worst news ever. Thanks to the violence in Juarez, Mexico the life
of my nephew was taken�but his memory will last in our hearts and great memories
forever!! may he rest in peace and you will be missed forever!! You was the best
pitcher, son, nephew and friend ever !!! I love you Jaime and we miss you!! Hechale
Jaime !!!!!!! R.I.P. Eric January 20, 2012 at 2:40 pm Thanks for the comment, Vero.
Hard to believe that was three years ago and things have only gotten worse in
Juarez. Hope your family is doing okay. You still have, always have, my
condolences. Veronica June 24, 2012 at 10:26 pm It is a sad possibility that Luis
Carlos Martinez� editorial extolling the civic pride of baseball and in particilar
the virtues embodied in Jaime, may have sealed his fate; there may have been no
informer after all, no mistaken identity. He was life itself unconnected to the war
but in his murder Juarez was told that there can be no life unconnected to the war.
As this poignant and superb piece makes clear it is not a city or an area or one or
a thousand individuals but life itself in Mexico that is threatened. The Big
Announcement | pitchers & poets Pingback on Aug 17th, 2010 at 9:37 am Things you
should read � The Junkballer Pingback on Aug 18th, 2010 at 1:59 pm Friday | Allied
Public Affairs Pingback on Oct 28th, 2011 at 5:46 am Comments are currently closed.
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Ichiro, Lasorda, & The Babe (Sorta) � The Death Of A Pitcher Eric, March 18, 2009,
20 Comments So this piece has been selected for the 2010 edition of Best American
Sports Writing. Pretty amazing. It�s one of the first serious posts I ever did for
this website and something that honored or not, I�m very proud to have written. If
you�ve found it via the book (or news of it being in the book), then thanks for
dropping by. I hope you enjoy it. -eric. I. They ran the bases for Jaime Irogoyen.
His family, his friends, and his teammates were all there at Estadio Carta Blanca
in Juarez, Mexico at 11:00 AM on January 17. I like to imagine they were still
dressed up from the funeral; that they came straight from church. I like to imagine
that they filed out of the dugout in their suits and lined up behind home plate
like Little Leaguers. In my version they all stand silently for a while, unsure of
what to do. There is no pitcher to get things started. No base coach to windmill
them around the diamond. They stand silently in the quiet sanctuary of the empty
stadium. They scratch their heads and ponder life and death and the way a baseball
field can make everything outside its lines or walls or fences disappear. Finally
an old man (maybe a grandparent or a coach) grumbles impatiently; he knows death
well. Let�s do something, he says. Vamanos. The first person to run is Jaime
Irogoyen�s sister. She jogs with her eyes on the dry clay in front of her, rounding
each base perfectly, so that her foot only barely touches the inside corners of the
bags. The old man who grumbled before nods at her technique. The next mourner runs
and the next one. Each waits for the person before to reach first base before
taking off. Each runs with his or her head down so as not to offend the imagined
pitcher. After all, Jaime Irogoyen was a pitcher. II. Estadio Carta Blanca was
built in the early 1970s, an era of rapid and unregulated economic growth for
Mexico. Oil production and manufacturing rose sharply, but rampant corruption and
poor fiscal management marred all that. Times that should have been prosperous
became trying; as jagged and hard-to-navigate as the Sierra Madre mountain range
that begins just a couple hundred miles southwest of Ciudad Juarez. The reason for
Estadio Carta Blanca�s construction was hopeful: the return of big league baseball
to Juarez. The city hadn�t had a franchise in the top league, La Liga Mexicana,
since los Indios de Juarez of the 1930s. Now, after years of second tier American
minor league and Mexican semi-pro clubs, los Indios de Juarez were coming back.
They threw their second first pitch as a franchise in 1973. Like any expansion
team, los Indios struggled their first few seasons. But in 1976, they tied for
first in their division. In �82, led by former Dodger and Red pitcher Jose Pena,
they won the championship. Celebrations were short-lived. At the end of the �84
season, after two years of hectic swirling rumors, the franchise was sold and moved
to Laguna. After just a dozen seasons, seasons that saw a stadium built, a
championship won, and a fan base develop, the Indios de Juarez were defeated for
good. But the name of the team, like the stadium, still lingers. Now the name, los
Indios de Juarez, belongs to a local university. In the springtime, you can watch
the kids play under the lights at Estadio Carta Blanca. You can close your eyes and
imagine all the empty bleachers are full of screaming fans from a bygone era. It
seems that in Mexico, the institutions of baseball can outlive governments.
Regardless of the times, history is echoed through stadium speakers even as it is
occurring. III. More than 7,000 people have died in Mexico�s drug war since 2007. A
plurality of those deaths, nearly 2,000 of them, have occurred in Chihuahua, the
border state in which Juarez is the largest city and Estadio Carta Blanca the
largest baseball stadium. The persistent, increasingly macabre march of murder in
Juarez is almost cinematic in its over-the top gruesomeness. But this is not a
movie. Decapitated heads really are being found in ice chests across the country.
Bodies really are piling up in the alleyway behind the Starbucks in Tijuana.
Morgues really are overflowing. A New York Times headline called Mexico�s drug war
a Wild Wild West Bloodbath. To be sure, not all of the dead have been innocent.
Many of the faceless (or headless) corpses belong to corrupt police officers, wily
drug-runners, and gutless gunmen. But many more don�t. Many are mothers struck by
stray bullets, innocents misidentified by flailing cops and soldiers, well-meaning
immigrants trekking to America, robbed, raped and killed by their hired protectors.
Some even are students and baseball players. IV. There was precious little media
coverage of Jaime Irigoyen�s death. In the United States, our press has not yet
begun putting human faces on the bedlam below our Southern border. In Mexico, there
are so many dead, so many exceptionally tragic stories, that it is hard for
journalists to single them out. Why is Jaime Irigoyen�s death more notable than
that of any other innocent civilian caught in the crosshairs of anarchy? From what
is available, in both English and Spanish, it becomes possible to piece together a
story. Jaime Irigoyen was 19 years old, a law-student at Universidad Autonoma de
Ciudad Juarez and a pitcher for the school�s baseball team, los Indios. Judging
from available information, he was a good one too. As he got ready for bed on the
night of January 12, 2009, that was his reality: baseball, school, girls probably.
But those interests were soon to become historical facts; the kind that are
recollected in obituaries and recalled years later by nostalgic relatives. As the
Irigoyen family watched television in their Juarez townhome, just miles from the
Texas border, a group of masked commandos approached their house and knocked the
front door down. They surrounded the family in the living room. �Him with the
glasses,� a soldier said, pointing at Jaime who sat quietly in just his shorts and
socks and those glasses. They dragged him from the couch, gagging him and
blindfolding him as his family stood by screaming. Then, with no explanation they
took him away. The soldiers forced his son into an unmarked SUV and sped off down
the dark residential streets. Jaime�s father was able to follow them at first. But
after ten or fifteen desperate minutes, the captors lost him and disappeared into
the Juarez night. Jaime�s mother reported that like many of the 3,000 soldiers
patrolling Juarez on President Felipe Calderon�s orders, the men who took her son
spoke in Southern Mexican accents. But otherwise, the family had no clue as to who
they were or why they had come. Her son was merely a student, a baseball player. He
was just a good kid. The next day, with some friends, the Irigoyens staged a
protest outside a local military base. Jaime�s parents demanded to know the
whereabouts of their son. But the military denied any involvement, releasing the
following statement: That whoever deprived him of liberty were dressed in military-
style uniforms in no way says they were soldiers. We call on the general public not
to be fooled by criminal gangs. As if it made any difference to Jaime�s family
whether the men who took him were soldiers or not. As if criminal gangs were
somebody else�s responsibility completely, and the military had more important
things to worry about. Regardless, it was not long before the Irigoyen family got
its answer. Just 30 hours after he was taken, as his family stood outside the
chain-link fence that kept helpless desperate people like them from spoiling
orderly military procedure, Jaime Irigoyen�s body was found dumped on a Juarez
street. His eyes were still blindfolded and his mouth was still gagged. The
military never accepted responsibility for Jaime�s death, but most in the media
have chalked the murder up to a case of mistaken identity. Some speculate that a
low-level informant, perhaps under the strain of torture, misinformed some police
or military officer. But nobody will ever really know. Nobody but the men in the
masks. V. The memorial at the stadium did not happen quite as I imagined. The real
version is much more organized. Jaime Irigoyen�s casket is brought to home plate on
the shoulders of his teammates. The teammates, dressed in jeans and their blue caps
and jerseys crowd alongside family and friends. There are strangers there, come to
mourn the death of a pitcher, the death of potential, the state of a nation so
unraveled it could let things come to this. Photographers from local and national
newspapers take pictures, and reporters try to make themselves invisible but still
get a sense of things. The bleachers really are empty, and some of the mourners
really are dressed up in suits. The service at the church is to take place right
after the baseball stadium memorial. Once everyone has spoken, everyone who was
going to cry has cried, and every available memory has been shared if not digested,
Jaime�s teammates lift the
casket once again. They hoist the heavy box upon their shoulders, in it their
friend and the idea of their friend and the weight of symbolism nobody can help but
feel. They make their way around the base paths; a gesture they realize is
cumbersome and ironic. After all, Jaime Irigoyen was a pitcher. But nobody says
anything like that. VI. December 2, 2008. 46 days before the kidnapping An
editorial by Luis Carlos Martinez on out27.com, a Mexican baseball website,
addresses the growing violence in his city of Juarez. He suggests that fans turn to
baseball for comfort, for relief. In the column, he refers to a promising young
pitcher named Jaime Irigoyen. Talk is unavoidable, but in the midst of these
violent outbreaks that reign in our city, we must turn to something that offers a
more flattering panorama. Baseball continues as an interesting alternative to
divert our attention from these lamentable events. Bullets come and bullets go, but
the sport is still king. Those of us who love baseball are convinced that the show
must go on, that praying to our Creator; we can remain a part of this baseball
family. And through it all, the various tournaments in all categories and of all
ages will continue to unfold throughout our beleaguered city. Our most recent major
tournament went off without a hitch. Behind great work on the pitcher�s mound by
youngster Jaime Irigoyen, los Indios de La Universidad de Juarez, won the first
division at the third annual Hector Molina Interleague Baseball Tournament. A
nation can�t let violence get in the way of living, especially when living is
sometimes the only thing one can do to escape from the mental prison that violence
creates. Bullets come, bullets go, but baseball stays. What other option do we
have? Even when those bullets are spraying the infield dirt, splitting bats, and
landing in the bleachers, baseball has to go on. Even as war plucks off baseball�s
innocents and blood seeps over its innocence, it must go on. Even as the clubhouse
ranks are thinned, baseball must go on. Luis Carlos Martinez could never have known
that less than two months after his column was published, Jaime Irigoyen, the
youngster who led his Indios to victory, would become a casualty. He could have
never known that the game he turned to as a refuge from tragedy would soon bear
witness to one. Or that Jaime Irigoyen would soon become a story much more
prescient than any strikeout or tournament victory. He could have never known that
so soon, the only option left on earth would be to run the bases and try to forget.
Features and Politics, 20 Comments 20 Responses to �The Death Of A Pitcher� Feed
for this Entry PMW March 27, 2009 at 8:44 am Great post! I have lived in and
traveled throughout Mexico, and am often appalled at the lack of coverage US-based
media gives to stories like this one. I�m also a fan of the Liga, and have been
fortunate enough to make it to several games. Thanks! ManOutOfTime August 17, 2010
at 12:25 pm Congratulations on the acclaim for this moving essay. Whether it was
the military or the syndicate who murdered this young man, doesn�t it seems too
much of a coincidence that his name was in Sr. Martinez�s editorial. Does the
syndicate want people to think the military murdered an innocent symbol of peace?
Is one side or the other sending the message that baseball is NOT a refuge and
diversion? What a tragedy. Daddy-O August 17, 2010 at 12:52 pm Congratulations,
Eric. This post is a masterpiece. TPM led me here, and I�m damn glad they did!
Janet Peters August 17, 2010 at 1:56 pm Eric, I just read your wonderful essay,
which leaves me with great sadness. Sometimes I�m the grammar fairy, and I�m
wondering if, in the line 3rd from the end of the essay, shouldn�t read �bear
witness.� I don�t mean to nit-pick, but that usage jumped out and smacked me as not
quite right. That does nothing, however, to diminish the beauty of your writing and
its meaning for all of us who love baseball and read this terrible, sad, painful
story. Eric August 17, 2010 at 2:29 pm Thanks for the comments all. And I�ll fix
that typo. Sean August 17, 2010 at 3:46 pm Outstanding piece; congratulations on
the well deserved honor. Stephanie August 17, 2010 at 4:37 pm Congratulations Eric,
what a beautiful eulogy and frame on the ongoing violence in Mexico. mepmep09
August 17, 2010 at 5:17 pm Congratulations from another TPM reader. Such tragic
stories need wider distribution, and I hope this recognition of your fine writing
does just that, and in so doing, perhaps might just offer a slender reed of comfort
to the family and friends of Jaime Irogoyen. Jason Clinkscales August 18, 2010 at
6:50 am Fantastic work here, Eric. Curious, how did you come upon this story with
the lack of attention it received at the time of his death? Nick August 18, 2010 at
6:57 am Congratulations from yet another TPM reader � a very moving essay about the
game and the ongoing violence in Mexico. And I will be back to read more �
something about baseball that has always inspired good writing. Rick Wisotsky
August 19, 2010 at 2:50 pm Eric, Your dad sent me the link to TPM. First, I want to
say how proud I am of you for getting this excellent piece of writing included in
The Best American Sports Writing 2010. Thank you for sharing the truth of what�s
happening across the border and for bringing the story of Jaime Irgoyen to light.
Job well done! Rob B. September 1, 2010 at 11:36 pm Eric, what a great piece. this
story with out a doubt has a spot in the upcoming book. Ron H. September 6, 2010 at
6:48 pm Eric: We knew you had a talent for writing. Great story, and a testament to
both your storytelling skill and your command of the language. This is only the
beginning of a solid career or avocation for you as a writer. Congratulations on
this moving piece of writing. Keep up the effort � keep looking for great subject
matter � and keep writing at or beyond this caliber. You have a gift. cheryl
September 7, 2010 at 4:33 pm Felicidades�beautifully written�I felt like I was in
the stadium with the Irigoyen family�thank you so much for sharing! Jerry Grillo
October 22, 2010 at 12:38 pm Powerful. So glad I found this (totally by accident,
too). Congratulations on a much deserved honor. Roberts Smilga December 11, 2010 at
11:50 am Bravo! Well done. Andy July 7, 2011 at 2:32 pm Incredible job, a
beautifully narrated tale that you handled deftly. I was incredibly moved. vero
irigoyen January 20, 2012 at 8:23 am I am Jaime Irigoyen aunt, thhee years ago my
family got the worst news ever. Thanks to the violence in Juarez, Mexico the life
of my nephew was taken�but his memory will last in our hearts and great memories
forever!! may he rest in peace and you will be missed forever!! You was the best
pitcher, son, nephew and friend ever !!! I love you Jaime and we miss you!! Hechale
Jaime !!!!!!! R.I.P. Eric January 20, 2012 at 2:40 pm Thanks for the comment, Vero.
Hard to believe that was three years ago and things have only gotten worse in
Juarez. Hope your family is doing okay. You still have, always have, my
condolences. Veronica June 24, 2012 at 10:26 pm It is a sad possibility that Luis
Carlos Martinez� editorial extolling the civic pride of baseball and in particilar
the virtues embodied in Jaime, may have sealed his fate; there may have been no
informer after all, no mistaken identity. He was life itself unconnected to the war
but in his murder Juarez was told that there can be no life unconnected to the war.
As this poignant and superb piece makes clear it is not a city or an area or one or
a thousand individuals but life itself in Mexico that is threatened. The Big
Announcement | pitchers & poets Pingback on Aug 17th, 2010 at 9:37 am Things you
should read � The Junkballer Pingback on Aug 18th, 2010 at 1:59 pm Friday | Allied
Public Affairs Pingback on Oct 28th, 2011 at 5:46 am Comments are currently closed.
� Poem Of The Week: �The Crowd At The Ball Game�Baseball Funnies: Ichiro, Lasorda,
& The Babe (Sorta) � About RSS Facebook Twitter Type and Wait to Search
Featured Pitchrs & Poets Tumblr Rogue's Baseball Index Foamer Night Pitches
Alex Belth's Bronx Banter Cardboard Gods Eephus League Flip Flop Flyball Foamer
Night Free Darko Ghostrunnner on First Go Yago Jonah Keri No I in Blog Norman
Einstein's Old Time Family Baseball Rogue's Baseball Index Sons of Steve Garvey The
Baseball Chronicle The Sports Show Blog Wezen-Ball Archives May 2012 April 2012
March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011
September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011
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