Post by blackcrowheart on Aug 16, 2006 11:27:02 GMT -5
'Deep as blood'
Family teams, communal values are the heart of baseball for New Mexico's Pueblo
By Patrick T. Reardon
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 15, 2006
ALBUQUERQUE -- In the top of the 10th inning, Jeremy "Worm" Leon-Sanders, the rangy 23-year-old shortstop from the Santa Ana Pueblo, scampered home from second base on a fielding error by the Navajo first baseman.
And thousands of fans from the 19 New Mexico pueblos responded with a roar that engulfed Isotopes Park as their team took a 2-1 lead.
Minutes later, flame-throwing Gorman Romero, 21, shut down the final three Navajo hitters, striking out two, and the Pueblos had won the fourth annual Native American All-Star Baseball Game.
No surprise.
Among the Navajos, baseball is a game. But, for the Pueblos, it's woven into the fabric of their culture.
Indeed, the link between baseball, that quintessential American game, and the Pueblo ethos has become "deep as blood," according to Herb Howell, an Albuquerque city planner who has umpired Pueblo games for more than a dozen years.
And it's growing stronger.
The Pueblo people in New Mexico live in 19 independent villages called pueblos (from the Spanish word for village), each on its own reservation scattered along the Rio Grande in the central part of the state. These pueblos share deep cultural and historic roots going back more than 1,000 years in this region but have evolved in diverse ways, even to the extent of having different languages.
Pueblo baseball, like any good baseball, is played with spirit, intensity and joy. But it has been adapted to fit the tribe's deeply held values.
"Our way of life is communal," explains Irwin Pecos, the manager of this year's All-Star team for the Pueblos.
So, on Pueblo teams, men play from the age of 15 to 55 -- and, sometimes, even older. And most teams are filled with players related to each other.
The Tamaya Tigers of the Santa Ana Pueblo, about 30 miles north of Albuquerque, "is basically a family team," says manager Greg Garcia, who, at 44, plays catcher or in the outfield. On the field with him often are his sons Jose at second base and Gilbert at shortstop as well as several of the nine nephews he has on the roster.
Howell says that, many times, when he umpires, "you look at the lineup sheet, and you just see first names because, chances are, they all have the same last name."
The biggest difference, though, is that the Pueblo leagues don't keep track of individual statistics, just team won-lost records. There's no such thing as the Babe Ruth of Pueblo baseball, and no one knows who has the most stolen bases this year or triples or strikeouts.
"That's the way it is for the Pueblo people," says Dominic Gachupin, the president of the Southern Pueblo League and a moving force behind the All-Star exhibition at Isotopes Park. "We're not really selfish. We always work together."
The Pueblos (2000 population: 63,000) have been playing baseball since the 1930s, and the present organized leagues of men's baseball date back more than half a century. This year, the villages are supporting two leagues with a total of 29 teams. That's about twice as many as a decade ago, and the number could climb to 37 or 38 next season. Several pueblos have more than one team, with the Jemez Pueblo, about 50 miles southwest of Los Alamos, fielding seven.
In addition, 16 women's teams play fast-pitch softball.
"Summers come around, and you know that Mother's Day is always the beginning of baseball," says Dave Chalan, a former manager and president of the southern league who, at 45, plays first base and occasionally pitches for the Cochiti Pueblo Brewers.
The fences at Pueblo ball fields are about the same distance from home plate as those at Isotopes Park, but that's about all they have in common. Most Pueblo fields are dirt, pure and simple -- dirt in the infield, dirt in the outfield. The only green is the scattering of weeds that can crop up after a rain.
'Dust Bowl'
This season, the Mother's Day game was "a dust bowl" on many Pueblo fields, Garcia says. "We play no matter what. We play in the dust. We play in the rain. We play in the mud."
The rhythm of the Pueblo baseball year includes a North-South All-Star game on the 4th of July, considered much more important than the exhibition at Isotopes Park. Then, most of August is devoted to double-elimination tournaments to determine the eight teams (four from each league) that will clash in a championship series over the Labor Day weekend.
The All-Star exhibition July 22 at Isotopes Park (the home of the Albuquerque Isotopes, the Florida Marlins Triple-A farm team) provided a stage where young Pueblo studs such as Leon-Sanders and Romero could strut their stuff.
A crowd estimated at 5,000 -- including, it was hoped, some college and professional scouts -- saw spectacular plays in the field and even an attempted suicide squeeze bunt by the Pueblos. And the players had the opportunity to find out what it feels like to play in a park all but equal to those of major league clubs -- a park that is a far cry from the hardscrabble fields back on their reservations.
"There're no rocks. There's grass," said Leon-Sanders, as he looked out over the park's meticulously groomed infield grass and luxurious outfield turf. "It's level. No holes. No weeds. No stickers when you pick up the ball."
He paused and surveyed the stands and the scoreboard and the groundskeepers hosing down the base paths.
"It's probably once in a lifetime for me to be out here," he said.
For thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, Native Americans played ball games of one sort or another, including lacrosse and shinny, a Pueblo favorite that is similar to hockey without the ice. And Indians have been baseball players since the game's invention in the mid-19th Century.
Others dropped baseball
Jeffrey Powers-Beck, author of "The American Indian Integration of Baseball" (University of Nebraska Press, 2004), notes that, in the early 1900s, the sport became a community ritual for at least some tribes. But, after World War II, baseball's importance among most Indian nations "faded away," he says.
That, however, was when the sport began to take off among the Pueblo Indians.
Pueblo elders suggest that the remoteness of their villages from the American mainstream and the communal emphasis of their culture are responsible for its longevity and growth. And also the rivalries between the 19 villages going back a millennium and more, now played out on the baseball diamond.
During the All-Star game, Leander Loretto, a 17-year-old high school student and a Pueblo pinch-hitter, struck out while trying to bunt in the failed suicide squeeze play.
The next morning, he was out on the Jemez Pueblo field, playing third base for the Hemish Pirates. Every low throw and grounder kicked up small puffs of dust before bouncing into his mitt. "I like dirt," he said. "This is reservation ball."
Watching from the sidelines was 64-year-old Jose Yepa. His son Nick was playing first base for the Pirates, and Gachupin, the Pirates manager, noted that, just two years ago, the elder Yepa pitched -- and won -- a game for the team.
As a teenager, Yepa started playing Pueblo baseball in the 1950s. There was no money to buy lime for the baselines, he said, so the team used dry milk instead, mixing it with a little water so it wouldn't blow away.
"After the game," Yepa said, "a guy was herding some sheep and goats." When they got to the field, the herd headed straight for the dry milk.
"They started eating all our lines," he laughed.
----------
preardon@tribune.com
Family teams, communal values are the heart of baseball for New Mexico's Pueblo
By Patrick T. Reardon
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 15, 2006
ALBUQUERQUE -- In the top of the 10th inning, Jeremy "Worm" Leon-Sanders, the rangy 23-year-old shortstop from the Santa Ana Pueblo, scampered home from second base on a fielding error by the Navajo first baseman.
And thousands of fans from the 19 New Mexico pueblos responded with a roar that engulfed Isotopes Park as their team took a 2-1 lead.
Minutes later, flame-throwing Gorman Romero, 21, shut down the final three Navajo hitters, striking out two, and the Pueblos had won the fourth annual Native American All-Star Baseball Game.
No surprise.
Among the Navajos, baseball is a game. But, for the Pueblos, it's woven into the fabric of their culture.
Indeed, the link between baseball, that quintessential American game, and the Pueblo ethos has become "deep as blood," according to Herb Howell, an Albuquerque city planner who has umpired Pueblo games for more than a dozen years.
And it's growing stronger.
The Pueblo people in New Mexico live in 19 independent villages called pueblos (from the Spanish word for village), each on its own reservation scattered along the Rio Grande in the central part of the state. These pueblos share deep cultural and historic roots going back more than 1,000 years in this region but have evolved in diverse ways, even to the extent of having different languages.
Pueblo baseball, like any good baseball, is played with spirit, intensity and joy. But it has been adapted to fit the tribe's deeply held values.
"Our way of life is communal," explains Irwin Pecos, the manager of this year's All-Star team for the Pueblos.
So, on Pueblo teams, men play from the age of 15 to 55 -- and, sometimes, even older. And most teams are filled with players related to each other.
The Tamaya Tigers of the Santa Ana Pueblo, about 30 miles north of Albuquerque, "is basically a family team," says manager Greg Garcia, who, at 44, plays catcher or in the outfield. On the field with him often are his sons Jose at second base and Gilbert at shortstop as well as several of the nine nephews he has on the roster.
Howell says that, many times, when he umpires, "you look at the lineup sheet, and you just see first names because, chances are, they all have the same last name."
The biggest difference, though, is that the Pueblo leagues don't keep track of individual statistics, just team won-lost records. There's no such thing as the Babe Ruth of Pueblo baseball, and no one knows who has the most stolen bases this year or triples or strikeouts.
"That's the way it is for the Pueblo people," says Dominic Gachupin, the president of the Southern Pueblo League and a moving force behind the All-Star exhibition at Isotopes Park. "We're not really selfish. We always work together."
The Pueblos (2000 population: 63,000) have been playing baseball since the 1930s, and the present organized leagues of men's baseball date back more than half a century. This year, the villages are supporting two leagues with a total of 29 teams. That's about twice as many as a decade ago, and the number could climb to 37 or 38 next season. Several pueblos have more than one team, with the Jemez Pueblo, about 50 miles southwest of Los Alamos, fielding seven.
In addition, 16 women's teams play fast-pitch softball.
"Summers come around, and you know that Mother's Day is always the beginning of baseball," says Dave Chalan, a former manager and president of the southern league who, at 45, plays first base and occasionally pitches for the Cochiti Pueblo Brewers.
The fences at Pueblo ball fields are about the same distance from home plate as those at Isotopes Park, but that's about all they have in common. Most Pueblo fields are dirt, pure and simple -- dirt in the infield, dirt in the outfield. The only green is the scattering of weeds that can crop up after a rain.
'Dust Bowl'
This season, the Mother's Day game was "a dust bowl" on many Pueblo fields, Garcia says. "We play no matter what. We play in the dust. We play in the rain. We play in the mud."
The rhythm of the Pueblo baseball year includes a North-South All-Star game on the 4th of July, considered much more important than the exhibition at Isotopes Park. Then, most of August is devoted to double-elimination tournaments to determine the eight teams (four from each league) that will clash in a championship series over the Labor Day weekend.
The All-Star exhibition July 22 at Isotopes Park (the home of the Albuquerque Isotopes, the Florida Marlins Triple-A farm team) provided a stage where young Pueblo studs such as Leon-Sanders and Romero could strut their stuff.
A crowd estimated at 5,000 -- including, it was hoped, some college and professional scouts -- saw spectacular plays in the field and even an attempted suicide squeeze bunt by the Pueblos. And the players had the opportunity to find out what it feels like to play in a park all but equal to those of major league clubs -- a park that is a far cry from the hardscrabble fields back on their reservations.
"There're no rocks. There's grass," said Leon-Sanders, as he looked out over the park's meticulously groomed infield grass and luxurious outfield turf. "It's level. No holes. No weeds. No stickers when you pick up the ball."
He paused and surveyed the stands and the scoreboard and the groundskeepers hosing down the base paths.
"It's probably once in a lifetime for me to be out here," he said.
For thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, Native Americans played ball games of one sort or another, including lacrosse and shinny, a Pueblo favorite that is similar to hockey without the ice. And Indians have been baseball players since the game's invention in the mid-19th Century.
Others dropped baseball
Jeffrey Powers-Beck, author of "The American Indian Integration of Baseball" (University of Nebraska Press, 2004), notes that, in the early 1900s, the sport became a community ritual for at least some tribes. But, after World War II, baseball's importance among most Indian nations "faded away," he says.
That, however, was when the sport began to take off among the Pueblo Indians.
Pueblo elders suggest that the remoteness of their villages from the American mainstream and the communal emphasis of their culture are responsible for its longevity and growth. And also the rivalries between the 19 villages going back a millennium and more, now played out on the baseball diamond.
During the All-Star game, Leander Loretto, a 17-year-old high school student and a Pueblo pinch-hitter, struck out while trying to bunt in the failed suicide squeeze play.
The next morning, he was out on the Jemez Pueblo field, playing third base for the Hemish Pirates. Every low throw and grounder kicked up small puffs of dust before bouncing into his mitt. "I like dirt," he said. "This is reservation ball."
Watching from the sidelines was 64-year-old Jose Yepa. His son Nick was playing first base for the Pirates, and Gachupin, the Pirates manager, noted that, just two years ago, the elder Yepa pitched -- and won -- a game for the team.
As a teenager, Yepa started playing Pueblo baseball in the 1950s. There was no money to buy lime for the baselines, he said, so the team used dry milk instead, mixing it with a little water so it wouldn't blow away.
"After the game," Yepa said, "a guy was herding some sheep and goats." When they got to the field, the herd headed straight for the dry milk.
"They started eating all our lines," he laughed.
----------
preardon@tribune.com