A few Notes were not enough to comment on the career of Manuel Castillo Sánchez in basketball in Tijuana, Baja California and Mexico.
On the court, we will point out that on one occasion he scored 101 points against a team that boasted of having the best defensive system, in which Enrique Palacio, known as the Brute, was a key player, not because of his lack of intelligence, but if the such a rude way with which he acted on the court.
Although they don’t take that record much into account, for having achieved it on a cement court, but 101 points are 101, on a court, in the open air or even on land,
Already retired from the courts, Castillo took charge of the first team of the Technological Institute of Tijuana, the Galgos, which were part of the founding group of the Circuito Mayor de Básquetbol, for many years considered by the Mexican Federation as the highest level tournament in basketball. all those that were played in the northwest of the country.
He was president of the Baja California State Basketball Association and in Nogales, where the National First Force was played, in 1977, he got the headquarters for the following year.
Short, very short of personnel, he was selected from Baja California to that national in Nogales, headed by Alejandro Rodríguez, el Tribi, Rubén Aguirre and Enrique Chacón, who had experience in the Superior Basketball Circuit, playing for the Tijuana Dragons.
Also in the selection, directed by Joe Durán, were Eleazar Puffelis, Miguel Ángel Cadena, who became director of the Faculty of Dentistry on the Tijuana campus of the Autonomous University of Baja California, his colleague, the left-handed Arturo García, the Boa Mario Suarez and Tito Gonzalez.
In 1978 the Nacional de Primera Fuerza was played in Tijuana, with a Municipal Auditorium stuffed up to the lamps in the afternoon sessions and the Baja California team was crowned undefeated, closing their performance with a victory over Nuevo León.
That is why nobody cared that the Federal District and Chihuahua were on the field, which by tradition played the last game of the national events, wherever the event was.
Jealously, the engineer Castillo Sánchez saved the profits from that event, an economic success and many were the benefited teams, since they were supported whenever they needed it.
With the tickets they began the work on the gym that would be the home of basketball in Tijuana, a work that was left unfinished, since there was no one to help Castillo in the project.
For many years, Castillo promoted the meetings in which the players who won the Segunda Fuerza national title met, trying to do the same with the 78 Primera Fuerza monarchs, but with them there was little response.
Basketball meetings continue to be held and now they have opened, with the participation of all those who made and continue to make baskets at different levels.
With many merits, Manuel Castillo Sánchez is part of the Tijuana Sports Hall of Fame.
There are other basketball players in the Tijuana Sports Hall of Fame, but with far fewer merits than Cochito and even with invented achievements or by arranging those of others.
There is no more space for the Notes, which are as far as they come… for today, be very careful when driving in traffic, since they announce rain and we continue to recommend that you use a face mask and antibacterial gel, in addition to keeping a healthy distance.
