▲ Cuban Diosbel Arias did what every baseball player dreams of in his life, hitting a home run with a full house that will be remembered. Photo courtesy Diablos Rojos
Juan Manuel Vazquez
La Jornada Newspaper
Martes March 26, 2024, p. a10
Do you remember when the Red Devils defeated the New York Yankees twice? It was the night of March 25, 2024 when they came back with two home runs. Will these be the new memories that survive time? Yesterday a new epic was born after these two games in the spring in which the Scarlets defeated the Bronx Bombers 8-5. In the second duel they beat the Big Apple team again, and now with a comeback with eight runs in the third inning. The history of 56 years ago in the Social Security Park was not repeated in the Alfredo Harp Helú stadium.
In baseball there are games that are installed in memory and others that are born with it. Yesterday, the Diablos’ second victory over the Yankees was one of those duels full of echoes of the past. In March 1968, two meetings between these two teams had another story, the first with a victory for Ramón Arano and the Scarlets; the second, a defeat with Alfredo Left handed Ortiz on the mound. In this reissue half a century later, it seemed like something similar would happen when Pingos starter Ronnie Williams saw the game slip away like fine grit between his fingers. But only in the veterans were those images reactivated in memory, because in the younger ones new memories were installed, those of these two victories.
A new memory
In the book Blockade Billy, by Stephen King, a story about baseball, the narrator reflects on the irony of growing old as a player in this sport. While you are young – he says – everyone is willing to listen to your stories, but what there is is no time to do so. On the other hand, a veteran has plenty of it but no one is interested in his old glory days anymore.
That doesn’t happen to me, says Alfredo. Left handed Ortiz, 80 years old, a pitcher who in March 1968 pitched for the Diablos against Mickey Mantle’s Yankees, the same one who hit his ball covered in saliva, but who had the grace to hit on the dry side and take it out of Social Security Park. The improbable legend says that those leather remains still rest in the French Pantheon next to the Viaduct.
Young people ask me these days about the game 56 years ago and I tell them that no pitcher wants to be remembered for a home run he suffered. But what are you going to do if that was a monster like Mickey Mantle; Then even he feels nice, Zurdo jokes.
The giant black and white photographs to commemorate those 1968 games, installed at the entrance to the current Diablos stadium, seem like a kidnapping in time. Women with high hairstyles and elegant coats flank Yankees stars Mickey Mantle, who offers autographs to the Mexican public of that time. Many veterans claim to have been at those couple of games.
He Left handed crosses the Harp Helú diamond this Monday afternoon. He is a historic member of the Devils and they honor him for that game half a century ago. Upon reaching the mound, the screens reveal a happy man, not one nostalgic and trapped in the past. It doesn’t matter if that past involves a home run against him, one by a legend named Mantle. He throws the first ball of the game, one that will be very different from the one he had in his turn against the Yankees.
The local epic
Yesterday the first runs were from the Yankees. It seemed that as if remembering 1968, this time the victory would go to the Bombers. José Treviño hit a double that produced the scores of Oswaldo Cabrera and Óscar González. And Kevin Smith drove in Treviño with a single that put the third on the board against a surprised Devils.
Pitcher Ronnie Williams left the mound after a meeting because in the inning opening game had already dropped. Erick Leal went up to try to regain the horizon.
But in the third, Treviño was on third base and was driven in by a single by JC Escarra to score the Yankees’ fourth run that made one think of that second game in 1968.
But partly due to the loss of the third, a new baseball myth was born. The New York pitcher, Luis Serna from Sonora, who had an impeccable performance, suddenly had his arm fail and the bases were loaded. In these circumstances and with a out, he gave a passport to Julián Ornelas and Diablos’ first race entered like a wheelie. One that was just the infernal prologue.
Then, Diosbel Arias did what every player dreams of in his life, hitting a home run with a full house and coming back with a grand slam. It won’t be Mantle’s hit, but the home run went over center field and will be remembered for a long time.
And to ensure this was the best inning of the scarlets, Juan Carlos Gamboa, the captain whose surname they chant to the rhythm of The constrictorfrom Sonora Santanera, disappeared the ball with a shot over center field that contributed three more runs.
The Bombers got back on the board with a score from Carlos Narváez driven by Nelson Medina, but the Scarlets played like they were possessed. In new memory, in the spring of 2024, the Devils swept the New York Yankees in two games.
2024-03-26 09:00:46
#reds #play #Diablos #beat
