Mexico Makes Its Olympic Baseball Debut Against the Dominican Republic

To reach this point, the national team had to navigate a winding and at times bumpy road. During an Olympic qualifying tournament in November 2019, Mexico made history. It upset the United States during pool play and again in extra innings during the bronze medal game to earn a spot in the Tokyo Games.

But between that joyous moment to their Olympic debut, the Mexican national team has had to contend with not only the coronavirus pandemic like everyone else, but internal drama and a virus scare days before leaving for Tokyo that threatened the team’s hopes.

In June, about a month and a half before the Olympic baseball tournament began, Mexican baseball officials dismissed the team leaders who led them here: general manager Kundy Gutierrez and manager Juan Castro.

In a tweet on June 6 announcing the moves, Castro called it “very sad and unfair” news. Gutierrez and Castro later told news outlets in Mexico that their dispute mainly centered around a lack of funding from Mexican officials and the national baseball federation. (And that was despite the stated support of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, an ardent baseball fan who has carved out special resources for the sport’s development in the country.)

Needing people to run the national team, La Liga Mexicana de Beisbol, the top professional league in the country, asked a member of its central office, Patricio Pérez, to take over as general manager. Benji Gil, the manager of the league’s Mariachis de Guadalajara and a former major leaguer, was asked to take over as national team manager.