1992 Liga Mexicana de Béisbol (Mexican League) Estampas de Fotos Checklist

      I have been in contact with the gentleman who started the fledgling blog 1992 Mexican Leauge Baseball Cards.  He posted a link to some photos of cards and unopened boxes he still has from the set.  In my previous post about this set, I posted close-up scans of the logos on the backs of the cards:

     From my email conversation of past weeks, TCI means Trading Cards International, Inc., the short-lived company from Lockport, Louisiana, who most likely designed the set.  EDM stands for Estampas Deportivas de Mexico SA de CV (possibly the actual printers of the cards) and the back of the box reads Lomeli Trade Center SA de CV Guadalajara Jalisco (the import/export company that distributed the set).  Apparently he was friends with someone who knew someone that worked for TCI, and helped distribute the cards around the Mission, Texas/Reynosa area, and also recalls the cards being heavily distributed in Monterrey and Guadalajara.

        He also sent me about a dozen cards I didn't have, so I have been able to expand the checklist a bit.  This is only 46 cards now, of a total 150, so I've asked if he wouldn't mind filling in the gaps so this set can get the recognition it deserves in the hobby as the first major modern Mexican League set.   All sixteen Mexican League teams from the 1992 season are accounted for in the checklist so far.

      In keeping with all of the other checklist posts on the blog, I have reformatted this post to highlight the gaps in the checklist in hopes that someone might be willing to help fill them.

Card #	Player Name	Team
1
2
3
4	Luis Alberto Pena	Industriales de Monterrey
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16	Braulio Neri	Rieleros de Aguascalietes
17	Pablo Machiria	Tigres de México
18
19
20	Alfonso (Alonso) Tellez	Industriales de Monterrey
21	Ruben Navarro	Cafeteros de Córdoba
22
23	Martin Antunez	Leones de Yucatán
24
25	Terry Blocker	Petroleros de Minatitlán
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37	Emigdio Lopez	Cafeteros de Córdoba
38	Eduardo Torres	Saraperos de Saltillo
39
40	Francisco Rodriguez	Sultanes de Monterrey
41
42
43
44
45
46
47	Hector Estrada	Diablos Rojos del México
48	Salvador Lopez	Rieleros de Aguascalietes
49
50	Luis Trinidad Castillo	Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos
51	Raul Lopez	Aguila de Veracruz
52
53
54
55
56
57
58	Luis Alfonso Cruz	Algodoneros de Union Laguna
59
60	Isidro Morales	Acereros de Monclova
61	Jesus Antonio Barrera	Olmecas de Tabasco
62
63	Vicente Verdugo	Diablos Rojos del México
64
65
66	Gerardo Sanchez	Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80	Enrique Aguilar	Rieleros de Aguascalietes
81
82
83
84	Isaac Jiminez	Industriales de Monterrey
85	Ricardo Herrera	Charros de Jalisco
86
87
88
89
90
91	Felipe Gutierrez Delfin	Alacranes de Campeche
92	Rodolfo Valdes	Acereros de Monclova
93	Andres Sanchez	Olmecas de Tabasco
94
95
96
97
98
99	Carlos Miguel Garcia	Alacranes de Campeche
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108	Martin Garcia	Acereros de Monclova
109
110
111
112
113
114	Ruben Estrada	Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos
115
116	Porfirio Ochoa	Industriales de Monterrey
117	Abraham Macias	Cafeteros de Córdoba
118	Jesus Moreno	Saraperos de Saltillo
119	Juan Jose Pacho	Leones de Yucatán
120
121
122	Ramon Esquer	Algodoneros de Union Laguna
123	Herminio Dominguez	Alacranes de Campeche
124
125	Martin Morones	Olmecas de Tabasco
126
127
128	Juan Manuel Garcia	Rieleros de Aguascalietes
129
130	Enrique Ramirez	Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos
131
132
133	David Villagomez	Cafeteros de Córdoba
134	Raul Rodriguez	Saraperos de Saltillo
135	Jose J. Bellazetin	Tigres de México
136	Leo Perez	Sultanes de Monterrey
137
138	Jesus Valdez	Algodoneros de Union Laguna
139	Luis E. Huerta	Alacranes de Campeche
140
141	Rusty Tillman	Olmecas de Tabasco
142	Ricardo Renteria	Charros de Jalisco
143
144	Jose Luis Valenzuela	Rieleros de Aguascalietes
145
146	Marco Antonio Cruz	Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos
147	Ramon Sambo	Aguila de Veracruz
148	Ramon Abril	Industriales de Monterrey
149
150	Hector Osuna	Saraperos de Saltillo

As usual, thanks to Arturo for helping fill in the gaps in the checklist from his collection.

2005 La Liga Mexicana de Beisbol set update

     The more I dig, the more I keep finding on the 2005 Beisbol Cards set for the Mexican League.   Just yesterday, Google coughed up a listing on a site called Ofertopia.com for 158 different cards from the set.  I can't quite make out what the purpose of Ofertopia may be as there never seems to be any contact or payment information in the listings.  I don't know of these are just historical listings from MercadoLibre or what.  But taking that list and eliminating all of the cards Arturo and I have, left me with a list of 93 more cards.  Unfortunately, there are no images that are large enough to make out details, so I don't have any way to accurately number the cards yet, but here is the list of 93 cards, sorted by team:

****ACEREROS DE MONCLOVA****
AC?? Edgar Vega
AC?? Leobardo Arauz
AC?? Lino Rivera

****DIABLOS ROJOS DE MEXICO***
DR?? Roberto Saucedo
DR?? Oscar Robles
DR?? Víctor Bojórquez
DR?? José Luis "Borrego" Sandoval
DR?? Manuel Velez
DR?? Daniel Fernandez
DR?? Roberto "Metralleta"  Ramirez
DR?? Ray Martinez

***GUERREROS DE OAXACA***
GU?? Francisco Madero
GU?? Josmir Romero
GU?? José de Jesús Jiménez
GU?? José Montenegro
GU?? Jose Isaias Avalos
GU?? Abraham Valencia
GU?? Angel Peña                   
GU?? Juan Carlos Pulido

***LANGOSTEROS DE CANCUN***
LA?? Ruben Quinones
LA?? Langostino y Chirchie  (Mascots)
LA?? Raul Sanchez
LA?? Juan Jose Pacho
LA?? Oscar Salazar
LA?? Hector Chavarria
LA?? Conrado Garza

**LEONES DE YUCATAN**
LE?? Luis Navarro
LE?? Hector Castaneda
LE?? Juan Carlos Canizales
LE?? Willie Romero
LE?? Luis "El Rayo" Arredondo
LE?? Scott Bullet
LE?? Juan Manuel Palafox
LE?? Raul Rodríguez
LE?? Eddy Diaz

**PERICOS DE PUEBLA***
PE?? José Juan Nuñez
PE?? Luis Carlos Martínez
PE?? Omar Espinoza
PE?? Darrel  Sherman
PE?? Cristian Alaniz
PE?? Manny Martinez
PE?? Pedro Iturbe
PE?? Julio Miguel Trapaga
PE?? Armando Valdez
PE?? Jesús Arredondo

**PIRATAS DE CAMPECHE**
PI?? Roque Sanchez
PI?? Francisco "Paquin" Estrada
PI?? Hector Paez
PI?? Francisco Campos
PI?? Juan Jesús Alvarez
PI?? Willis Roberts
PI?? Roberto Vizcarra

****POTROS DE TIJUANA****
PO?? Cesar Peña
PO?? Randall Simon

****AGUILAS DE VERAZRUZ****
RA?? Amaury Garcia
RA?? Leobardo Moreno
RA?? Manuel Casarin
RA?? Eloy Arano

***RIELEROS DE AGUASCALIENTES***
RI?? Ildefonso Lara
RI?? Lino Urdaneta
RI?? Alex Taveras
RI?? Eduardo Ríos
RI?? Rontrez Johnson
RI?? Alexander Delgado
RI?? Grimaldo Martinez
RI?? Francisco Rivera
RI?? Flavio Orea

***SULTANES DE MONTERREY***
SU?? Demond Smith
SU?? Rigoberto Loya
SU?? Miguel Flores
SU?? Mario Valdez
SU?? Charles "Bubba" Smith
SU?? Heber Gomez
SU?? Isaura Pineda
SU?? Sergio Mora

***TIGRES DE LA ANGELOPOLIS***
TI?? Adan Munoz Rodriguez
TI?? Matias Carrillo
TI?? Jorge Vazquez
TI?? Cecilio Garibaldi
TI?? Guillermo Vazquez
TI?? Jesús Guzman
TI?? Carlos "Chispa" Gastelum
TI?? Javier Robles

***TUNEROS DE SAN LUIS****
TU?? Pat O'Sullivan
TU?? Darryl Brinkley
TU?? Luis Bustillos
TU?? Edgar Leyva
TU?? Nestro Renovato
TU?? Enrique Martinez
TU?? Sharnol Adriana
TU?? Dave Doster

****VAQUEROS LAGUNA****
VA?? Ramón Espinosa
VA?? Cornelio García

      If you add those to the updated list from my previous post (click here to see the earlier post), we have a total of 180 cards.  Combining the two lists, the per team card totals look like this:

Acereros - 14
Diablos Rojos - 11
Guerreros - 18
Langosteros - 13
Leones - 13
Pericos- 15
Piratas - 15
Potros - 13
Rojos del Aguilas - 13
Rieleros - 11
Sultanes - 13
Tigres - 14
Tuneros - 14
Vaqueros - 3

    With only three cards representing the Vaqueros, I'm willing to bet the set is closer to 200 cards.  Odd that the Guerreros have so many more cards that the rest of the set so far.   As always, more information will be provided as it is uncovered.  I have to travel to San Diego in January, so I may see if I can find any local card shops that have some history behind them and ask if they know anything about cards from Mexico.

    More to come!

Mexican Baseball Cards and Stickers

     I'm sure the few of you that read my ramblings have noticed that my interests typically lean toward the less-than-mainstream.  In this particular instance, however, it is rather surprising just how far outside the mainstream this subject happens to be.  Mexico has consistently had professional baseball since 1925, when La Liga Mexicana de Beisbol (LMB) was organized. And since that time, it has had significant interactions with the sport north of the Rio Grande, at various times serving as a source for talent, an alternative to the Major Leagues, another venue for players of color to ply their trade during the days of racial segregation, a supplement to the minor league system, a place to play ball in winter (in La Liga Mexicana del Pacifico, LMP or the Mexican Pacific League) and a place for aging Latin stars (and in some cases, blackballed Americans) to finish up their careers.

Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Minor League Baseball Card Checklists (Online)

(click here to skip the wandering preamble and get straight to the important stuff)

     A few years ago, when I seriously got back into collecting baseball cards, I decided to pick up where I left off on my Hensley Meulens collection.  I had mostly stopped collecting and following baseball after the strike in 1994.  Then came school, marriage, the beginnings of a career, and for awhile there, I was more concerned with just keeping the lights on, the rent paid, gas in the car and food on the table, so I had almost no idea what had happened in the intervening 8-9 years I was away from the hobby.  When I got back into it, I found that Dave Winfield had been elected into the Hall of Fame, Matt Williams was named in the Mitchell Report and Meulens had spent three years in Japan (later making a couple of unsuccessful returns to the Majors).

   As I started to jump back into things, I discovered the joys (and pains) of eBay, online trading sites (SportsCardForum and The Bench Trading being the main two I've settled into, later expanding to Freedom Cardboard, mostly for the conversation), the expansive sites based around statistics (Baseball Almanac, Baseball Reference and The Baseball Cube being my most frequented) and all manner of collector's blogs and hobby news sites.  But that only showed me that there were some glaring gaps in my collection and knowledge from outside the mainstream of the North American hobby.

     As I caught up with lots of the Meulens cards I'd missed, I had to find resources for the Japanese cards about which, up to this point, I knew absolutely nothing.  As I hunted for information on them, I encountered great sites like JapaneseBaseball.com, The Japanese Baseball Card Blog, Rob's Japanese Cards and Prestige Collectibles.  Through Rob Fitts' site, I was able to pick up most of Meulens' BBM and Takara cards, but came up short on the Calbee cards.  I only knew those cards existed because Beckett happened to include a few years of Japanese cards in their online price guide.  However, I knew there had to be more, and just in learning about the BBM and Takara sets, I knew Beckett was far from complete or accurate in their listings.  Everyone I encountered or asked for help suggested I pick up a copy of Gary Engel's Japanese Baseball Card Checklist & Price Guide.  So I picked up the 6th edition.  And learned that there was an enormous world of baseball cards in Japan.  And Hensley Meulens had a few more cards that I needed to find. (A 7th edition was released in early 2010 and is available from Prestige Collectibles.)