Pelota mixteca

By JUAN ESPARZA LOERA / Vida En El Valle
(Published Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 09:05AM)

FRESNO -- Fidel Trinidad Garzón wore long pants that were soiled from sliding onto the dirt patch in the outskirts of Fresno.

At 63 years of age, his graying beard and hair betrayed his skill as a pelotero (ballplayer) of the ancient game of pelota mixteca.

"Take that, you young one!" Trinidad Garzón taunted an opponent young enough to be his grandson during last Sunday's final day of the 10th annual Pelota Mixteca tournament.

The native of Magdalena Jaltepec, Oaxaca, México, resorted to 40 years of experience in sending the ball angling out of the his opponent's reach. The sport, which organizers trace back about 3,000 years ago and resembles tennis in scoring, rewards experience as well as youth.

Trinidad Garzón helped his team place third in the two-day tournament that drew teams and spectators from San Diego, Oxnard, Santa Bárbara, Los Ángeles, San Bernardino, Monterey and Napa.

Combinados, which was made of players from the San Fernando and Monterey squads, defeated San Diego, 2-0, to claim the championship in less than an hour.

The participation -- not the winning -- mattered most to players like Trinidad Garzón.

"I don't know the opponents. I'm just here to compete with them," said Trinidad Garzón, who has played for more than 40 years.

He left the game for three years when he worked for a workers' union in his native Oaxaca, but has returned to the sport he has passed on to his two grown sons.

Trinidad Garzón broke his right arm playing a May 5, 1985, match in Puebla. Instead of visiting a doctor to fix the broken arm just above the wrist, Trinidad Garzón waited until his father returned home to use a home remedy. Within five months, Trinidad Garzó was back playing.

The sport -- which is played on a field roughly 100 meters long and 11 meters wide -- features elaborately decorated leather gloves attached to a heavy wood-and-nail striking surface. The gloves weigh up to 13 pounds. Most of the players are Mixteco immigrants.

Last weekend's matches, played in 100-degree weather, were heavily competitive but free of heated exchanges or disagreements. Each team is made up of a quinta (five players). Each player has his speciality: Some are used primarily to serve the ball; the younger men are usually the ones with the task of smacking the ball the farthest; and, veterans like Trinidad Garzón are the ones who put enough spin or angle on the ball to bewilder the opposition.

The smack talk was heavy last Sunday.

"Andale, ¡qué te va a ganar tu padrino!" (Hurry up, your godfather is going to beat you!)

"¡Ese guante no sirve!" (That glove is of no use!)

The game's rules are so complex, that one of the players from the visiting team from Oaxaca admitted he played the sport for a year and still did not understand all the regulations.

Fidel Salazar Rosales, president of the Asociación de la Pelota Mixteca in Oaxaca, was pleased with what he saw last weekend.

"Today, on this day, we have accomplished our mission," said Salazar Rosales. "That mission is our passionate sport given to us by our ancestors."

Salazar Rosales is promoting the sport, which first traveled to the United States when Trinidad Garzón's brother, Cupertino Miguel, organized play in the mid 1960s in the Fresno area.

"Our game has evolutionized," said Salazar Rosales.

The first games were played on a field shaped like a wide H. It has adopted some aspects of Spain's pelota valencia and has gone through different versions of the glove and ball.

Leobardo Pacheco Vásquez, the only pelota mixteca glovemaker in the world, remembers when his grandfather invented the glove.

Daniel Pacheco Ramírez was a butcher in Oaxaca who played the sport. One day, he cut his hand at the butcher shop and decided to cut a piece of leather from his saddle to protect the injury. He discovered the ball flew farther. With time, he improved the glove.

Pacheco Vásquez said other players increased demand for the glove. Because the ball flew longer, more weight was added to the ball. Then, the gloves had to be made bigger to be able to absorb the pounding of a heavier ball.

The metal protection, mainly nails about an inch long, were added to the gloves in 1930, said Pacheco Vásquez.

"I feel proud because it is a family heritage," said Pacheco Vásquez of his work.

The gloves, which sell for about 4,000 pesos (about $360), take about a month to complete. Each glove will use about three kilos (6.6 pounds) of nails.

The most common injuries are abrasions when a player gets hit by the ball on the arm or face. Some players have been knocked out by the force of the ball.

The sport is played year-round in Oaxaca, but is showcased at the annual Guelaguetza celebration.

Pacheco Vásquez is trying to get the sport organized among Oaxacan migrants in Atlanta and Tijuana.

Send e-mail to: jesparza@vidaenelvalle.com