Changing Ties.

Nery Lemus (a very active artist who is doing his MFA in Calarts right now) invited me to participate in a show that he is curating at Avenue 50 Studio, Inc. in Highland Park. The show is trying to foster a cross cultural dialogue between Latinos and African Americans.

He wanted me to present a series of baseball caps that I started doing in the early nineties. I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to post a text I wrote about them.

"Colors": Xicano Progeny, Investigative Agents, Executive Council and Other Representatives from the Sovereign State of Aztlán, The Mexican Museum, San Francisco, 1995, p. 36

Uniforms, banners, colors, flags and logos have been used to represent in a very attractive way different sport teams. Going to a sport stadium is an intense aesthetic experience. Sport teams usually represent a place that competes within certain rules against another. It is quite common to find that certain sport teams use images and names that are associated with certain groups of people not always related directly with the teams. The Cleveland Indians do not necessarily represent the Native-Americans or the San Diego Padres a catholic community and most of the Boston Celtics are African American. Sometimes the signifiers that are used by certain teams in different contexts reflect specific historical affiliations. The Scottish soccer team from Glasgow called "The Celtics" is supported by the Republican community in Northern Ireland; while the Glasgow “Rangers" is supported by the Loyalists.

Baseball caps are widely used in the streets as a popular form of expression. In Los Angeles teams emblems have been reappropiated by different local communities and gangs, for example the Bloods wear red, like the Chicago Bulls while the Crips wear blue the colour of the Georgetown Hoyas. On the other hand, Chicanos like to sport Cleveland Browns paraphernalia giving expression to pride on brown color, while L.A. Kings caps are now associated with Rodney King and Martin Luther King.

In altering, recodifying and recontextualizing signs already given in baseball caps I want to comment on the relation between aesthetics, history, mass media, culture, fashion, politics etc. and different communities divided by arbitrary rules and signs like sport teams.

Since my youth days in little league I've been collecting baseball caps. My collection of altered caps started in 1991 at the Watts Drum Festival when my African American teacher, Joe Lewis gave me a Malcolm X cap to wear instead of what he called, "ethnic caps" (referring to the ones with Latin motifs I use to wear). I wanted to use it in a way that would relate to Latinos and created the "Malcolm Mex" cap.

Since then I've been travelling with my caps having them customized by different artisans in the Americas and Europe. Laponian designs contrast with the Minnesota Viking's logo, while Native American bead work decorates the Chicago Blackhawks cap. In Guatemala a Mayan Indian embroidered what he considered were Aztec decorations on a San Diego Aztecs cap substituting an eagle with the local quetzal. Although I played baseball in what was called the "Mayan" little league I haven't found a Mayan team lately, unless we would consider the Carolina Jaguars one). In the swapmeets of L.A. the hip hop community creates it's own designs using computer operated stitching machines that are a lot faster than the manual embroidery of the indigenous artisans who earn a lot less for their work in the third world. These caps not only reflect the complex readings of signs within our cultures but also reflect the enormous differences which exist between labour and wealth from the first to the third world.

Even though most people outside the United States might not have prior knowledge or relate to the teams; the caps on the other hand are becoming widely universal fashion. In Guatemala the most colorful caps are preferred, while in Europe the darker caps are more popular or the ones that have famous rapper connotations. 

Ultimately these objects while they have been appropriated as a universal (MTV) dress code, they address issues of economical, cultural exchange and difference. 

The Beauty and the Beasts.

This photograph was taken the day of the "Hand of God" and the Goal of the Century. It was taken from the top of the stadium through binoculars. It is a relic and evidence of a miracle.

Soccer is also known derogatively in Mexico as “panbol” which means the sport of the bakers. It is world wide the cheapest and easiest sport to play. Kids play it with bottle caps and balls made of masking tape when there is not a proper ball.

I was in the nose-bleed section of the Azteca stadium and saw the apocalyptic final of the Pan American games between Mexico and Brazil that ended up as a tie when power in the stadium went out. It was the first time I witnessed the popular local ritual of the “agua de riñón” (kidney water). A drunkard sitting next to me passed me a fetid warm paper cup and asked me to contribute. The cup was half full with urine. Once he figured I wouldn’t dare to help him filling it he threw it down to the more expensive level of the stadium beneath us shouting, “here goes the kidney water!”

Years after, my father took my sister and I to see the most legendary World Cup game. Great Britain kept those freezing rocky islands in the South Atlantic but Diego Armando Maradona beat England two to one and later lifted the cup for Argentina. While he was doing slalom with the British defense and scoring with the help of “God’s hand” I saw two Englishmen wearing their national team jerseys charge against hundreds of Argentinean fans that were dancing with a stolen Union Jack. It was the most stupid act of courage I had ever seen. They ended up rolling down the stairs like tumbleweeds. All hell was breaking loose to the hypnotic beat of drums. A fat guy down below was wearing the light blue striped jersey and punching Brits all around them - beer was flying. A lot of hooligans were arrested that day, after vandalizing the neighborhood. It has been said that rugby is a beastly sport played by gentlemen and soccer is a sport of gentlemen played by beasts.

Not any more. Now the sport of the “El Primitivo” Madariaga and the “Hunchback from Coapa” Cuauhtemoc Blanco, is mutating in the United States into a suburban game where mommies drive their kids to play in SUV’s and is mostly played by women. Another extreme mythological transformation is happening. Through David Beckham the game is being sanitized, associated with the rich and the beautiful and made palatable to Anglo America.

While San Francisco competes as the capital of “football” with places like Dallas and Green Bay, Los Angeles places itself around cities like Milan, London, Buenos Aires, Rio and Barcelona. Beckham is certainly not the best soccer player in the world, or from Europe, or England even. He wasn’t the best player for Real Madrid. In fact, he might not even be the best player in the Los Angeles Galaxy. However he is blonde, cute, metro-sexual, relatively decent, married to Posh Spice and friend of Tom Cruise. His cockney accent connotes Hollywood on this side of the pond. His soccer skills are eccentric and not good enough to make England or the Galaxy win, but will his beauty tame the beasts?

Baseball, futbol and the end of the nation state.

Recently the United States defeated México in the final of the Copa de Oro tournament. Football (as in ball played with the feet) is a form of globalization that for the longest time gringos have resisted. They have tried to change its name to “soccer” and for the most part they find it boring. The US national team was recently eliminated from the Copa America where “America” stands actually for South America. In Mexico “America” stands for a Mexico City annoying and wealthy team. For Mexicans to loose against the United States is a traumatic experience. It reminds them the Mexican-American war when the US conquered the North of Mexico and a more contemporary rejection in those same territories (not to even mention the defeat in the 2002 World Cup). For the Unites States players it is also traumatic to win with the majority of the fans rooting against them in their “home” games. Most of their players are fluent in Spanish and most of the media attention they get is in this language.

On another hand Mexico eliminated the United States in the World Baseball Classic. Mexico also got rid of the US team that tried to qualify for the last Olympic games. Once I had the opportunity to hear Tommy Lasorda giving a lecture at Dodger Stadium. He claimed his proudest moment was when he led team USA to the gold medal at the Sydney Olympic games. He insisted in bringing back that medal where it belonged. He was adamant that baseball was an “American” thing. I guess his argument was so convincing that baseball ended up being banned as an Olympic sport. As baseball ambassador he did not seem to be very diplomatic. Will the “World” Series ever be played by the world? Major League Baseball certainly would like to control and capitalize on this if it ever happens. The final of the World Baseball Classic was played between Cuba and Japan with almost no Major League players. Historically the Major Leagues have tried to monopolize the sport. They even have an antitrust exemption. In 1946 Jorge Pasquel, a Mexican businessman, allured more than a dozen American major leaguers with lucrative salaries to play in the Mexican League. The Major Leagues banned them for five years. Now half of the players selected for the next All Star game are Latin American. The game has been surpassed in popularity by “football” and basketball. This is specially truth among African Americans.

Football soccer and baseball offer two different models of internationalization. Baseball has a centralized system dominated by the Major Leagues. All the minor leagues feed the Majors and there is no relegation. The Majors would like to be the center of an international baseball “melting pot”. Like United States democracy it offers an exclusive model of multiculturalism and integration. Soccer on the other hand functions through the International Federation of Association Football commonly known as FIFA. Like the European Union or the United Nations it is a humongous, bureaucratic and not very efficient international organization. Teams play against each other in all sorts of tournaments and championships. There are local and international tournaments and minor league teams can be promoted while failing big teams can be relegated. Certainly the European leagues have the economical clout to attract the best players from the rest of the world. However they regularly loose against poorer Argentinean or Brazilian teams in the Club World Cup. Baseball is a more complicated and elaborate game than soccer. More than any other sport it needs diversity. Every position requires particular characteristics, catchers need to be strong and resistant, shortstops fast, first bases tall, second bases quick, opener pitchers need stamina, etc. The game allows individualism as part of a collective effort. In that sense it represents the best of the American experiment. The exclusive monopoly and control the Major Leagues want to have of the game represent the worst. It replicates the contradictory attempts to impose and control democracy. Here is where baseball and the United States can learn from football (futbol), soccer, or whatever you want to call it and realize they are part of the world and not viceversa.

Anarquismo y Futbol

Legendario "Andorra Futbol Club" de la liga del colegio Madrid. Fotografía de Rogelio Villareal.