Shortly – maybe three minutes --  after I heard that Sr. Hank had purchased a second division team and was planning to make them into the Chelsea of Mexico I realized that I was going to be able to see some first division futbol just across the border. Turns out this was the weekend I made it, and since it was a little more complicated than I expected, and since many of you may have the same thing in mind, I thought I would share a few details.

First things first: it was a great trip, we had a lot of fun, and I’m going again. Now, the details.

Tickets are a problem. Xolos have a small stadium, and it’s basically sold out. If you have checked the team web site you will see that they are only advertising season tickets. We discovered that by googling “boletos de futbol” you can link to a ticketmaster.mx site that has tickets for a random collection of individual games.  Perhaps because this week’s opponent, Queretaro, are terrible, there were tickets available – there sure as hell is no sign of anything for Cruz Azul next week. The preorder turned out to be important as there was no obvious resale or scalper scene in the vicinity of the stadium. If anyone has better info on how to get tickets PLEASE POST in the responses.

OK, assume you have a line on the tickets. Mexicoach is a team sponsor and has various announcements about service from the border to the game, but this service has not really caught on. And yet, they were happy to load the two of us on a bus from their border terminal – it’s right off the last US exit and has good parking – and tote us to the game and back. There are plenty of cabs right over the border too, but Mexicoach seemed like a solid option.

Once we arrived the first impression was tons of security – it looked roughly like the descriptions I saw of the 49ers game this weekend. Picking up the tickets at will call worked fine, and we entered into a very pleasant and well organized but not really all that colorful pregame scene along the concourse. It basically looked like a US pregame but with a lot more scantily clad advertising girls and five or six actual live xolos dogs walking around - that was cool.

The food scene is a huge plus – definitely a standout element of the outing. There are lots of food stands, they are not crazy crowded, and the food was fabulous. Four star ceviche, good selection of fresh tacos, guys walking around with nice plates of mango and watermelon, plenty of beer and clamato vendors…and I could go on.

The merch scene was just ok – I ended up with significantly less schwag than I expected. There were a couple of stands along the concourse, but a shockingly small number of vendors outside – I’ve seen more tee shirt sellers on the Bart concourse outside the Oakland Coliseum. The security crackdown may have caused the merch shortage as I saw the cops rousting a truckload of guys selling cool headbands on the way out.  Of course there are plenty of vendors on the highway heading to the border, but still...Needs Improvement.

The tickets come with a seat number, but it is in fact open seating, so if you want a good spot you need to get sitting down quicker than we did. Enough seats for everyone, though…but it was Queretaro. Crowd was totally in to it – probably 70% in team gear – good, enthusiastic chanting and a very classy group of ultras behind one of the goals. Even though we couldn’t catch on to most of the chants there were some that were repetitive and vulgar enough that everyone could pitch in.

The game itself was highly entertaining – I have been to MLS games in Portland and San Jose this year, and was struck by the FMF’s higher skill level and extreme chippiness.  Xolos dominated the game and had much better chances, but as @nicholasrosano tweeted, the work in the final third was painful – way too much individual action, for starters. Still, Xolos have good quality and I’m confident that we’ll still be watching first division futbol in Tijuana next year. 

In response to some questions on the AthleticsNation board about the tomahawk chop/chant, i posted this reminiscence.  Then i though that some of you might be interested in this look at braves baseball circa 1991, so....here goes:

I noticed that during the A’s-Braves series several AN posters have commented about the tomahawk chop and chant.  As a long-time Atlanta resident who recently moved to the  east bay, I am pretty immune to the chop, and hadn’t realized it still had the power to shock.  While I don’t have any socio- or psychological insight into the nature of the chop, I was there the night it got started, and thought some of you might be interested in the story. 

This tale actually intersects with a subject near and dear to AN readers, the emergence and spread of the statistical analysis of baseball. While the Bill James movement was struggling to achieve critical mass in the early 1980s, the lack of access to detailed and complete baseball statistics was a chronic and frustrating problem.  In typically direct fashion, James asked people through his annual publication to adopt a pitch by pitch scoring he had developed and mail him the scorecards.  By the late ‘80s, the amateur scorer network, of which I was a part, had produced enough data that it seemed possible to turn it into a business.

Around 1990 or so, that business, STATS, Inc. scored its first big deal, a contract to provide information-rich box scores to _USA TODAY_.  Along with that deal came two perks for the scorers, a modest stipend for each game scored, and – far more exciting – a press box seat. Thus it was that on a late spring evening I was in the press box at the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium when a haunting ululation was heard throughout the park.  It was deep in extra innings and the crowd had thinned out, so it was easy to hear, but hard to decipher. 

I thought it might be some visiting Europeans doing a soccer chant, but it quickly turned out that it was actually some kids up from Florida State University, where fans of the football team, the Seminoles, had developed this cheer and its accompanying motion, a repeated, rhythmic first down signal, to root on their team.  It caught on like wildfire.  By the next night, the whole stadium had picked it up, and since it was the year when, after ten years of major suckage, the Braves emerged as the powerhouse they have been ever since, it became a civic phenomenon.  I don’t know if you have ever lived through a moment when an entire community becomes completely and nuttily obsessed with a sports team, but it’s really something.

Of course the morally questionable valence of the chop was immediately apparent, but there was no stopping it.  Still, as the playoffs approached, I began to anticipate what I assumed was going to be a chop-related moment of truth, the return of team owner Ted Turner.  This was the era when Ted had moved beyond being a big shot in Atlanta, and had emerged as a national player.  Specifically, he was hanging around Hollywood, buying ranches, and had acquired an A-list fiancee, none other than Jane Fonda.  They were expected in Ted’s front-row box for the playoffs, and surely, I thought, Jane Fonda was not going to sit still for the chop!  The moment arrived, there she was - Hollywood royalty and friend of the oppressed, Jane Fonda herself. The chant broke out - Jane’s chance to take a stand, to yank off her enormous diamond, storm out, and show Ted and all the choppers just how she felt.  But…no.  She chopped.  Not enthusiastically, but she chopped.  So, anyway, I decided that if Jane Fonda could deal with it, I could deal with it.

I noticed that during the A’s-Braves series several AN posters have commented about the tomahawk chop and chant.  As a long-time Atlanta resident who recently moved to the  east bay, I am pretty immune to the chop, and hadn’t realized it still had the power to shock.  While I don’t have any socio- or psychological insight into the nature of the chop, I was there the night it got started, and thought some of you might be interested in the story. 

This tale actually intersects with a subject near and dear to AN readers, the emergence and spread of the statistical analysis of baseball. While the Bill James movement was struggling to achieve critical mass in the early 1980s, the lack of access to detailed and complete baseball statistics was a chronic and frustrating problem.  In typically direct fashion, James asked people through his annual publication to adopt a pitch by pitch scoring technique he had developed and mail him the scorecards.  By the late ‘80s, the amateur scorer network, of which I was a part, had produced enough data that it seemed possible to turn it into a business.

Around 1990 or so that business, STATS, Inc. scored its first big deal, a contract to provide information-rich box scores to _USA TODAY_.  Along with that deal came two perks for the scorers, a modest stipend for each game scored, and – far more exciting – a press box seat. Thus it was that on a late spring evening I was in the press box at the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, when a haunting ululation was heard throughout the park.  It was deep in extra innings and the crowd had thinned out, so it was easy to hear, but hard to decipher. 

I though it might be some visiting Europeans doing a soccer chant, but it quickly turned out that it was actually some kids up from Florida State University, where fans of the football team, the Seminoles, had developed this cheer and its accompanying motion, a repeated, rhythmic first down signal, to root on their team.  It caught on like wildfire.  By the next night, the whole stadium had picked it up, and the red foam tomahawks ahowed up within a few days. Since it was the year when, after ten years of major suckage, the Braves emerged as the powerhouse they have been ever since, the whole became a civic phenomenon.  I don’t know if you have ever lived through a moment when an entire community becomes completely and nuttily obsessed with a sports team, but it’s really quite a phenomenon.

Of course the morally questionable valence of the chop was immediately apparent, but there was no stopping it.  Still, as the playoffs approached, I began to anticipate what I assumed was going to be a chop-related moment of truth, the return of team owner Ted Turner.  This was the era when Ted had moved beyond being a big shot in Atlanta, and had emerged as a national player.  Specifically, he was hanging around Hollywood, buying ranches, and had acquired an A-list fiancee, none other than Jane Fonda.  They were expected in Ted’s front-row box for the playoffs, and surely, I thought, Jane Fonda was not going to sit still for the chop!  The moment arrived, there she was - Hollywood royalty and friend of the oppressed, Jane Fonda herself. The chant broke out - Jane’s chance to take a stand, to yank off her enormous diamond, storm out, and show Ted and all the choppers just how she felt.  But…no.  She chopped.  Not enthusiastically, but she chopped.  So, anyway, I decided that if Jane Fonda could deal with it, I could deal with it.