The Mexican team prepares for the World Baseball Classic without a budgetbut despite this in the team there is confidence to reach the final of the tournament for the first time in its history, the team manager, former pitcher Rodrigo López, assured this Saturday.
“It is an issue that corresponds to the Federation. We are happy and although there is no budget, Yes, there is an idea of what working for the national team could represent for us and the expenses that will be generated should be covered without any problem,” the pitcher who spent 11 seasons in the Major Leagues explained to EFE.
Lopez has done most of his work remotely, from Arizona, where he lives and is a radio analyst for the local Major League Baseball team, the Diamondbacks.
The lack of money caused in the past that the manager and handler of Mexico, Kundy Gutiérrez and Juan Gabriel Castro, respectively, they will resign a few months after El Tri debuted for the first time in a baseball tournament of the Olympic Games, in Tokyo 2020.
“I don’t have a salary. There is a bonus that the World Classic gives and from there it was agreed that a certain amount would be paid to me and my team. If I’m here it was because I accepted the conditions,” said López.
In this edition of the maximum national team tournament in baseball, the Mexicans will have one of the best rosters in their history, in which Julio Urías, pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers; Cuban-Mexican Randy Arozarena, of the Tampa Bay Rays, and Rowdy Tellez, of the Milwaukee Brewers.
It will be a squad in which only four of the 30 summoned by Benjamín Gil, the Mexican managerThey are not members of major league organizations, something that makes Mexico dream of surpassing its best participation in a World Classic, when in 2006, with López on the team, it finished in sixth place.
“It is difficult to make comparisons between the 2006 team and the current one. They always talk about the times. I only hope that we reach the final,” said the native of Tlalnepantla, in central Mexico.
López defended the choice of Gil, four times champion of the Mexican Pacific League, as manager of the national teamdespite the fact that the Los Angeles Angels coach led the Mexicans to finish in the last place of their group in Tokyo 2020.
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