Growing up in Altar, I remember being very free-spirited. In the summer time, my friends and I would walk to the large concrete structures that held all of the water for irrigation. The walk had to have been at least ten miles in the blazing Sonora sun, but when we got to the structure, it was all worth it. This container of water was the closest thing that my town had to a community pool, and I remember that was one thing that my friends and I loved to do during the summer. To pass the time on the walk, I would sing songs for my friends. I discovered that I was pretty good at it, and singing became something that I continued for the rest of my life.
In Mexico, baseball and soccer are the two most popular sports. Soccer is more popular in the southern part of Mexico, but I lived in the north where baseball was much more popular than soccer. My friends would come over to my house, and we would play in the streets. Sometimes we would get a radio, and listen to the Los Angeles Dodgers games. Back then, the Arizona Diamondbacks did not exist so the Dodgers were the closest team to us in the major leagues. On special occasions, one of my neighbors would put his television in the backyard, and lots of people would gather around this tiny box to watch the Dodgers play. We even figured out that the volume on the radio was much louder than the one on the TV, so we would turn the TV all the way down and crack up the radio so that everyone could hear. I started playing for my school’s baseball team when I was in fourth grade.
Pedro and his cousins in Sonora Mex.
I played pitcher, and my team was very good because my cousin was also a talented pitcher. We would travel from town to town playing in tournaments, and we would win most of them! I loved being able to play for my school’s baseball team with my friends when I was young. Baseball is part of many of my greatest memories from my childhood.