ZAPOPAN, Mexico – The Spanish phrase, “Jalisco es Mexico!”, is more than just marketing gloss from the Jalisco Ministry of Tourism.
When people outside of Mexico think about the country and its culture, a lot of what comes to mind comes from Jalisco.
Beautiful beaches? Puerto Vallarta is three hours from Guadalajara on the Pacific Ocean. Tequila? It was invented in the town of the same name an hour outside Guadalajara. Mariachi music? Also from Jalisco, along with foods like tortas ahogadas, birria, and tamales.
Look out from the upper deck of Estadio Panamericano, the home of the Charros de Jalisco and the host of the 2026 Caribbean Series, and within sight is the imposing silhouette of Estadio Jalisco, the 56,713-seat soccer stadium built in 1960 that hosted Club Deportiva Guadalajara, Mexico’s most famous soccer team colloquially known as “Chivas”, until it moved to nearby Estadio Akron, and still hosts Atlas FC, the other team from Guadalajara in Liga MX.
With two teams in Liga MX, Guadalajara is definitely a soccer town. But since 2014, when the Charros de Jalisco joined the Liga ARCO Mexicana del Pacifico and started to play in Estadio Panamericano, the track stadium from the 2010 Pan American Games converted into a ballpark, their run of success has begun to turn the greater Guadalajara area into a baseball town. Winning the LAMP title this year and having a chance to win the Caribbean Series on their home artificial turf has given the Charros an even bigger profile in the Guadalajara sports spectrum.
“Soccer has been the sport of our country. Soccer and boxing have been our two sports over the last 30 or 40 years,” said Charros manager Benji Gil, who was born in Tijuana and grew up in Chula Vista, California.
The Charros have won four LAMP championships in the 12 seasons since winter baseball’s and hosted the Caribbean Series twice, in 2018 and again this year, both times coincidentally when the series had to be relocated out of Venezuela. The Charros success also resulted in a local group bringing a team in the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol to Estadio Panamericano for the 2021 season. Two seasons later, when that team, the Mariachis de Guadalajara, went bankrupt, the Charros’ ownership group purchased the franchise and rebranded the club as the Charros.
“I think us, as a team, are hoping that our success of late has kind of helped shift maybe a little bit more towards baseball favor with the fans. Obviously, the summer, it’s been a little bit different. It’s only the second year,” said Mateo Gil, Benji’s son, who plays for the Charros year-round, during September’s Serie del Rey. “It’s a little confusing, I think, for some, going from Mariachis to Charros and having both seasons. But I think the crowd last night showed that hopefully baseball is becoming more of a staple here. year round, that it already is in the winter. So hopefully we can just build off this season for Charros as a franchise and just as the city, Guadalajara, hopefully accepts us as both.”
And under the elder Gil, who first came to Guadalajara to manage the Mariachis in their inaugural season, posting a 46-17 record, the Charros have won consecutive LAMP championships, nearly captured their first Caribbean Series title in Mexicali last year, and reached the Serie del Rey, the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol’s championship series last September, ultimately falling to the Diablos Rojos del Mexico in a four-game sweep.
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Benji Gil has led the Charros to back-to-back titles in the LAMP, back-to-back Caribbean Series, and the Serie del Rey over the past two years. (Photo courtesy of CBPC)
“Mexico City has a great team that represents them in baseball, which is the Diablos Rojos. Monterrey has a historic team in the Sultanes, and we’re trying to build something of that nature here with the Charros now,” Gil said. “The success that we’ve been able to have the last four or five years, I would say, both with Charros in winter ball and then Mariachis that first year and last year in the summer with the Charros ,I think that’s we’re taking big steps to making this a more neutral sports city.”
Gil, who played in Major League Baseball with the Texas Rangers and Anaheim Angels before continuing his career in both leagues in Mexico, has won six LAMP titles as a manager, four with the Tomateros de Culiacan and two with the Charros. His success has earned him the managing job for Mexico at both the 2023 and 2026 World Baseball Classics, as well as the respect of his peers.
“Guadalajara has always been a soccer town, always has been. And I don’t know if it will ever get out of that, but I think they’re making progress here,” said Lorenzo Bundy, the manager of the Tomateros de Culiacan who Gil’s Charros swept for the LAMP title in the 2025-26 season. Bundy’s Diablos Rojos swept Gil’s Charros for the LMB title last September. “The success that Benji has had between the summer now, the summer team competing for a championship, and then his winter ball team winning championships, I think it’s gonna get better.”
Building professional baseball in Guadalajara hasn’t been easy. The city was without a team in either league for 19 years, when the previous incarnation of the Charros in the LMB left town. Then the stadium the team played in, near the campus of the Universidad de Guadalajara, was torn down, leaving the city without a venue until Estadio Panamerican was converted from a track to a ballpark with temporary bleachers and artificial turf.
“For me, I think the final nail in the coffin, and I don’t even know if it’s on the table or not, would be a new stadium. I think a new stadium would really put this team where it really needs to be,” Bundy said.
It could be on the way. Last week, the Charros and the state government announced a MX$500 million investment for the renovation of Estadio Panamericano, with the hope of attracting a Major League Baseball regular season series to Mexico’s second-largest city. The renovations are expected to be completed in 2028.
“We have some challenges,” Gil said of the Guadalajara sports scene and where the Charros fit into it. “We have [Formula 1 driver] Checo Perez, we have Canelo Alvarez, we have Atlas, we have Chivas, but I think the Charros are taking big steps every season to be a part of the sports culture, not just being something you go to when there’s nothing else going on.”
With a renovated ballpark on the way, and the potential for a Caribbean Series title to be won at Panamericano this weekend, it won’t be long before fans across Mexico are saying, “Jalisco es beisbol!”
Photo: The Charros de Jalisco have played in Estadio Panamericano, a converted track and field stadium, for 12 years, but the ballpark will soon undergo a MX$500 million renovation. (Photo: Leif Skodnick/World Baseball Network)
