Sitting along the first base line in the shade on a hot September day in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, I sat amongst 100 or so fans and witnessed a small piece of baseball history.
On that day, for the first time since the start of the trade embargo between the United States and Cuba, a team of professionals from the U.S. played against a Cuban club. Previously, American professional teams, including the Baltimore Orioles, had faced off against the Cuban National Team, but in the opening game of the inaugural Baseball Champions League Americas, the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks of the American Association faced the Alazanes de Granma of Cuba’s Serie Nacional.
The Alazanes defeated the RedHawks, who went on to capture the inaugural BCL Americas title, 3-1 before an announced attendance of 400, though I suspect that number to have been inflated based upon a note in my scorebook saying there were 37 people in the stands.
It was an inauspicious start, at least attendance wise, for what turned out to be a great event. That inaugural BCL Americas featured the Caimanes de Barranquilla of the Liga Beisbol Profesional Colombiano and the Leones de Yucatan of the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol in addition to the Alazanes and RedHawks. Each team had won its respective league championship the prior season, and though they lost that first game to Granma, Fargo-Moorhead battled back to win the tournament, shutting out the Caimanes de Barranquilla 8-0 in the championship game.
In early April, the Baseball Champions League Americas is returning, this time in Mexico City at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helu, and with six teams, after it was abruptly pushed back from last fall. The event, which will run from April 8-13, will feature the champions of leagues in Colombia, Cuba, Curacao, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the United States.
The original event, played at Parque Kukulkan Alamo in September 2023, was an interesting event, giving local fans a chance to see teams they wouldn’t ordinarily get to see play live without an airline ticket and hotel stay and media members and scouts a chance to gauge the relative talent levels of each league.
This year, with the tournament being held at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helu in Mexico City and played with six teams, it’s a bigger event in one of the country’s best sports venues.
Added to the event are the Titanes de Florida of Puerto Rico’s 45-team Liga Superior Beisbol Doble A, the Santa Maria Pirates of the Curacao Professional Baseball League, and the Tigres de Chinandega of Nicaragua’s 20-team Campeonato Nacional de Béisbol Superior Cmte. Germán Pomares Ordóñez, commonly known as the “Pomares Liga.”
It’s hard to put a gauge on the talent level in Puerto Rico’s Doble A league and the Pomares Liga, as they are not fully professional, though players in both leagues do play in both countries’ winter leagues. The Curacao Professional Baseball League has drawn some notable players over its past two seasons, including those with Major League Baseball and Nippon Professional Baseball experience.
The other three leagues sending teams to the 2025 BCL Americas — the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol, the American Association, and Cuba’s Serie Nacional — are more known quantities.
While the LMB’s Leones de Yucatan went 1-2 in group play at the inaugural BCL Americas in 2023, that tournament came two weeks after the LMB’s season had ended and was a year removed from the Leones winning the Serie del Rey. Thus, they had to put together a team in the couple weeks before the tournament with players who were both eligible and available. This year, the Diablos Rojos del Mexico will be representing the LMB. They’re coming off a season where they went 71-19 in the regular season and won the Serie del Rey, and should have most of the team returning.
The one missing piece will be Trevor Bauer, who won the LMB’s Pitcher of the Year award in 2024 and has gone back to Japan in hopes of winning the Eiji Sawamura Award with the Yokohama DeNA BayStars of NPB. But you can expect to see much of the Diablos lineup that dominated the LMB — the Diablos had nine players who appeared in at least 45 games that batted over .300 in 2024 — at the BCL Americas.
Similarly, the American Association’s Kane County Cougars will likely bring a strong lineup — perhaps not quite as strong as the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks brought to Merida in 2023, but certainly strong enough to make the finals. While the American Association plays at a level somewhere below but near Triple-A, the LMB has significantly improved as the league has allowed teams to sign up to 20 foreign-born players, enabling teams to load up on guys with some MLB experience who couldn’t get minor league or major league deals or contracts in Japan or Taiwan.
When the Alazanes de Granma played in the 2023 BCL Americas, they beat the eventual champion, Farg0-Moorhead, in the opener, though they lost 7-3 to the LBPC’s Caimanes de Barranquilla and 9-4 to the Leones de Yucatan from LMB. For the Lenadores de Las Tunas, whether or not they will be competitive in this event will depend upon whether the Federacion Cubana de Beisbol loads up the team with the best reinforcements possible, rather than selecting the best players from the Elite League with players who they don’t expect to defect. Cuba composed their roster for the 2023 World Baseball Classic and other international events based on political loyalty, but the continual drain of baseball talent from the island has made those rosters less and less competitive.
“We look forward to launching a Champions League Asia and a Champions League Europe. We foresee the day when we will honour a Champion of Champions, the winner of the global Champions League,” Riccardo Fraccarri, the president of the World Baseball Softball Confederation, said when the event was announced. “The Baseball Champions League is part of our innovation strategy. The WBSC intends to offer top-level products to baseball fans worldwide.”
Expanding this event to include the champions of these six leagues is a great start, and that it will be played in one of the best venues in Latin America will only make the experience better. Hopefully it will grow beyond the champions of these six leagues in years to come, and incorporate more teams from other countries, building a true championship of the Americas.
Mexico is a baseball nation on the rise, and Mexico City has long been a baseball town, where the Diablos drew an average of 11,694 last season. This April, the BCL Americas can show fans in the US, Cuba, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, and Curacao what a great baseball town it is.
Will you be watching?
Broadcast Info – The 2025 Baseball Champions League Americas will be broadcast in English via the American Association’s partnership with RYZ Sports Network, a live 24/7 sports network that is currently available on Samsung Plus TV and will also be available on Xumo Play on Google TV.
2025 Baseball Champions League Americas Schedule
All games played at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helu in Mexico City
April 8
2 p.m. – Game 1 – Kane County Cougars vs. Santa Maria Pirates
7:30 p.m. – Game 2 – Titanes de Florida vs. Diablos Rojos de Mexico
April 9
2 p.m. – Game 3 – Santa Maria Pirates vs. Lenadores de Las Tunas
7:30 p.m. – Game 4 – Tigres de Chinandega vs. Titanes de Florida
April 10
2 p.m. – Game 5 – Lenadores de Las Tunas vs. Kane County Cougars
7:30 p.m. – Game 6 – Diablos Rojos del Mexico vs. Tigres de Chinandega
April 11
2 p.m. – Game 7 – Group B Third Place vs. Group A Second Place
7:30 p.m. – Game 8 – Group A Third Place vs. Group B Second Place
April 12
2 p.m. – Game 9 – Game 7 Winner vs. Group A First Place
7:30 p.m. – Game 10 – Game 9 Winner vs. Group B First Place
April 13
2 p.m. – Championship Game – Game 9 Winner vs. Game 10 Winner
Photo: A general view of Alfredo Harp Helu Stadium on April 19, 2019 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Jaime Lopez/Jam Media/Getty Images)
