Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

American sports across the Americas

2011; Routledge; Volume: 28; Issue: 17 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09523367.2011.627197

1743-9035

Joseph L. Arbena,

Sports and Physical Education Studies

Abstract Looking at the interaction of sports between the United States and Latin America reveals that North American sports have arrived throughout the Western Hemisphere via various carriers and have been accepted or rejected based on a combination of their intrinsic and extrinsic qualities. Rejection or resistance has rarely been hostile or violent; acceptance has often been marked by adaptation to local environment and culture. Latinos and Latin Americans have also had a reciprocal impact on North American sports as seen in the performance of individual athletes in the US, in the style of play in such sports as baseball and soccer, and in the practice of a few imported sports. Keywords: baseballAmerican footballbasketballmixed martial artscultural diffusioncultural resistance Notes 1. Studies of United States-Latin American relations always create terminology problems. In one sense, everybody in the Western Hemisphere is American. But what then is the appropriate adjective for things just of the United States of America (USA)? North American? But that also includes Canada. For this essay I use the word American to apply to the USA; for everything south of the USA, I use such terms as Latin American, Central American, South American or Caribbean as appropriate. With minor exception, Canada is not covered. 2. Some of the ideas developed here were originally sketched out in Arbena, 'El mapa deportivo de América Latina'. Others are in Arbena, 'The Diffusion of Modern European Sport in Latin America' and 'The Later Evolution of Modern Sport in Latin America'. 3. For a quick introductory overview of sport in Latin America, see Arbena, 'Sports and Recreation'. 4. Some commentators conclude that over the last generation American football has become the true national game of postmodern America. Journalist and inveterate baseball fan George Will suggests that football is the quintessential American game: it is a series of committee meetings interrupted by periods of violence. For an extensive discussion of an alleged shift of popularity from baseball to football to basketball, see Mandelbaum, The Meaning of Sports. 5. Block, Baseball before We Knew It. 6. Kirsch, Baseball in Blue and Gray. 7. The Gmelch volume offers chapters on baseball in the following countries of Latin America: Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua and Brazil; see Gmelch, Baseball without Borders. 8. Students continue to play a significant role in moving sports practices around the world, especially into and out of the United States and the more developed countries of Europe and Asia; see Bale, The Brawn Drain. 9. The literature on Cuban baseball is extensive. Major sources include: González Echevarría, The Pride of Havana; Bjarkman, A History of Cuban Baseball; Jamail, Full Count; Carter, The Quality of Home Runs. See also Pérez, Cuba in the American Imagination and 'Between Baseball and Bullfighting'. 10. Pettavino and Pye, Sport in Cuba; Carter, The Quality of Home Runs. 11. For different approaches to the analysis of Dominican baseball, consult Klein, Sugarball. Regalado expands the story of the Latino dream of playing Major League Baseball to other countries; see his Viva Baseball!. 12. For the Cocolo story see Ruck's pioneering work The Tropic of Baseball and his later 'Three Kings Day in Consuelo'. 13. Ruck, Raceball. 14. Van Hyning, Puerto Rico's Winter League. Probably Puerto Rico's greatest baseball player, and the first Latino elected to the Hall of Fame, was Roberto Clemente; see Maraniss, Clemente. 15. Ettedguie Landaeta, 'Historia del baseball en Venezuela'; Díaz Rangel and Becerra Mijares, El beisbol en Caracas; Ramos Mirena, Todos fueron heroes; M. Jamail, 'High-grade Talent Venezuela's New Export', USA Today Baseball Weekly III, no. 24 (8–14 Sept. 1993): 42. 16. Arbena, 'Mapa deportivo'; Klein, Baseball on the Border; Joseph, 'Forging the Regional Pastime'. Also check website www.origenesdelbeisbol.com 17. The literature on Valenzuela is extensive; for a sample see ch. 10 of Regalado, Viva Baseball! 18. El Universal, 7 Jan, 2010, D1; ESPNThe MagazineMexico 3, no. 32 (April 2011), 32–6. 19. Pérez Medina, Historia del baseball panameño; Carew, Carew; Mondore, 'Mariano Rivera'; T. Verducci, 'Mariano Saves', Sports Illustrated, 5 Oct. 2009, 44–50. 20. Little has been written on Colombian baseball. For a sample try Porto Cabrales, Historia del béibol aficionado de Colombia; Fernández García, 'Anglicismos del deporte en Colombia'. 21. For a few comments on the Japanese impact on Brazilian baseball, see A. Schwarz, 'Brazilian Bonus Baby: Jose Pett', Baseball America 13, no. 1 (8–21 Feb. 1993), 20, and Azzoni et al.,'Brazil'. 22. Pastrian, Béisbol. 23. In the 1990s I attended a game in San José that involved a team from Puerto Limón; several of their players had Rasta hairdos. 24. For views of the early years of American football in Mexico, see Amador de Gama, Historia gráfica del fútbol americano en México, I. 25. On the growth of university competition, see M. Cabildo and R. Ocampo, 'El Tec y la Universidad de las Américas desplazan como grandes del fut Americano, a la UNAM y al Poli', Proceso 888 (8 Nov. 1993), 60–2. 26. www.terra.com.mex/onefa 27. www.todofutbolamericano.com; www.ifad.org 28. Author's personal observation during numerous visits to Mexico. 29. For the veterans, search www.nfl.com/players. For profile on Mark Sanchez, search www.cbssports.com/nfl/players. For Romo start with www.sports.yahoo.com/nfl/players 30. Rivera became the third Latino head coach in the NFL, following Tom Flores and Tom Fears. 31. For an introduction to Mexican and other Latinos who played in the NFL, see Longoria, Athletes Remembered; M. Segura, 'The Latino Athlete Now', Sports Illustrated, 6 Oct. 2008), 52–69. 32. Author's personal observations over several decades of travel and reading. 33. Birba, El basket-ball en el Río de la Plata; Clay, 'Sport and Physical Education in Mexico'. 34. Mandle and Mandle, Caribbean Hoops. 35. Ibid. 36. de la Vega, La gloria del básquetbol; Grosso, Por amor de la camiseta. 37. www.fiba.com 38. Perhaps the Latin American who has gained the most recognition in the NBA is Argentine Emanuel 'Manu' Ginóbili of the San Antonio Spurs; see, Frescó, Manu and Beder and Pando, Mundo Manu. Ginóbili's Spurs teammate Tim Duncan is from the US Virgin Islands, but no one ever labels him Caribbean. 39. Sánchez León, 'The History of Peruvian Women's Volleyball'. 40. www.olympic.org/cuba 41. M. Bamberger, 'Sand Blast', Sports Illustrated 87, no. 12 (22 Sept. 1997), 50–1; M. Farber, 'Sun in the Fun', Sports Illustrated 85, no. 6 (5 Aug. 1996), 88–90, 95; www.hickoksports.com/history/panamvolleyb.shtml/#beach. 42. Riess, Sport in Industrial America, 110. 43. See text and notes below. 44. Cohen Salama et. al., Cien años del Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis Club. 45. Author's observations during extensive travels in the region. 46. In hopes of eventually regaining his championship, heavyweight Nogueira (b. 1976) outpointed another former champion, Randy Couture, in UFC 102, 29 Aug. 2009. 47. I have found one other Latin American who has achieved some success with MMA: Efraín Escudero, born in Mexico (1986) but a naturalised American citizen, has combined fighting in MMA with his life as a college student in Arizona and a participant in NCAA collegiate wrestling. The sport is also attracting Hispanic Americans such as bantamweight champion Miguel Angel Torres (b. 1981) from East Chicago who trained under the Gracies. Also on the rise is Mexican-American Cain Velásquez, a native of Yuma, AZ, and a two-time All-American wrestler at Arizona State University. 48. There are numerous publications, often with loads of photos, in Spanish. An excellent bilingual volume is Grobet et al., Lucha Libre which contains a short but provocative essay by renowned cultural analyst Carlos Monsiváis. The best in English is Levi, The World of Lucha Libre; an earlier summary of Levi's ideas is found in her 'Sport and Melodrama'. 49. Muñoz Moreno, Blue Demon; R. Huidobro, 'Solo me queda esperar el final', Magazine Deportivo 13, no. 197 (Feb. 2001), 45–6. 50. The most famous is the Arena México in Mexico City. 51. Eduardo Galeano concludes that 'the twenty-first century sanctifies uniformity in the name of efficiency and sacrifices freedom on the altar of success. … Reduced to a job, subjected to the laws of profitability, the game is no longer played. … Soccer gets mass-produced, and it comes out colder than a freezer and as merciless as a meat-grinder. It is soccer for robots … whoever doesn't die of hunger dies of boredom'; see his Soccer in Sun and Shadow, quotes from 209, 224. Pablo Vallejo discusses sports and athletes as merchandise in a capitalist global market; see his 'Deporte y mercado'. 52. For a summary of Mexican interest in linking sports and education, see Arbena, 'Sport, Development, and Mexican Nationalism'. For similar arguments in Ecuador, see Ermel de la Cruz, El Ecuador y sus deportes. An early Argentine criticism of exaggerated competition and professionalisation, combined with a call for the expanded practice of sport to aid physical health and more development, is seen in Romero Brest et al., El deporte y la vida. Another manifestation of this dilemma is discussed in Torres, 'Mass Sport through Education or Elite Olympic Sport?' 53. On the specific characteristics of Cuban baseball, see Carter, The Quality of Home Runs; on the nature of Dominican baseball, see Klein, Sugarball; on what makes Argentine fútbol distinctive, see Archetti, Masculinities. 54. For some earlier speculation about these issues, see Arbena, 'Sport as an Agent of Acculturation and Resistance'. 55. Gaffney, Temples of the Earthbound Gods, 165. 56. Shirts, 'Playing Soccer in Brazil'. 57. Magazine, Golden and Blue Like My Heart, 6. 58. Guttmann, Games and Empires. Gerald Gems puts much more emphasis on the deliberate efforts of various individuals and groups to use sports and recreation to advance America's imperialistic objectives, efforts based often on American assumptions of racial and cultural superiority over their subjects; see Gems, The Athletic Crusade. 59. Levine, A.G Spalding and the Rise of Baseball; Lamster, Spalding's World Tour. 60. Dyreson, 'Mapping an Empire of Baseball'. Expanding on Gems, Elias describes in more detail the links between baseball and both U.S. foreign policy and informal imperialism; see his essay in this volume and his The Empire Strikes Out. 61. Klein, 'Baseball as Underdevelopment'; Marcano Guevara and Fidler, Stealing Lives. 62. Jamail, Venezuelan Bust. 63. Klein, Growing the Game, 99, 100, 101. 64. Guttmann, Games and Empires, 157–68. 65. Carter, The Quality of Home Runs. 66. Burton, Afro-Creole, 185, 186. 67. Burgos, Playing America's Game; Virtue, South of the Color Barrier. 68. Wendel, The New Face of Baseball; quote from xvi. 69. Lee Jenkins, 'Swinging for the Borders', Sports Illustrated, 6 July 2009, 38–42; quote from 40. 70. J. Versalione, 'The Belmont Stakes is a Reminder that Latin Jockeys Shine', Fox News Latino, 11 June 2011, available at www.foxnews.com/latino/sports/2011/06/11. 71. www.golf.about.com; Kramer, Lee Trevino; C. Agudelo, 'Chi Chi y la pasión del golf', Más (Winter 1990), 34. 72. www.pgatour.com/players. 73. J. Estrada, 'La casada quiere … más', El Universal, 7 Jan. 2010, D1. 74. www.pgatour.com/players. 75. C. Baker, 'Cuba on the Horizon', Caribbean Travel + Life (Aug,–Sept. 2009): 41–5. 76. Seebohm, Little Pancho. 77. W. Bingham, 'It Was Anybody's Championship – until a Mexican With a Deft Touch Made It His', Sports Illustrated, 6 Sept. 1963. 78. L. Llosa, 'Alex Olmedo, Tennis Champion', Sports Illustrated, 7 Sept. 1998; Velázquez Rojas, Alex Olmedo. 79. T. Santos A., 'Andrés, adios y gracias', La Otra 200 (26 May 1993), 86–90. 80. S. Gimenez, 'Setting his Sights', Hispanic, Sept./Oct. 2009): 68–9. 81. S. Price, 'It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Mad Game', Sports Illustrated, 21 Sept. 2009, 61–4. 82. www.atpworldtour.com/tennis/players. 83. www.mariabueno.org; Morelli, Mujeres deportistas, 187–204; K. Crouse, 'A Dream Deferred, Almost Too Long', New York Times, 29 Aug. 2010. 84. Select biographies of Latin American boxers include: Giudice, Hands of Stone; Menéndez and Ortega, Kid Chocolate; Arroyo, 'Panama' Al Brown; Montes, El 'Mono' Gatica y yo; Monzón, Mi verdadera vida; Bra, 'Pascual Pérez'. 85. Hilton, Juan Pablo Montoya; C. Nelson, 'Good Wheel Ambassador', ESPN: The Magazine, 26 Feb. 2007, 60–6; M. Beech, 'Ready 'n' Steady', Sports Illustrated, 8 Sept. 2009, 40. Montoya has also gained a degree of popular acceptance; see D. McCafferty, 'It's all in the NASCAR family', USA Weekend, 12–14 Feb. 2010, 8–11. 86. Moss, Fangio; Rendall, Ayrton Senna. Before Montoya, another Colombian, Roberto Guerrero (b. 1958), had minimal success driving Formula One, so he moved to the US to race Indy cars, where he achieved much more. 87. Cockfighting is legal in few Latin American countries today, but legal or not it is, as in some areas of the United States, still practised. 88. Bullfighting in the Spanish tradition is seen today only in Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru. For insights into the artistry, business and cultural significance of bullfighting in Colombia as played out in the career of one torero, see Josephs, Ritual and Sacrifice in the Corrida. 89. For an interesting look at the environmental and historical roots of Chilean huaso, see Kuntz, 'Chile's Rural Heritage'. 90. Sands, Charrería Mexicana; LeCompte, 'Hispanic Roots of American Rodeo'. 91. McDougall, Born to Run. 92. Essien, Capoeira Beyond Brazil. 93. For information on pelota vasca in several Latin American countries, see Méndez Muñiz, La pelota vasca en Cuba; Llanes, Canchas de pelotas y reñideros de antaño; Urza, Historia de la pelota vasca. 94. Ramírez, 'Al gran polo argentino'. 95. Segura, 'The Latino Athlete Now', 55. 96. Fuentes, The Crystal Frontier. 97. Vargas Llosa, Making Waves, 167–168. 98. Coelho, The Alchemist, 123. In a more academic tone, Charles Issawi touches on the complexity of factors that determine the degree to which an empire, formal or informal, can imprint the areas it dominates; see Issawi, 'Empire Builders, Culture Makers, and Culture Imprinters'.