Liga Mexicana del Pacífico · History

The Mexican Pacific League (Liga Mexicana del Pacífico, LMP) is the professional winter baseball league of northwestern Mexico. Its seasons run through autumn and winter, while the summer leagues are idle, and it has carried its name since 1970, the year it took its modern form and joined the Caribbean Series circuit. Its roots lie in the Pacific Coast League, which opened play on October 27, 1945, and winter baseball has been played in the region without interruption ever since, even as the competition changed its name and footprint several times.

The Pacific Coast League (1945-1958)

The league was founded in 1945 by a group of executives led by Teodoro Mariscal. It was a regional tournament bringing together cities along Mexico’s Pacific coast, and it laid the foundations of professional baseball in Sonora and Sinaloa. The Venados de Mazatlán won the first championship, in 1945-46. Hermosillo and Culiacán already fielded teams in that era, which is where the rivalry between the two cities began; over the decades they became the most decorated clubs in Mexican winter ball. The LMP does not count the titles from this first period in its official records. Financial trouble broke up the circuit in the late 1950s, and it stopped playing after the 1957-58 campaign.

From the Sonora Winter League to Sonora-Sinaloa

Sonora picked up the baton in the winter of 1958 with the Sonora Winter League, a statewide tournament that kept professional baseball alive in the northwest. In 1965 two Sinaloa cities, Culiacán and Mazatlán, joined, and the competition was renamed the Sonora-Sinaloa Winter League. That expansion restored the regional scope winter baseball had in its early years and set up the next step, which came five years later.

Birth of the LMP and the Caribbean Series

In 1970 the league adopted the name Mexican Pacific League and joined the Caribbean Professional Baseball Confederation. From then on its champion has represented Mexico at the Caribbean Series, the tournament that pits the winners of the region’s winter leagues against each other. Mexico took part for the first time in 1971. That presence gave the LMP an international profile and made it a showcase for Mexican players and for foreign players who head south to play in winter.

Format and teams

The regular season is split into two halves and leads into knockout playoffs that end in the championship series. Most teams are based in Sonora, Sinaloa and Baja California, with names such as the Naranjeros de Hermosillo, Yaquis de Obregón, Tomateros de Culiacán, Venados de Mazatlán, Águilas de Mexicali, Mayos de Navojoa, Cañeros de Los Mochis and Algodoneros de Guasave. The league grew beyond the northwest with the Charros de Jalisco, from Guadalajara, and the Sultanes de Monterrey, who joined in 2019. Each club may add a limited number of foreign players, and a reinforcement system lets qualified teams pick players from eliminated clubs for the postseason.

Rivalries and key figures

The Naranjeros-Tomateros matchup is the league’s classic, born in the Pacific Coast League years and fuelled by the battle for titles between Hermosillo and Culiacán. Among the executives who shaped its history was Juan Manuel Ley, owner of the Tomateros de Culiacán, whose death in January 2016 was mourned across the circuit. In 2019 the LMP marked its 75th anniversary with commemorative events, including a series of National Lottery tickets dedicated to the league.