By Mauricio Sulaimán
Son of José Sulaimán / WBC President

Good morning, kids!

We are all still children, as we celebrate Children’s Day in Mexico on April 30. This weekend, we celebrated that so cherished date which defines our lives by pampering the young ones while never losing sight of the magic of life that childhood gives us. A priceless gift.

Imagination, restlessness, and that wonderful fresh ability to be amused, which with the passing of the years gradually dissipates, dilutes and is sadly, eventually and inevitably lost. Let’s not take anything or everything for granted, and let’s retain a taste so as to enjoy the simple things of life, such as sunrise, sunset, birdsong and the running of the water via a freshet of Spring.

Mexico is going through a great forward impetus in sports and it is cause for great celebration, since sport is a vital element enabling and facilitating the combat of so many of society’s suffering ills.

Sport involves physical activity, prevents health conditions developing due to a sedentary lifestyle; it brings families together, unites and keeps our youth off the streets where there are so many idle, indolent temptations, via paths and blind alleys which lead astray.

Major League Baseball arrived at the Alfredo Harp Helú Stadium in Mexico City to give the fans a banquet of home runs last Saturday, which broke the record, thus making history.

The San Diego Padres faced the San Francisco Giants before two impressive sellout crowds, fostering an incomparable family atmosphere, camaraderie, and where baseball luminously shone bright.

I want to congratulate in a very special way a great band of talented, industrious, and loyal people led by Don Alfredo Harp, his family, and his colleagues, for pursuing their dream while never giving up or losing sight of their goal. The stadium is a beauty, constituting a magnificent jewel at the zenith level of any of the Major Leagues, and this has already been clearly as well as amply demonstrated.

Bravo to all the team owners and their staff for continuing to support a sport reinforced plus encouraged by great fans in Mexico, but which had to wait many years to be as it is today in our country.

To Horacio de la Vega, president of the Mexican Baseball League, who emerged, arrived, and transformed everything, implementing, accomplishing, achieving, and realizing wonderful concepts which have made the league profitable, modern and with a view to glorious flourishing growth.

To Rodrigo Fernández, the director of MLB (Major Leagues) in Mexico, who with solid steps and concrete results, incorporating and brilliantly guiding the efforts and work of people who love baseball and are fully dedicated to furthering as well as bettering it. From their trenches they have dug deep, building upwards from rock solid foundations. They have done great things for our today looking forward to a bright tomorrow. The fruits of germinating labor.

At the Formula 1, Sergio Pérez won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix! A stupendous result and even more so to know, appreciate and applaud the now established fact that it`s become normal to see “Checo” regularly climb the podium. Today we have a driver in the top echelon of Formula 1 who is delivering results and is a viable championship contender! Congratulations!

And now for us. The King returns home. Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez will perform at the Akron Stadium, in Zapopan, Jalisco, this coming Saturday, May 6, and we are already in the final stretch for the State of Jalisco to claim the moment at the pinnacle spot as the coveted world capital of boxing, with the eyes of the entire world focused upon it.

There will be a packed stadium, high drama and high stakes with all four belts on the line, as well as the glittering trophy. It’s adornment is the magnificent Cinco de Mayo Commemorative Belt. No fewer than eleven fights on this memorable night and Mexico, as epicenter host to the world, with the Guadalajara/Zapopan location, hosting a full week of fiestas in the wondrous Mexican panache fashion, flavor and celebration gendre.

Mariachi, tequila and gastronomic delights will welcome, appetize in order to sate fans and thrill visiting media from around the world, as well as hosting home grown press.

The municipalities of Zapopan and Guadalajara, as well as all those throughout the entire State, have generated and are now ratcheting up this historic event to a veritable crescendo via the leadership of Governor Enrique Alfaro, who has been a brilliantly inspirational promoter of boxing. He’s managed to find in the industrialists of the region everything necessary to bring this historically great boxing event to our country, following and complimenting the historical benchmark precedent set 30 years ago, when Julio César Chávez filled the Azteca Stadium in his monumental fight, utterly overwhelming Greg Haugen.

DID YOU KNOW…?

It is the first fight that Canelo will hold in Mexico in the last 12 years, and this represents special challenges, since being close to family and friends can be a great distraction.

Today’s anecdote

My dad, as a baseball coach, was very demanding and a perfectionist.

“Anyone who doesn’t catch with both hands, or throws without the proper right and left steps, must and will run to the fence and back,” he used to remind us before every practice day.

And so at the end of training, he would hit ground balls for us and we had to get closer from third to home plate, in sort of pepper game in close, one on one.

One day, as I was exhausted, I threw the ball badly and he let it pass, so I had to run to the backstop for the ball and very angry, I threw it as hard as I could trying to hit him. He just ducked and the ball went all the way back to center field, which I had to run for.

“The one who gets angry, loses, and without discipline and order, you will never get anywhere, my son.”

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