Soccer notebook | Mexico team's visit to Seattle is a big hit — Brazil next?

By José Miguel Romero

Seattle Times staff reporter

One look at the crowd of 56,416 and it was easy to see that Wednesday night's Mexico-China soccer match was a huge success.

For the fans, virtually all of whom roared their appreciation for Mexico and turned SoDo into a small city of Latinos. For the match sponsors. For organizers. And for Major League Soccer and one of its newest franchises, Seattle Sounders FC.

"It showcases the opportunity that exists for the Sounders when they come into Major League Soccer, depending on the personnel they put on the field," said Dan Courtemanche, senior vice president of marketing and communications for MLS, who attended last night's game. But even a Sounders roster without a Latino player, he figured, might draw well among the Latino demographic because of their appreciation and knowledge of soccer.

"When you put a quality product on the field, the opportunity exists to have a large fan following," Courtemanche said. "We've seen it already with what the Sounders have done with 14,000 season-ticket deposits, and that's a tremendous start. But this takes the brand to the next level when you see this tonight."

MLS, Soccer United Marketing and Sounders FC representatives determined through research that a large enough Latino fan base lived in a three-hour drive radius of Seattle, and the decision was made to bring Mexico to the city.

The fans came from the Yakima Valley, the Portland area, Skagit County and plenty of points in-between.

"There were a lot of individuals who weren't so sure how the Mexican national team would do in Seattle," Courtemanche said, "and I think those doubts are now erased."

Next up, Brazil?

Seattle appears a likely destination for Brazil's national team, and soon, according to sources close to the situation who did not want to be identified.

The opponent would be Canada and the match would take place in the first part of June. Contract negotiations are ongoing.

Brazil is a five-time World Cup champion, most recently winning the title in 2002.

Fiesta inside and outside

The crowd arrived early, some four hours before kickoff, and turned the area around Qwest Field into a mass of humanity.

Fans from all over the Northwest snapped up Mexico T-shirts, jerseys, scarves and caps, some bringing their own flags and airhorns. At the Futbol Fiesta in the stadium's North parking lot, the crowd was thick and lines were long for an autograph from former national team player Ramon Ramirez and other activities an hour after the event opened at 4 p.m.

A strolling troupe of mariachi musicians provided free entertainment. It turned out that the group was from Wenatchee, and is part of a high-school program for mariachi musicians there.

By 6 p.m., more than 55,000 tickets had been sold and the gates opened to a cheer.

"We're so happy," said Jose Garcia of Mount Vernon, clad in Mexico's red, white and green. "It's been many years since I saw the national team in Mexico City. Now they are here."

José Miguel Romero: 206-464-2409 or jromero@seattletimes.com

This is very important for me also because it was beautiful to see all of the other young kids scream Mexico for hours while we got to the stadium and it still didn't end their. What bothered me a bit though was that their was lots of people on my way their that yelled racist comments. So now my question is what would the guy say in the video that we saw in class on Monday that Mexicans are going to take seattle over also?

Latino Vote

So in the last few days in class we have talked about the Latino vote and how much it will make an impact on the future candidate. The weird thing though is that people were expecting Latinos to vote for Obama but that is not the case most of the time. Part of the problem is because people take personal issues into consideration and each group has different matters at stake. The problem is that the Latino vote is so divided because older Latinos vote for Clinton and younger Latinos vote for Obama.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18718803

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton won the Latino vote on Super Tuesday by a 2-to-1 margin in key states such as New York, California and New Jersey. That gave her a decisive win with the fastest-growing demographic in the country, possibly setting the stage for the general election when Latinos could make a huge difference in swing states.
Latinos have traditionally voted about two-to-one for Democrats. While George W. Bush made inroads with Latinos in the 2004 election (he won 40 percent of the Latino vote), those gains seem to have eroded as Republicans have increasingly spoken out against illegal immigration.
Clinton focused on winning over Latino voters in recent vigorous campaigning in California and Arizona. She benefited from high-profile endorsements from Latino leaders such as Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers Union.
While Illinois Sen. Barack Obama did not win the Latino vote in California, he managed to attract younger Latino voters. Clinton culled her support — as she did in other states — from older voters.
The wave of Latino support for Clinton began during the Nevada caucuses, when she won the Latino vote two-to-one.
The issues Latino voters have valued this primary season were similar to the concerns of voters nationwide, and included the economy, education and the war. But Latino voters also have expressed concern with immigration legislation, workplace raids and relations with Mexico and Central America.
After Super Tuesday, political scientists say Latino voters will press candidates for more details on immigration reform and related concerns, which certainly could help Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican front-runner. He co-authored an immigration overhaul bill that ultimately died in Congress.
But not everyone in the Republican Party may feel so inclined to court Hispanic voters. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has made immigration one of his central campaign tenets and has spoken out against illegal border crossings.
If candidates do chose to campaign for the Latino votes, they will have to do so seriously.
"Candidates are now forced to talk to the issues that matter to Latinos," says Jaime Regalado, director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University. "In past years, they used to just go to East L.A. and eat a taco."

Carlos Ortiz

http://www.ibhof.com/cortiz.htm

LIKE MANY great fighters, Carlos Ortiz first developed his fighting instincts on the street. When his family moved to New York City when he was a child, Carlos found himself in numerous street fights. He began training at the Madison Square Boys Club and turned pro at the age of 18 in 1955. He won his first 20 pro fights.
Ortiz became a world champion in 1959 when he avenged an earlier defeat against Kenny Lane to win the junior welterweight title. That title, however, had not been fought for in 13 years and meant little to the boxing world. So, after losing the crown to Duilio Loi on a controversial decision in the Loi's hometown, Ortiz focused on the lucrative lightweight division.
In 1962, Ortiz defeated Joe Brown to win the world lightweight title. He defended that belt successfully four time before losing to Ismael Laguna in 1965.
Seven months later, Ortiz decisioned Laguna in a rematch and regained the title. He made five successful defenses, beating the likes of Laguna, Johnny Bizzarro, Flash Elorde and Sugar Ramos, twice. He finally lost the crown to Carlos Teo Cruz in Cruz' native Dominican Republic in 1968.
Ortiz retired in 1969 and made a comeback bid in 1971. He won nine straigt fights before Kenny Buchanan stopped him in six rounds and ended his career.

Tito Trinidad

One of the Greatest Puerto Rican Boxers


During this time of cigar making Puerto Rico had their first world champion Sixto Escobar. He won his world title in 1930 against Baby Casanova. This was during the time of the great depression but also during a time that Latinos in New York were not being well represented. During this time when Sixto was champion Puerto Rican people in New York felt in a way that they not only could compete in sports but also in the working force and be succesful and brought a tremendous sense of pride to Puerto Ricans.

Mexican Champions

w.boxrec.com/media/index.php/Category:Mexican_World_Champions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mexican_American_boxers

These websites show all of the Mexican and Mexican American boxers. Take a look at the second website because it has a few boxers from East LA and Montebello.

Juan Diaz

Juan Diaz is a great Mexican American fighter who was born in Houston Texas on September 17,1983. He is undefeated with 33 victories and 17 KO's. Diaz is the current unified WBA & WBO & IBF lightweight champion. He began his professional boxing career when he was 16 years old. The reason why he started his professional career so early is because he tried out for the Mexican Olympic team but was not able to compete in Sydney 2000 because he was to young and did not want to wait another two years. The reason why I decided to talk about Juan "Baby Bull" Diaz is because he is a great role model for many Mexican American since he is a professional boxer and is currently a junior political science major at the University of Houston. This is very important because it helps break the false stereotype that Americans have about Latino boxers in the US. Which is that they are streetfighters who decided to make a living out of boxing some examples would be Bobby Chacon and the most recent Fernando Vargas.

De La Hoya not accepted by Mexican Fans

De La Hoya has not been accepted by Mexican boxing fans as a great Mexican boxers many hate him and refuse to watch his fights. The main reason so many Mexicans and Mexican Americans don't like him is because he beat the greatest Mexican boxer of all time Julio Cesar Chavez. Not only did he just win both of the fights that they had but he made Julio's corner stop the fight. Oscar is a great role model for many young Mexican American since he is the 4th best boxer of all boxing history. He has also made it possible for Mexican and Mexican American families to have hospitals and schools in East Los Angeles where he is from and in different parts of LA. Even though he is not accepted by Mexicans and some Mexican Americans for his victory over Julio he has given his people lots of things and continues to help young Mexican/Mexican Americans be succesful. Oscar is also helping Mexican fighters in Mexico since he is a promotor and the biggest and youngest promoter in boxing history. The way that he is helping them out is that he is paying them more than any other promoter and giving them contract that guarentees them and there families a pay check. The way that he does this is that he keeps the fighter for a certain amount of fights weather they lose them all. This just shows that he not only is a great role model in the ring but also in his personal life.