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GLENDALE, Ariz. – A team full of Mexican citizens and Mexican-Americans played a baseball game here Wednesday. This would be of little note in 49 other states. In Arizona, where immigration has been politicized to the point of dystopian fiction, this was a recipe for jokes about how many of the team's players were asked for their papers on the way to the stadium. It might've been funny if not for the fact that a police officer really had stopped one.

"I actually got pulled over today on the way to the field," said Marco Estrada, a Milwaukee Brewers pitcher who has lived in the United States for 24 years, whose wife and children are American citizens and who is representing Team Mexico in the World Baseball Classic. At a stop sign, he said he looked both ways and thought he stopped. A police officer disagreed. At least Estrada was spared the indignity of being asked for documentation.

Estrada was lucky.

"I've been pulled over numerous times, driving a nice car," said Sergio Romo, the closer for the San Francisco Giants as well as the Mexican WBC outfit. "The first question is: What's your citizenship? The second question: Is this your car? And then: What do you do for a living? And it's like, 'Bro, you're Mexican just like me.' 'Ah, but I was born here.' And I say, 'So was I.' "

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Welcome to Arizona, where the only thing worse than the fear and propaganda perpetuated by a government gone wild is what people with the temerity to have been born with dark skin must endure accordingly.

Arizona has thrown itself into the teeth of an immigration debate that divides and angers as much as any in the country. Between the controversial SB 1070 law, which encouraged racial profiling, and its continued offshoots – the latest is trying to criminalize blocking traffic to pick up a day laborer, which might as well be saying, "We don't want people to work" – politicians have stigmatized immigrants, lumping those who want to earn an honest living in with those committing crimes that actually are harmful to society.





Baseball finds its way into the debate because of its significant proportion of Latin players, almost 30 percent in the major leagues and closer to 40 in the minor leagues. Half of organized baseball spends its springs in the Phoenix area, and because of that, both Romo and Estrada have settled their families here in the offseasons.

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