TIJUANA -- While a thump of reggaeton music blares through Tijuana’s Estadio Gasmart field, the sound is interrupted only by the rhythmic crack of bats striking balls during batting practice. Emerging from the dugout, a mix of aging American ballplayers, a handful of local products and even an Italian slugger are being called out by fans from the stands. Autographs and selfies are promptly doled out. In this particular field of dreams, these are more than just baseball players -- they’re rock stars.

Baseball in Tijuana, like many of the city’s residents, migrated to the border region and, perhaps surprisingly, found a permanent home. In 1948, as Tijuana was looking to rehab its image and maintain its strong connection to the United States, the most traditional of American sports found its way there. After two incarnations, the Potros (Colts) de Tijuana were on the field in 1951, following a short spell in Salinas, California, cementing pro baseball in the region.

Though it became the main baseball brand in the city for the next half-century, Potros' very existence was sporadic in nature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Potros would compete in international leagues against teams from Mexico’s northwest region, as well as the Southwest United States. In those days, the squad would do battle with the likes of the Phoenix Stars, the Tucson Cowboys and the Las Vegas Wranglers.

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In 1969, the San Diego Padres debuted in Major League Baseball and gave fans in the region a big league club to root for, and fandom for the Southern California club has been a staple for those across the border ever since. Due to years of outreach programs in Mexico and an official team store operating south of the border for more than a decade, the Padres have long been connected with their fans.

With the Padres gripping the spotlight south of the border, Potros returned to the fold in Tijuana in the late 1970s. Its prior international leagues having already shuttered, the team was accepted into the Liga Mexicana del Pacifico, Mexico’s premier winter ball league. The move prompted stability and the opportunity for fans to view a more polished product than the earlier incarnation of the franchise.

“Baseball was the most popular sport in the region for a long time after that,” noted Manuel Medina, a newspaper columnist in Tijuana for El Mexicano. “Even now, there’s talk of returning to the winter league.”

During a particularly strong period spanning from 1987 to 1991, the Potros conquered their domestic league twice and made it to the Caribbean World Series. In those days, top MLB prospects would often be a sight in Tijuana. In 1991 alone, the Potros fielded a roster with future big leaguers Al Martin, Vinny Castilla, Luis Gonzalez and Jose Tolentino, among others.

“You have to understand, guys like Mike Piazza and John Kruk played Mexican winter ball back then,” said Alex Asuaje, a longtime Venezuelan broadcaster and baseball analyst who has lived in Tijuana since 2014.

“That team in Tijuana,” Gonzalez would recall in 2015, “had many players who went on to the big leagues and stayed there.”

Gonzalez and Tijuana would turn in a last-place showing at the 1991 Caribbean Series, held in Miami. Soon after, the team would be disbanded amid rumors that it had engaged in illegal cash bonuses for superior player performance. Three years prior, when Potros won its first Liga del Pacifico title, team owner Jaime Bonilla was banned for similar offenses.

In 2005 one of the incarnations of the Potros de Tijuana played in the Mexican League, in this game action at Estadio Nacional de Tijuana against Saltillo. AP Photo/David Maung

At the turn of the 21st century, the baseball void had stretched on for more than a decade, eventually filled by a new franchise, the Toros. The team competed in the country’s Liga Norte, a regional summer circuit comprising teams in the northern part of the country that served as a feeder to the Mexican Baseball League.

The Toros quickly made an impression on fans.

“Those weren’t so much games as they were parties,” said Tony Alvarez, a journalist for Uniradio.

A season later, the Toros were taken over by a group who reinstated the Potros moniker. In 2008, the new Potros folded once more. Baseball came back in 2014, when the Toros were accepted into the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol, the country's summer circuit that was considered Triple-A ball. Big spending and positive results have made the team very popular, to the point of overtaking the Potros' legacy and even that of the Padres across the border.

“You look at the stadium, it was renovated by the team. Ownership is interested in the fan experience, and you can see that at the park,” said Asuaje, the Toros' play-by-play voice, who described the raucous atmosphere that included peculiar mascots and mariachi bands for the seventh-inning stretch.

While San Diego’s big league club is in full rebuild mode (the Padres started the 2017 with the lowest payroll in MLB), Tijuana is banking on big spending to build on its recent success. Last season, it was two wins away from the Mexican summer league title.

“There’s no better ad campaign for a pro team than winning,” Asuaje said. “You go out into the streets, and the team is everywhere. Hats, bumper stickers, jerseys, it’s deeply ingrained in the city’s identity.”

For the 2017 season, the Toros are led by its American stars, Dustin Martin and Cyle Hankerd. Martin is already the franchise’s all-time RBIs leader, while Hankerd, a former third-round draft pick by the Arizona Diamondbacks, is aiming for a fourth consecutive season with a .300 batting average or higher. Former big leaguers Jorge Cantu, Oscar Robles and Italian star Alex Liddi round out the team’s offensive attack, considered one of the best in the league. Cantu and Robles, both citing ties to the region as motivation for playing in Tijuana, provide the team with a local identity.

“My in-laws live in Tijuana,” Cantu stated in his inaugural news conference with the Toros last season. “It’s very important [for me] to have family close to where I play, it helps a lot.”

Those additions have already had a visible effect on the field, and in the team’s coffers. While teams in Mexico’s summer league generally struggle with revenue, leading to league-wide economic losses, the Toros franchise has consistently drawn big numbers, adding to the club’s mystique within the region. In 2015 and 2016, the team registered the Mexican League's second-best attendance figures, and last season, they ranked among the top five moneymakers in Mexico, regardless of sport.

“People can’t get enough baseball in Tijuana,” Asuaje noted. “And games here are bookended by other forms of entertainment. When baseball is over for the night, people often stick around.”

Though focused presently on conquering Mexico’s summer circuit, interest in potentially returning to the more prestigious winter league has been proposed. For now, however, it appears Tijuana can look forward to enjoying a period of unprecedented stability in its baseball team.

“It’s a cliché, sure, but if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it,” Medina stated. “There’s a fear that if they move to the winter, then the local soccer team will overshadow them.”

Others, however, believe that there’s room for both the Toros and perhaps even a return to the Potros brand in winter ball.

“In 1981, I had the opportunity to operate a team in the Liga Mexicana del Pacifico,” said the team’s owner, Alberto Uribe, in an interview posted on the team’s website. “I’m very proud to be part of that story.”

Asuaje believes that because of Uribe’s history with the winter league, and his current success in the opposite circuit, Tijuana would likely be a prime candidate to become Mexico’s only year-round baseball town, with teams in both leagues.

“There’s year-round baseball in this country. Tijuana has shown that it can host in the summer and in the winter. It’s only a matter of time.”

At the Estadio Gasmart, that assertion seems simple enough. Attendance for a midweek clash against Durango is nearly a sellout, a common occurrence for a city that regularly ranks among the top of the category for the Mexican League. Fans chant the players' names before each at-bat and offer genuine emotion beyond the standard golf claps.

A little less than 20 miles away from the nearest major league stadium, it is unlikely that most of these players will don a big league uniform. And yet, their position as sandlot heroes in Mexico can hardly be disputed.