The Arcadia series of history books are always hit-and-miss affairs, with amateur historians authoring books on their home regions while excluding that with which they're not familiar. It's no surprise then, that most of the Arcadia books on Orange County don't bother with subaltern histories and usually get them laughably wrong.
So leave it to a group of Los Angeles professors to take the initiative and explore the world of Orange County Mexican-American baseball teams. Francisco Balderrama and Richard Santillan are the authors of the book at right, a great retelling of the rich history of Mexican-American teams in Los Angeles.
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Combining rare photos, informative captions, and a thirst for knowledge and storytelling evident on every page, Mexican American Baseball in Los Angeles is a fine addition to any sports lover's library. They do sneak in a reference to La Habra's Jesse Flores, but Santillan tells the Weekly that he and the researchers who compiled the book are investigating OC's own Mexican-American baseball leagues (created because gabachos refused to play with them on the same diamond) so we can have our own volume. If you have stories to tell, e-mail Santillan at rs********@ea*******.net.
