Longtime Liga Mexicana de Beisbol team executive Cuauhtémoc “Chito” Rodríguez, who led the Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos and the Tigres Capitalinos/Angelopolis/Quintana Roo to multiple championships and pushed the boundaries of the LMB across the U.S. border, died Tuesday at age 89.

Rodriguez, who won two LMB titles with the Tecos and seven more with the Tigres while the franchise played in three different cities, was a member of the Salon de Fama de Beisbol Mexicano in Monterrey and was named King of Baseball in 2011 at Major League Baseball’s Winter Meetings in Dallas, Texas. 

In addition, he was the 2013 LMB Executive of the Year, the LMB’s representative to the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, and a member of the National Teams Committee that assembled Mexico’s squads for the 2006, 2009, and 2013 World Baseball Classics.

As administrative manager of the Tecolotes de Nuevo Laredo, Rodriguez expanded the league’s reach across the border into the United States by splitting his team’s home schedule between the Nuevo Laredo and Laredo, Texas.

“We started noticing that we had a lot of fans from [Texas] going to see our games in Nuevo Laredo. And later on, we noticed that media people from [Texas], we got more from here than from over there. So we thought about, ‘why don't we play a game of every series in Laredo, Texas?’,” Rodriguez told World Baseball Network at Uni-Trade Stadium in Laredo, Texas in 2023.

“The only problem is that they didn't have a baseball stadium for that type of baseball. So we went to the stadium they had here at one of the high schools. We brought a guy from the Mexican league, and to tell us and to tell them what was needed in order to have that stadium ready to play our type of baseball. So they invested some money for lights and the field.” 

From that modest start at Laredo’s West Martin Field in 1985, the Tecos has since grown into a binational franchise beloved on both sides of the Rio Grande. 

Born Aug. 22, 1936 in Yavaros, Sonora, a fishing village not far from Huatabampo, Cuauhtémoc “Chito” Rodríguez Meza grew up in Nuevo Laredo, pitching in the city’s amateur league from 1958-68. 

“My father was a fan of baseball. And when we were little, my older brother and myself, my father used to borrow us gloves and baseballs and bats and used to play catch with him. And then later on I started playing in the city teams, Little League, Pony League, and then the biggest league in the city, the amateur league in Nuevo Laredo,” Rodriguez recalled in 2023.

From those modest beginnings, Rodriguez made contacts in the LMB, and when professional baseball returned to Nuevo Laredo in 1976, he became the team’s general manager.

Under Rodriguez’s leadership, the Tecos won LMB titles in 1977 and 1989 and reached the Serie del Rey in four other seasons. In 1994, he joined the Tigres Capitalinos, then located in Mexico City, leading them to three titles in the capital in 1997, 2000 and 2001, another in Puebla in 2005, and three more after the team relocated again to Cancun, Quintana Roo, in 1999, 2002 and 2003.

Because of his prominent role in Mexican professional baseball, the NAPBL named him the King of Baseball at the 2011 Winter Meetings, where he became just the second Mexican to win the award, joining Alejo Peralta, the founder of the Tigres Capitalinos.

He was inducted into the Salon de Fama del Beisbol Mexicano, the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame, in the Class of 2014, along with Fernando Valenzuela, Daniel Fernández and Ricardo Sáenz.

In 2024, Rodriguez received the Keys to the City of Laredo, Texas, for his work fostering community unity through sports.

Sitting in a suite at Uni-Trade Stadium, the Tecos’ home in Texas, in 2003, Rodriguez reflected on his life in professional baseball

“It was great work, being involved in professional baseball. I met a lot of good people. I worked in the team in Nuevo Laredo. Then we went to Mexico City for seven years. From Mexico City we went to Puebla with the Tigers for five years. And from Puebla we went to Cancun for 10 years,” Rodriguez said. “So I met a lot of people, presidents of Mexico, governors, mayors… great guys who, I still call them and we talk about the good old times.”

Photo Courtesy of Liga Mexicana de Beisbol