Sunday, August 16, 1998

Dallas Cowboys: Mexico's team in Monday night match with Patriots

By JOHN RICE

Associated Press Writer

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- "America's Team" does pretty well south of the border as well.

When Dallas meets the New England Patriots in a preseason game Monday night, the Cowboys -- make that the Vaqueros -- will be overwhelming favorites of what could be a near-NFL-record crowd at Aztec Stadium.

The Patriots, with their red-white-and-blue uniforms, may find themselves outsiders in the eyes of patriotic local fans.

Jaime Rodriguez, manager of the Sports Bar and Restaurant in southern Mexico City, displays a Joe Montana jersey on the restaurant's dark-wood walls. But his heart has been with Dallas since the days of Roger Staubach and Randy White.

"Of the teams, the Vaqueros are the most popular here," he said, followed by the Pittsburgh Steelers.

On the surface, Mexico City doesn't seem a Cowboy sort of town. About 18 million people live in the valley, leaving little room for ranging livestock -- more a specialty of northern Mexico.

But the Cowboy glamor of recent decades drew many fans. A sizable Mexican-American population in Texas helped make the team attractive here. So has Dallas' attention to Mexico.

Mexico also is one of four countries -- with the United States, Canada and Japan -- where every NFL game will be televised over the air or by satellite.

Monday will be the third time the Cowboys have played here since 1994, when 112,376 fans filled the country's largest shrine to soccer.

The stadium is reportedly sold-out again, though many of the seats apparently were given away as bonuses by local companies. The $33 tickets -- 10 times the minimum daily wage -- are too steep for all but a small fraction of Mexicans.

While the 7,300-foot elevation may have players reaching for oxygen if they play more than a few series, the game may give some Cowboy stars a brief relief from U.S. media attention.

With Deion Sanders sitting out with a minor injury and other stars likely to play briefly, local media attention has been drawn to receiver Marco Martos, who hopes to become the first Mexican-bred non-kicker to play in the NFL.

Martos, who plays for Barcelona in the NFL's European league, has a 10-day contract with the Cowboys -- similar to a brief preseason stint with Denver last year that allowed him to play before Mexico City fans against the Dolphins.

Alberto San Miguel, an engineer sipping a beer at the Sports Bar, was one of the record-setting crowd in 1994 and he'll be back again on Monday. He complained that in the earlier game, a 6-0 Houston victory, "Many of the stars for Dallas did not play.... There weren't even any touchdowns."

"I hope it doesn't rain," he added, though the risk may be eased by the fact he received free tickets via a relative's employer.

The 1994 game was played on a rain-sodden field, prompting Dallas to hold out Emmitt Smith. Rain is also forecast for Monday night -- as it is for most evenings in August here. A recent afternoon thunderstorm flooded some streets 3-feet deep.

For most Mexicans, what is called "American football" still is something of a curiosity. "Futbol" here means soccer.

World Cup soccer matches drew more than 400 people to the Sports Bar, Rodriguez said. A Super Bowl brings in about 80.

At the Suga sports store in an expensive shopping center across the street from the Sports Bar, a lone -- and oddly yellow -- American football is on display amid more than two dozen soccer balls.

The store doesn't even stock football helmets.

"I like the San Francisco 49ers a lot," said 22-year-old salesman Alberto Serralde. But he said he doesn't plan to watch Monday's game.