Mexico’s president has a prediction for which Texas team will make it to the World Series — and win

By Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN

(CNN) — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is a devoted baseball fan. And this week, he weighed in with a World Series prediction.

“I support Houston as a repeat champion of the World Series,” he wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “There are many Texans of Mexican origin. And as the corrido from the Tigres del Norte says: ’I didn’t cross the border. The border crossed me.’”

López Obrador, who’s widely known by his initials, AMLO, frequently references his love of baseball and has shared social media posts of him posing with Major League stars. In 2021, a post showing him wearing a uniform and practicing baseball drew the ire of critics who said he wasn’t paying enough attention to his country’s rising pandemic death toll.

In his post on Sunday, AMLO shared a photo of him standing beside Astros pitcher José Urquidy, who was born in Mexico. And he noted that a number of Astros players are Latino.

“Also, even though the governor of this state is very racist and anti-immigrant,” AMLO wrote, “on the baseball team of nine who play, five are Latinos, sometimes six, when our countryman José Urquidy enters to pitch. That’s all, don’t get mad.”

CNN has reached out to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office for comment on the Mexican president’s post.

This isn’t the first time AMLO has criticized Abbott and his immigration enforcement efforts. Earlier this year, the Mexican president called the floating buoys Texas officials placed in the Rio Grande “inhumane.” Abbott has said he’s taking necessary steps to secure the border.

The Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros are scheduled to take the field in the third game of the American League Championship Series on Wednesday. The Astros, defending World Series champions, are down two games.

Several of the Astros’ biggest stars, including second baseman Jose Altuve and designated hitter Yordan Alvarez, are Latino. Earlier this year, Major League Baseball noted that the Astros were the club with the most internationally born players on Opening Day for the third consecutive year.

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