Parque Los Berros, in

Xalapa Xalapa or Jalapa (, ), officially Xalapa-Enríquez (), is the capital city of the Mexican state of Veracruz and the name of the surrounding municipality. In the 2005 census the city reported a population of 387,879 and the municipality of which ...

Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...

, is located a short distance to the southeast of the center of town, in the neighbourhood of the Stadium. Its name was derived from an edible herb called "berros" (

garden cress Cress (''Lepidium sativum''), sometimes referred to as garden cress (or curly cress) to distinguish it from similar plants also referred to as cress (from old Germanic ''cresso'' which means sharp, spicy), is a rather fast-growing, edible herb. ...

) that used to grow in the area. Throughout the 19th century, the place would turn into a mosquito-infested marshland during the Summer rainy season. The rest of the year, it was occasionally used for horse-racing, as is shown in an engraving published in ''Historia Antigua de Jalapa'' by Manuel Rivera y Cambas, in 1871. It was on this site, most probably the army campground, around April 20, 1847, that members of the Fourth Illinois Infantry Regiment played the first game of

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

in México, as gathered from oral tradition and recorded in a 1909 publication, perhaps the first ever played outside the U.S. As a bat, they used the "wooden peg leg" of

Antonio López de Santa Anna Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón (; 21 February 1794 – 21 June 1876),Callcott, Wilfred H., "Santa Anna, Antonio Lopez De,''Handbook of Texas Online'' Retrieved 18 April 2017. usually known as Santa Ann ...

that they had captured a day or so before, at the

Battle of Cerro Gordo The Battle of Cerro Gordo, or Battle of Sierra Gordo, was an engagement in the Mexican–American War on April 18, 1847. The battle saw Winfield Scott's United States troops outflank Antonio López de Santa Anna's larger Mexican army, driving ...

Notes

* At the

, Company C of the 4th Illinois Infantry Regiment had "almost captured Mexican President General Santa Anna, but they had to settle for his cork leg, carriage and $20,000 in gold." * There were actually two artificial legs, a fancy one (presently on display at the Illinois State Military Museum in Springfield, IL) and a "humble peg leg". * "American soldiers under Scott and Worth played baseball (1847) with the wooden leg captured (by the Fourth Illinois Regiment) from General Santa Anna."Terry's Guide to Mexico, 1909, p. 506.

References

{{coord, 19, 31, 25, N, 96, 55, 01, W, type:city, display=title Xalapa Geography of Veracruz