Sergio Romo wears 'I just look illegal' shirt at S.F. Giants parade

Los Angeles Times article, October 31, 2012

 

It was a typical championship parade for the San Francisco Giants: confetti fell to the streets, players waved and the crowd in orange and black roared.

But pitcher Sergio Romo's T-shirt -- which said, "I Just Look Illegal" -- may be the most talked-about part of the celebration.

As The Times' Dylan Hernandez wrote last week, Romo was raised in Brawley, Calif., a small farming community about 20 miles north of the Mexican border. His parents, who met in Brawley, were born in Mexico.

For many of the city's residents, Hernandez writes, Romo represents "the latest link in a chain of baseball players that dates back to the 1930s."

Many of these players would cross the Mexican border on weekends to compete in adult leagues in the city of Mexicali. Promising young players would be invited to play shortly after they entered high school. In this way, a devotion to the game was passed from one generation to the next.

So when pitcher Sid Monge broke in with the Angels in 1975, many of the players in town felt he took part of them to the major leagues with him. They felt the same way about Rudy Seanez, who played 17 big league seasons with nine teams, including the Dodgers. And now they feel like that about Romo.

"Everybody has a little story about Rudy, Sergio and Sid," said Rusty Garcia, who was Seanez's pitching coach at Brawley Union High.

Romo is remembered as the child who used to tag along with his father on weekends to Mexicali. Memories of those days were shared over lunch recently at Las Chabelas, where six men gathered at a back table to trade stories.

"Remember how much of a pain he was?" Reyes asked the others. "Sergio was so hyper when he was a little kid."

Romo's shirt quickly drew reaction on Twitter as images of his shirt circulated. See some of the comments below and tell us what you think: