Baseball, the logic of the diamond as a metaphor for life, suggests Harp Helú

If he had to choose between baseball or life, Alfredo Harp Helú would not face a decisive dilemma. For this Mexican businessman who was born 80 years ago, these are images that correspond to the fidelity of a mirror, they are one thing and the same. There is no need to choose between one and the other, as his biography reveals, woven like a textile in which the threads intersect to offer a tapestry that is best appreciated in perspective, as he writes in his book Live and die playing baseball. In search of more championshipswhich he presented last night at the Lebanese Center in the Benito Juárez mayor’s office.

For Harp Helú, the diamond and its game logic is a metaphor for life. Or if you prefer, life is a metaphor for baseball. An approach with its pauses and moments of reflection, its moments to act and to seek the objective, always with the clear awareness that it is a collective act and that each of the individual actions affects or benefits the whole. Or what else is a out of sacrifice, but the most honest example of offering oneself so that another, or others, achieve their goals, in the ball reaching a base or the homeas Harp Helú himself says in his book. Life or society itself like a ball park.

The community

For me, the greatest happiness lies in helping others, that is why my key maneuver is to capitalize on my foundations and do more works for the community.writes Harp Helú.

My dedication to others comes from my heart and my most important wish is for people to achieve a better standard of living or to become professionals and thus be able to modify their reality for the better, and with it, the reality of many others.he adds in a chapter.

The businessman had the privilege of being able to build himself from a young age. In his book he describes his origins and recognizes his mother as a manager in life. Alfredo Harp Helú studied accounting at the National Autonomous University of Mexico; He could not go further in his academic career because his time was dedicated to hard and relentless work. An inheritance left to him by his father, a Lebanese who, like a good part of that migrant community, was one of the first subscription holders in our country. That is, an itinerant merchant who sold his products on verbal credit in popular areas, and every certain time he came to collect the corresponding fee. Only that was left as a pledge, the word, highlights Harp Helú and remembers that when he came to work at the Stock Exchange his greatest asset pledged was precisely the word.

My grandfather chose Oaxaca to live because it looked like Lebanon. The markets and the towns. I’m not ashamed to say it, he was a subscriber and traveled by donkey, collecting what he left them. They didn’t sign anything. Years later I made operations of many millions of pesos in the Stock Market, but nothing was signed for me. We paid for them the next day only with words. From those days until today, that motto lives on for me: I am a man of my word and commitment.he said in the presentation.

“I started working at a very young age. I was 11 years old when I sold newspaper subscriptions. Excelsior and I traveled on trams and buses to be able to reach the homes of my clients who lived in different parts of Mexico City; “He also sold Christmas cards that he bought in bulk,” says the businessman in his book who, in addition to being a banker, has participated in investments of very diverse natures, but without losing a strong philanthropic commitment.

Yesterday during the presentation, for example, there was a moment of reflection for the suffering of civilian populations in the Middle East. Lebanese and Mexican roots are significant pieces in the identity of Harp Helú, who contributes one peso for every peso raised to an emergency fund for people currently suffering in Lebanon due to the devastation undertaken by Israel.

With his foundations he has launched development projects in education, arts, archaeological rescues and historical collections, the environment, all for the benefit of communities, whether in Oaxaca, the region with which he has a deep connection, or in Mexico as a whole. And there, sport has a prominent place with baseball as its flagship. He has achieved this with great effort and with a robust budget for his foundations, as he writes in his book.

I have decided to have my foundations well capitalized. By the beginning of 2024 they had assets, in round numbers, of 19,600 million pesos, and we have granted more than 10,900 million to more than 6 thousand projects.

The beloved Red Devils

Since he bought his beloved Diablos Rojos in 1994, he led them with passion, whether on their itinerant journey from Parque Delta – today a shopping center – to Foro Sol, then to Fray Nano until arriving at that stadium that bears his name and which is a Amazing work that has received Major League games. This year they also began work to give their other team in the Mexican Baseball League, Guerreros de Oaxaca, a worthy stadium that will also be a source of pride. And there are more verbal commitments, such as in 2019, when he promised the then president Andrés Manuel López Obrador – another baseball fan if ever there was one – that he would support the Algodoneros de Guasave to remodel their house and return to the Pacific League, not as a business investment, but because of the importance of social integration that this activity has in the region.

As owner of the Diablos Rojos del México, a team that he followed since he was a child on radio broadcasts, he completed three decades in the Mexican Baseball League and in 2024 he achieved a dream that took 10 years to materialize: the 17th championship. A title in a season in which everything pointed to it being achieved, but which had moments of anguish, because they were close to being eliminated by Guerreros de Oaxaca, the businessman’s other team, which had them 3-0 in the series in the southern zone and they came back and then not to slow down again with tremendous numbers of pitching and hitting: they added 29 consecutive innings without receiving a run. A campaign in which Robinson Canó and Trevor Bauer shone on the mound, setting a historical record of 120 strikeouts and a perfect 10-0 winning percentage.

For this reason, the volume included a last-minute section to rethink this season in which they emerged champions. When this book was already in print, my beloved Diablos completed an incredible season and won their 17th championship so far in their 84-year history.says the aforementioned chapter.

Like a Boethius on the playing field, Harp Helú notices one of the great lessons of baseball for life and vice versa, because they are one thing and the same. You have to always go out and look for victories – even if they are minimal – and never forget that you have to know defeat, but with the certainty that all of them are temporary.

If one becomes aware that failure is temporary, that it is limited and therefore will always be relative, once the storm passes we can always go out and win again.but yes, without losing sight of the fact that in life it is not possible to win all the games.