The Olmecas de Tabasco hadn’t won the Southern Zone championship since 1993 — a 33-year drought — and when they finally broke through, someone in Tabasco already had the jersey ready. Fátima Bosch Fernández, Miss Universe 2025 and a native of Teapa, Tabasco, appeared on September 5th wearing a personalized blue-and-red Olmecas jersey with her name and number 4, sending a message of support ahead of the 2026 Serie del Rey.
The inning that unlocked 33 years of waiting
The road wasn’t easy. At Estadio Hermanos Serdán in Puebla, the Olmecas were down 4-1 with the series sitting at 3-1. What happened next is the kind of inning Tabasco fans will be talking about for decades: eight runs in the seventh, flipping the score from 4-1 to 9-4 in a matter of minutes. Óscar González put the finishing touch on it with a solo home run in the eighth to set the final at 10-8.
With that, the Olmecas closed out the series 4-1 and were crowned Southern Zone champions — the franchise’s first zone title in 33 years. The club does have one national championship on the books, back in 1993, but this is the longest they’ve gone without returning to a regional crown in the team’s modern history.
Why the image of Bosch in that jersey matters
The connection between Bosch and the Olmecas runs deeper than a photo op. When she was crowned Miss Universe 2025 last November, more than 7,000 fans from Tabasco gathered at Estadio Centenario 27 de Febrero — the Olmecas’ home park in Villahermosa — to watch the broadcast live. A baseball stadium as the gathering point for a pride that had nothing to do with baseball. Months later, Bosch’s welcome-home parade ended at that exact same venue.
The image this week flips the gesture: now it’s her celebrating the team’s title, jersey on, name on the back. There’s no confirmed ambassador deal or official designation — the personalized jersey is a symbolic gesture — but the symbol lands just the same. Tabasco has two titles in under a year, and both share the same ballpark.
A Serie del Rey with no precedent
The Olmecas will face the Toros de Tijuana — who eliminated the Sultanes de Monterrey 4-1 in the Northern Zone — in a Serie del Rey matchup these two franchises have never had before. The series opens Tuesday, September 8th at Toros Mobil Park in Tijuana (8:35 p.m.), with Games 3 and 4 scheduled at Estadio Centenario 27 de Febrero on September 11th and 12th. Tijuana holds home-field advantage after finishing with the best regular-season record.
There’s also a subplot worth noting: Olmecas manager Luis Carlos Rivera previously managed the Toros de Tijuana during the 2024 season. He’ll now face his former club in the championship round.
The 2026 Serie del Rey is guaranteed to produce a first-time champion — the back-to-back champion Diablos Rojos del México were already eliminated in the playoffs, so a new name is going on the trophy no matter what. For the Olmecas, a franchise that hadn’t been in a final in 33 years, that fact says everything.
