Ten years batting against the rules that kept Hondzonot's women in the house

The Diablillas Mestizas take the field in flowered huipil, white lace fustán, and bare feet, on the community diamond at Hondzonot, a village in the Maya zone of the Tulum municipality.

They have been doing it for a decade, by the team's own count. At the start, the village had a different name for them. Las mandonas, the bossy ones, because they would not take a no from grandfathers, fathers, brothers, or husbands who expected them at home. Founder Fabiola May Chulim told the Spanish news agency EFE in 2024 that the players picked Diablillas, little devils, to turn the insult around.

Fewer than 400 people live in Hondzonot, roughly 55 kilometers west of Tulum town and close to the Yucatán state line. The team those women built now runs three generations deep, and it is waiting on a date for the league final. Along the way, it pulled a Major League outfielder and a documentary crew down a road most visitors to Tulum never take.

Tennis balls, wooden sticks, and a 1,500-peso prize

It started as an escape from the house. Women who had finished the cooking, washing, and childcare met to play a rough version of baseball with tennis balls and wooden sticks, and the shouting from the sidelines told them to go back to their husbands and children.

EFE reported that beginning in December 2024, when the founders put it at about seven years earlier. The first prize the women played for came out of a municipal tournament and was worth 1,500 pesos, by the same account. They asked local authorities for an instructor, and softball replaced the improvised game.

Mirna Jazmín May Tuyub, who now captains the team, told Excélsior in a report published Thursday that nothing in the story happened overnight. The first players trained after the housework was done, and many of them, she said, arrived as girls of 11.

Yaneli May Uh is the third generation

Yaneli del Rosario May Uh catches for the Diablillas. Her mother played before her. Her grandmother played before that.

She grew up hearing that softball was a waste of time, that the women of Hondzonot were there to sew, make tortillas, and work the milpa. Plenty of people in the village disliked what the team was doing, she told Excélsior.

The line behind her is younger. EFE counted 18 women on the roster in 2024, with girls between eight and 12 training alongside them, and in September of that year a 10-year-old named Neisi May debuted in a friendly against the Gladiadoras de Chankón, according to Sol Yucatán.

A uniform the team sews itself

The Diablillas make their own uniforms from the hipil, the embroidered dress worn across the peninsula, and the fustán, the white lace underskirt beneath it. On a diamond full of jerseys and cleats, it is the thing everyone photographs.

Then there are the feet. The players compete barefoot because that is how they move through Hondonot every day, and their Cuban coach, Iván Penié, reads it as an advantage. He described his players to Excélsior as strong and fast, with a low center of gravity, and said their contact at the plate improves quickly once a little technique goes on top of that.

Randy Arozarena took off his cleats in Hondzonot

In December 2024, the Seattle Mariners left fielder Randy Arozarena drove out to the village during a family vacation on the coast, at the invitation of Governor Mara Lezama, and played a pickup game with the team. He played barefoot. He signed huipiles and stayed for cochinita pibil, Por Esto reported.

Outside attention had found the village well before he did. Major League Baseball produced a short documentary about the team for Hispanic Heritage Month in 2022, directed by Yupi Segura for the production company Remezcla, and Excélsior reported that the film took a Silver Lion in the sports entertainment category at the Cannes Lions festival the following year. In 2021, the players traveled to Mexico City and turned up at the presidential morning press conference, where Andrés Manuel López Obrador told them to keep playing. La Jornada Maya reported in August 2024 that Netflix executives had come to Hondzonot and were discussing a feature film. Nothing has been announced since.

Pío Jiménez, who represents the team, told Excélsior that the Diablillas planted a seed in the Maya communities and "put Hondzonot on the map of Mexico."

Chan Chen stands between the Diablillas Mestizas and the league title

In July, the players spent five days in Nuevo León. The municipal government of Hidalgo invited them to a women's softball quadrangular on July 18 and 19, and the day before, they toured the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame, with two players from Xiulub and two from Chanchén Primero accompanying them.

On August 17, they beat the Xiulub selection from Yucatán 15-7 at home, taking the series and a place in the final of the Liga Femenil de la Zona Maya, according to Por Esto. Their opponent is the Piñeras de Chan Chen, who led the table in late June with the regular season still open, when the Diablillas were 4-2. No date has been set for the final.

They have been here before. La Jornada Maya reported in January 2025 that the Diablillas had just reached their third consecutive final and had finished runner-up in the editions before it.

Whenever the game is scheduled, the Diablillas will walk out the way they always have. The captain has her own account of the speed her coach describes, and she was laughing when she gave it. "I think the calluses defend us now," May Tuyub said.

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