Giants' Sergio Romo came out of Brawley, not exactly out of nowhere BRAWLEY, Calif. - Sergio Romo is never alone when he takes the mound. In a small, remote town about 20 miles north of the Mexican border, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people who feels as if they are standing there with him. Romo was born and raised in Brawley. His triumphs are their triumphs. His defeats are their defeats. "All of us who played ball together, he kind of represents that," said Eric Reyes, who played baseball at Brawley Union High in the 1970s. When Romo closed out the San Francisco Giants' 2-0 victory over the Detroit Tigers on Thursday in Game 2 of the World Series, there were about 40 people in the small bar at Las Chabelas, a Mexican restaurant on the south side of town. Watching Romo pitch on a large screen on the back wall of the bar, they clapped and ohhed whenever he threw a strike. When Romo forced Omar Infante to pop up in foul territory for the final out, the bartender rang a bell. "Sergio has really put Brawley on the map, that's for sure," said the city's mayor, George Nava, who was there. Brawley is a farming community that sits about 100 miles southeast of Palm Springs. San Diego is 130 miles to the west; Yuma, Ariz., is 70 miles to the east. The city, which has about 25,000 residents, has one of the highest unemployment rates in the state. While Main Street is lined with the assortment of fast-food chain restaurants that are found anywhere else, there is no mall or movie theater. The town is surrounded by lettuce fields. But for many of the city's residents, Romo's success story is much more than a small-town kid making a name for himself on the national stage. In their eyes, he represents the latest link in a chain of baseball players that dates back to the 1930s, perhaps even before that. 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. Everyone at the table smiled and nodded. The oldest men at the table, Joe Marquez and Joe Lorenzana, are in their mid-70s and played at Brawley Union High in the 1950s. As adults, they played in Mexicali with a teenage Monge. Reyes, who played at the same high school 20 years later, was a batboy on Marquez and Lorenzana's Mexicali teams and grew up idolizing them. Reyes played with Romo's father, Frank, and is a godfather to Romo's younger brother, Andrew.