More about baseball

After a month and a half of blog-o-sphere silence, we're back in the game with more baseball action, this time Nica-style.

Last night we finally made it to a Nicaraguan baseball game after 3 years in Central America's baseball capital. Managua's team (Bóer) took on León (los Leones). Tropical storm Ida dampened the diamond, but not the spirits of the several hundred fans that showed up in spite of the rain. We bought our $3 tickets and had dry seats under the roof, and we watched five innings of action before the game was eventually postponed. Managua -Bóer was up 3-0 on a 3-run homerun in the bottom of the 4th.

It was Simon's first trip to the ballpark - he loved the attention from the vendors and fellow fans. And he gripped his little Dodgers cap tightly the whole time. One girl who sold fried pork rinds with yucca asked if Simon was for Bóer or for León; we said that he's nine months old and really doesn't care who wins. "Oh, well, we'll just say he's for Bóer (boerista)," she replied.

Baseball is the biggest sport in Nicaragua. It was introduced by US Marines back in the 1920s and 1930s after they were "invited" by the government and then decided to stick around, which seemed suspiciously like an "occupation" for most Nicaraguans. But one lasting benefit has been a love for baseball. The season starts in late October as the rains subside, even as the US World Series heats up the chilly northern fall. Typically Managua and León field the powerhouse teams, and every once in a while Granada or Estelí or Matagalpa put together good teams. Nicaragua's best players get sucked up in the US baseball system, and fans here follow them closely (see our last post about baseball from Sept.). The remaining players take the field mostly for the love of the game, hoping that perhaps a stand-out season will catch the eye of an MLB scout and earn them a professional contract. Otherwise, their meager salaries cover only the basics.

Our trip to the ballpark (named after Dennis Martinez, Nicaragua's most successful son in the majors) reminded me of a minor-league game in the US - cozy atmosphere, families with little kids enjoying the game, hotdogs and soda. The atmosphere was decidedly Nicaraguan, however. Also for sale were fried pork rinds or pork strips with yucca, pizza with ketchup, and french fries with grated white cheese, all served on flimsy paper plates. Vendors walked right in front of our seats every 3-4 minutes selling everything from food to beer to individual cigarettes to little noisemakers to bags of plantain chips with chili sauce. Women vendors all wore the frilly white aprons, the 'uniform' of nearly every Nicaraguan woman who sells something. Several women took time from their selling to hold Simon; the fans across the aisle whipped out their cameras to snap photos of him. They were all free with their opinions about how we should dress Simon on a rainy night, the care we should take with him leaving the stadium, whether or not we shave his head (we don't...he's naturally that way). There were also plenty of opinions about the play on the field, although we still have a lot to learn about the nuances of baseball vocabulary - heckling is our next phase of language learning.