Baseball in the papers

Baseball is a big deal in Nicaragua. It's bigger than soccer, and about on par with boxing, in terms of national popularity. Every day the front page of the newspapers' B section is covered with something baseball-related. As a baseball fan, I'm usually quite pleased to keep up with the baseball scores from the US. But I've had to adjust my expectations of what gets covered. When Vicente Padilla, a Nicaraguan pitcher, was picked up by the Dodgers last month, I thought, "Oh, great! I'll be able to read more about LA's team in the papers now!" But I was wrong. Individuals - Nicaraguans playing in the big leagues - always take precedent over teams, unless it's the Yankees or the Red Sox. Take yesterday's paper, for instance (photo above). Half the page is taken up with an article about how Vicente Padilla is fitting in on the Dodger's club, but it mentions nothing about whether they won or lost (they won...I had to look it up later online). The right column is about Everth Cabrera, an infielder for the Padres, who are at the bottom of the NL West...note the length of story about him. In the bottom right corner are three paragraphs about the rest of North American baseball that's interesting for most fans here, namely, the Yankees and the Red Sox. In spite of all the current government's anti-imperialist and anti-yankee rhetoric, the ball club from New York has a large fan base, as do the Red Sox. No matter what else happens in baseball, I'll always get to read something about these two teams.