Beisbol, Panama Style

As many of you know, Barbara was called "Barbara Baseball" when we lived in the States. When we lived in Portugal, we did find some amateur baseball but it was too amateur and too far away (the team did ask Tommy to coach them!). Anyway, so one of the joys of moving to Panama was to reconnect with baseball (beisbol to you Spanish speakers).

Early in our life here in Panama, I started on a mission to find out about baseball in Panama, for which there is a website but no future information posted. While doing some research on the web, I found an article written by a Panamanian about a game in Rod Carew stadium. I wrote to him and he replied, suggesting that we catch a game in the "juvenil (youth) league"; he said that they were more interesting than the "old guys" and that their season was starting in January. Sure enough, the season did start in January and the games were played in stadiums all over the country. With all the best intentions, we never got to a game during the regular season, mainly because the games started at 7pm and were at least an hour plus away.

When Cynthia came to visit in February, we made it our goal to get to a game. The schedule in the newspaper showed Saturday's game in Chame (about an hour eastwards), starting at 7 pm. Okay, we could do that. The next day, the schedule showed Saturday's game in Chame at 5 pm. Hm. Saturday rolled around, and the schedule still showed a 5 pm starting time, so off we went, looking for the stadium, which was an adventure because there are no signs on the highway to point you in the direction of the stadium. We found our way there by asking directions at every intersection.

This cute little stadium (held a couple of thousand fans) was tucked away in the middle of a residential area; lights had recently been installed. We arrived about 15 minutes before starting time, paid our $4 to enter, and there were only a few seats left! Cynthia found out that, for an additional $1, we could rent white plastic chairs, which we could put anywhere there was room. So, we plunked ourselves down, slightly to third base side of home base, about 10 feet behind the screen. Great seats, we thought. Then the game started, exactly on time, and everyone stood up, starting yelling and screaming and we could see nothing. Behind us (two feet away), the base drum started banging, joined by various other musical instruments in the stands. Runners were going for, and returning with, beers for everyone around us; people got louder and louder. Actually, the noise was making Tommy physically ill, so he took some time outs down along third base line. Was it a baseball game or just a fun, loud night out?

Who was winning? What was happening? What inning was it? Beats the heck out of us...there was no scoreboard. We found out the next day via the newspaper that Chiriqui won that game; they went on to win the title a couple of games later. So, that was our beisbol experience this year. We had hoped to get to a "big league" game in Panama City at Rod Carew stadium but will save that for next year.

Just a few more beisbol notes:

--early on in the youth baseball tournament, the game was stopped because "one of the umpires turned out to be drunk"

--the national team had hoped to play in the tournament in Taiwan (I think this was in November). Panama was disqualified because its league manager had not paid the required $6000 for insurance.

Beisbol, Panama style, may not be all that we hoped it would be....