Baseball Fever

Baseball season has started here in Nicaragua and its impossible not to notice. All the kids (and adults) that usually play soccer in the streets or on the beach have traded in their soccer ball and stick goalposts for a bat and glove. The end of the World Series and the beginning of the Nicaraguan national baseball league coincide and it gets everyone baseball crazy. People claim that baseball is the national sport in Nicaragua but if you ask anyone under 30 they’ll tell you that soccer is by far their favorite sport. A lot of kids will follow the major leagues because they play the games on TV here. Usually, the favorite team is the Yankees, presumably because of Daddy Yankee the famous Reggaeton star. Although, generally, even the biggest baseball fan here still puts more weight into who wins the Real Madrid vs. Barcelona game in the Spanish soccer league.

There are a handful of baseball players that make it to the big leagues from Nicaragua, but usually no one famous. The most famous player to come out of Nicaragua is Denis Martinez. The Nicaraguan national baseball league only consists of 4 teams that continually play each other ( http://www.lnbp.net/ ). Luckily there is a team from the nearby big city, Chinandega, and I hope to go to some of the games this season. This league consists of mostly Nicaraguans with a few washed up Americans and other Latino players. The start of this league and end of the World Series gave me the opportunity to play some beach baseball with the neighbourhood kids and their newfound enthusiasm for baseball.

The field we played on was the sand on the beach. Corinto has an interesting beach where there is a sand wall, or cliff, 10 feet high about 30 feet from the shoreline. Behind the cliff is a big flat field of sand. In front of the cliff is the 10 foot drop, 30 feet of sand, then the water. So we played on the big flat field of sand. As you look down the beach, you can see 3 or 4 other beach baseball games going on, whereas only last week, you’d see3 or 4 beach soccer games. The catch about the field location is that left field has a cliff down the middle of it. And I, of course, was lucky enough to play left field. More on that later. A neighbourhood boy’s dad has a collection of 8 or 9 gloves for when a Corinto league sometimes gets organized. He is nice enough to lend them out for the afternoon to play the beach baseball games. Luckily he had a left handed glove for me to use. Unluckily, it was made for a 7 year old, but it worked well enough. We used metal bats and a ball that looks like it was made from wrapping a golf ball in a LOT of electrical tape. We played with home plate, only two bases (made by a pile of sandals), and no catcher. The teams consisted of about 3 adults (me being an adult), 3 teenagers and 3 kids.

I was a little nervous when we first started playing because this was my new neighbourhood and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of the new neighbourhood kids by making errors and striking out. But luckily that faded when on my first at bat I hit a home run (or jonron). After living my life being the ¨small kid on the team¨, I forgot that I was the big kid on this team and playing well would be easier than I thought. I only made a fool of myself once when I forgot about the whole ¨cliff in the middle of left field¨ thing. I was going for a fly ball that was going to land before the cliff drop. I was aware of the cliff, but forgot that by chasing the fly ball full speed, my momentum would carry my over the 10 foot sand cliff. Well that’s what happened, Paul going nearly full speed over this sand cliff. No damage done (the sand is soft at the bottom) except a few scrapes from broken shells. I climb over the wall and everyone is telling me, ¨Pablo, you don’t need to try that hard, you don’t need to jump over the cliff!¨ I just looked sheepishly and said I forgot about the cliff.

Anyways, that game, and the game the next day, were really fun, and I hope the baseball fever continues so I can play some more beach baseball. It has been a good way to get to know other people in the neighbourhood and have a good time hanging out at the beach.

I hope all is well with everyone else…I’m sure you enjoyed hearing about me at the beach while you guys are experiencing the November cold settle in. Remember, you can always take a vacation down to Corinto to play baseball, we’ll put you in left field and see how you do!