27 January 2007
Marina Mazatlan
Most of you up north probably don't know it but it's baseball season down here. We started watching some of the games on TV when we were in San Carlos. When we got to Mazatlan and realized that the Mazatlan Venados were in the play offs I decided we had to see a game. John went to the stadium for tickets to the final game against Mazatlan's bitter rival Culiacan but the only seats available were "lateral" (way out in left field) or bleachers. Uncertain that he could rise to the level of machismo we might encounter in the bleachers, John opted to pass on that home game. We crossed our fingers that the Venados would beat the Tomateros and watched the game on TV. Mazatlan managed to squeak by, only to face the much tougher Naranjeros of Hermasillo in the upcoming finals.
If you've been following along with your Spanish dictionary, you will have learned that venado=deer, tomate=tomato, and naranja=orange. I thought these were odd names for baseball teams but my dentist explained that each team is named for what its city is best known for. Visitors to Mazatlan soon learn that the city's name means "land of the deer." What we didn't know is that Culiacan grows the best tomatoes and Hermasillo produces the finest oranges in Mexico. Thus it is that you have the deer playing the tomato'ers (or tomato growers) and the orange'ers (or orange growers).
Tickets for the games being played in Mazatlan went on sale Tuesday morning, and John and Steve (S/V Flying Free) drove to the stadium an hour before the ticket windows opened at 10 AM. The stadium officially seats 13,000 but my dentist told me that one night they estimated a crowd of 16,000, so we expected long lines for tickets. I was a little surprised however when John hadn't returned by Noon since I figured he would give up after only a couple of hours. By the time Lisa called me on the radio at 3 PM we were both concerned that they still weren't back. I was imagining fist fights and hospitals, or traffic accidents and jail and/or more hospitals. Shortly after Lisa's call John walked in the door, cold and tired but otherwise unharmed.
It turned out that the lines themselves weren't particularly big, but they took forever to move. Apparently most people were buying 10-20 tickets, and spent a lot of time trying to get all their seats as close together as possible. Needless to say, when it was finally their turn at the window John and Steve felt a little ridiculous buying only two tickets each. Exhausted from his ordeal, and with a belly full of the arrachera lunch they ate before coming home, John fell into bed for a much deserved nap. My hero!
The Venados lost the first two games of the league championship series (best of seven) against the Naranjeros in Hermasillo on Monday and Tuesday. They had Wednesday off and then came home to Mazatlan to lose a third game on Thursday. The games were close with two of them going to 12 innings, but it wasn't looking good for Mazatlan.
The do-or-die game day finally dawned on Friday and we went about our chores with great excitement. At 3 PM we met Steve and Lisa to start off the festivities with a fortifying meal of all-you-can-eat ribs at Munchkin's. The AYCE offer was lost on Lisa and me but the guys managed to get their money's worth. We then strategically positioned the truck outside the stadium for a quick post-game getaway, and caught a bus downtown to see a Carnaval Parade Preview. The confetti in the streets along the bus route was our first clue that we were too late for the parade, but we were even more puzzled by the lack of a crowd in Plaza Machado, the advertised end of the parade route. We shopped our way back towards the bus stop, caught the tail end of a fireworks show coming from Plaza Republica a few blocks away, and realized that all the action had ended up there. We snapped a few pictures with the candidates for queen (egged on by a helpful guy who then wouldn't let us take our picture with him!), and hopped a bus back to the baseball stadium.
And that's pretty much the end of the story. Our beloved Venados lost 3-1 in the most boring game of the series. We banged our Pacifico thunder sticks, waved our Venados flag, and chanted "¡Sí, se puede!" (Yes, you can!) to no avail. But it was terrific to be a part of an important local event, and the nice guy who caught a souvenir T-shirt right in front of John's hands, and then handed it to him to give to me, will always be remembered as a symbol of the generosity of our gracious host country.
Linda and John