I'm in Mexico, for work, but one of the nice things about my line of business is that I have some flexibility to choose when I travel. So I chose this trip to coincide with the first round of the World Baseball Classic, being held at the Foro Sol in Mexico City. You can kind of see the Foro off to the left of the spiky dome thing in the picture below.
The spiky dome is the Palacio de los Deportes. In a sign of the amazing rapidity of Mexico's cultural revolution, it just finished hosting the Expo Sexo 2009, which is exactly what you think it is.
Anyway, we were in the area for el beis. For the Cuba-Mexico final game, I was with three fellow fans: an American, a Venezuelan, and a Canadian. We took Line 9 of the metro, which was much more crowded than I remember it being. On the way, we met an older fellow in a baseball jacket. He was a very talkative guy, who knew a lot about the game. He also happened to be the most foul-mouthed man I've met in a long time, and that's saying a lot. Every other word was a curse. I wish I'd had a tape-recorder; the man was artistic in his use of profanity.
So were the fans. They shouted pretty foul things at the Cuban team. Nothing that you wouldn't hear among the Bleacher Creatures of the Bronx, of course, but good to hear. My favorite was “culero” chanted at anyone who seemed to be, well, a culero. It was raining — hard — and only the hard core were left by the sixth inning. (It wasn't, I have to say, a very good game, as a game, and neither was the previous day's match against Australia.)
At one point a dude dressed as a stuffed Barney came out and started a dance with some other stuffed animal, to loud boos. Until Barney ripped off his head to reveal a wrestling mask, and started tossing the other animal around the sidelines. That was fun.
The Cuban fans were also a lot of fun. They sat in their own blue-white-and-red draped sections, with giant flags and ridiculous wigs, and played music. We didn't a get a chance to talk to any of them, but I have a strong suspiscion that they're mostly Cuban expats, and not people whom the government flew out for the games. They didn't seem organized enough.
Anyway, despite getting soaked to the bone, and having beer poured on me, and having people confuse my Puerto Rico flag shirt with a Cuban banner, it was a great night. ¡Viva el beis!
it's getting very littleattention back here in Philly. A while back, it was in the news only to the extent that it was being reported that Ryan Howard wasn't going to participate.
When do we play those perfidious Dutchmen?
Posted by: Dennis | March 17, 2009 at 09:21 AM
Ah, you missed it. We played the Netherlands yesterday; it wasn't a bad game. Still, it wasn't close --- not like that Cuba-Australia squeaker or the U.S. game against Canada.
Sadly, we won.
Posted by: Noel Maurer | March 17, 2009 at 01:07 PM