Baseball

Baseball is the national sport in Nicaragua. It's the game kids choose to play most often and there's Sunday leagues organised throughout the country. There's a number of Nicaraguan players dotted about the US major leagues and so this is where a lot of the spectating is done, via national and cable television. There is, however, a pro-league in Nicaragua in which four teams compete, playing in different cities around the country. I had a free Sunday so I decided to check out a game in Esteli where Oriental were playing Chinandega.
I had been here previously with Rachel for the Catholic radio song contest, and there were a lot more people on that occasion. This time around there were several hundred people sat on the concrete seats in the big iron stand. I paid $3 to get in, but received a free upgrade to the covered stand when the sun started shining on the seats that I was in. I chose to support Oriental, because they had bigger bellies and bigger mullets and a nice grey and red kit. As it turned out, most of the people from Esteli were supporting Chinandega and they were the better team. Four hours was quite a long time to watch baseball and most of the scoring seemed to come from mis-fielding and a bumpy infield. There was an impressive array of goodies on sale, including ice-cream, beer, crisps, chips, barbecued meat, sweets, gum and fags. I followed the game to the bitter end, which Oriental lost 15-11 by being worse than Chinandega. The winning team congratulated themselves and, for those who understand it (I just about do), the scoreboard in the background shows the story of the game.

It was an interesting trip out, but I'm looking forward to returning to the football ground a lot more than I am the baseball ground.