1. Bayamón Cowboys
2. Carolina Giants
3. Caguas Criollos
4. Ponce Lions
5. Santurce Crabbers
6. Politics
7. Game Notes
8. Travel Anecdotes
In fact, on Opening Day, all three games were in the evening. Bayamón wanted again to admit school children for free at the day game, but El Nuevo Día said only 1,000 attended the real game. The ceremonies delayed the start of the game a full hour, including a 15-minute enumeration of the accomplishments of Luis Rivera, the departing senator.
The day the team without a home (Carolina Giants) visited this team without money, the rumors seemed more real, based on even lower attendance and overt disinterest in selling tickets. It was a standing challenge at Loubriel to buy a ticket despite already being inside the stadium, then to convince the personnel not to tear the ticket in two. They certainly don't need to collect the stubs, as their reported attendance is a random number.
El Nuevo Día confirmed the next day that Baerga had bought the team, though it couldn't contact either owner and the League Office said the issue hadn't yet come to it for approval. The "Triple Play" column said WEGA 1350 almost didn't broadcast the game back to Bayamón because of an unpaid bill from last year. The same column lamented the apathy, saying that even Martin the Cowboy Chicken and the enthusiastic announcer can't whip up the few fans.
On 17-Nov, El Nuevo Día guessed Baerga would pay $500,000. Vega said, "I leave with my head held high, not owing a penny to anyone." (This must mean he paid his debt to WEGA to get the game back on the air.) There are pastel-painted concrete municipal baseball stadia in each city, used by the AA teams. If you knew you would draw under one thousand forever, many of these could hold a franchise but $500,000 would be outrageous. But if you could consistently fill Loubriel or even Clemente, it would be a steal.
Bayamón returned home on 19-Nov and it seemed that Baerga had finished his acquisition and exercised his prerogative to fire all the good people. A Hispanic Don Corleone was on the PA, mumbling the Caguas lineup while the Jumbotron displayed the roster of the wrong team until fans shouted. This process didn't start until Alex Ríos started batting and wasn't finished until he had grounded out. In the second inning I began asking fans whether Baerga had even fired Martin. But Martin returned--once with a baby chicken, playing pillows in the shape of a bass and an accordion; later twirling a lariat. By the second game, the old PA announcer was back, speaking clearly and with his signature cheer.
The paper on 20-Nov said Baerga had already taken the reins of the Cowboys. He and Vega both said only minor details remained. Vega said these would be worked out immediately after the Sunday doubleheader. Paragraphs later, Baerga is quoted saying their next meeting is Monday. One of the bigger "minor details" is that Vega plans to "remain as a minority stockholder," which the article defined as 50%. The price of the transaction was agreed on long ago....we are now only discussing whether it was for all the team or half the team. But on 24-Nov, the paper declared that the sale was complete.
Ninety minutes before the 25-Nov game, there was another rainstorm. The box containing the motors for the tarp retractor malfunctioned as the tarp was 20 feet short of covering the infield. A crowd of uniformed maintenance men milled on the Astroturf runner and studied the apparatus. After 25 minutes, the tarp extended fully, just before heavier rain. It rained again 15 minutes before game time; Martin the Cowboy Chicken came out to entertain the crowd, including running the bases (after locating the bases under the tarp) and sliding into home through a puddle of muddy water.
On 20-Nov, the paper said hirsute Carolina manager Frankie Thon promised to adopt the style of three of his coaches and shave his head if his team wins the championship. The columnist said his hair might fall out on its own as we get closer to the Grand Opening of Clemente. By then the field had been blacktopped and was ready for the Astroturf and maybe 2000 seats were in. But the next day's paper reported the discovery that the stadium lacks air conditioning in the clubhouses. And lacks bullpens.
The PA announcer is a close second in enthusiasm to the one in Bayamón; after a variety of good plays, he has a yell along the lines of "How sweet it is!" But the sound system makes it hard to understand his Spanish.
Before the game on 18-Nov, the Jumbotron tested screens of various names and uniform numbers. During the game, they repeated a limited number of ads ("We are giving away 25 turkeys") plus the date of the next home game and a message giving a phone number to place your own ad. Text moved across the screen and flashed even during an at-bat. Late in the game, they used it to identify players. But there's no stat summary as at Ponce.
By 23-Nov, the Jumbotron was in daily use with few problems. This old board has red, green, and white lights, which don't dim. I would prefer (and probably the batters would too) that the names not crawl across the screen and flash. It is a cliche in the computer industry that you learn slowly that just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should do it. (The typical example is excessive use of fonts, or "ransom note typography.")
But in one game early in the season, on the conventional scoreboard, the digital team names failed after an inning, and the scoreboard operator eventually turned off the indicators for balls, strikes, outs, total hits, and total errors. Fans evidently did not consider this normal: "I wonder how they rule that play," I heard a fan ask. His companion poked him and laughed, "Why don't you consult the scoreboard?!"
The independence party saw its support increase, elected a couple of legislators, but did not get a significant vote for governor. There are a lot of Marxists in this party; I think they see potential to get their fingers in a lot of (private) pies that they can't under Commonwealth.
The outgoing party is further to the right than the winners; it drew more high-income votes and fewer last-minute decisions. Governor Rosselló was not running for re-election but many thought he would retain secret power if his party's candidate won. He governed competently, but lately he threw his weight around and cut corners. The outgoing party had passed a law in its early days declaring (without much significance) English a second official language. But the victorious party downplayed its repeal, saying other issues were more important.
As Gore v. Bush was litigated in several courts for a month, we should remember there are uncounted votes of US citizens here that would have added hundreds of thousands to Gore's victory in the (irrelevant) popular vote.
The island government spent $500,000 on this exercise. A member of the Puerto Rico Senate runs an English-language radio talk show. He was re-elected but his pro-statehood party is now in the minority, and callers demanded that his party reimburse the state. They criticized him for calling this expenditure an "investment." They blurred the issues of whether the problem was his use of the term (as though he were "investing" his own money), the wisdom of the expenditure (viewed in isolation or compared to the island's other needs), the risk of this "investment" (whether or not he should have known the question would be struck down), or the partisanship of putting this question on the ballot.
SSS insurance distributed free general admission at the Bithorn and "paid" attendance was an incredible 19,424 (though it took forever to leave the parking lot afterward). Oasis 2000 (a water company) had four cheerleaders in knit bikinis dancing on the home dugout roof at every pitching change.
Two trophies were displayed on a table, as Santurce won the PR league and the Caribbean Series. The owner threw the first pitch and both national anthems were played on a trombone. El Nuevo Día counts 38 Puerto Ricans who played in the majors last year who aren't on rosters here as the season begins; some were objects of Puerto Rico trades before their status was known, and they hope some join the league later on.
Scouts came to the game early; Bill Singer of the Dodgers copied uniform numbers from the rosters that I got at the team office. The Dodgers sent two scouts, who divided the six teams among them so as to share equally the out-of-town duties. A Hispanic Dodgers fan arrived with Singer's own baseball card for him to sign.
Carlos Pieve began his newspaper column evaluating the first week with a comment on the poor attendance. He said Opening Day was televised and any viewer could see through the reported 19,424 figure.
There were showers in three innings, and a six-run shower in the bottom of the 2nd off starter Jamie Walker. They took him deep for two doubles and two triples and that was the game. Carolina's only early scoring was a walk that forced in an unearned run in the 2nd, and ditto but earned in the 4th. Both teams got another in the 6th. Ken Marrero came on in the bottom of the 8th and gave up two more. Carolina got them back in the top of the 9th off Bayamón closer Pat Flury, who took the loss last Saturday. But the second run scored in the 9th, on a play in which Bayamón also got the final out, was never posted on the scoreboard.
J.D.Arteaga got the win, giving up one run in 6 innings. Francisco J. Oliveras pitched a perfect 7th. He gave up an unearned run in the 8th, maintaining an ERA of zero. The Carolina run reached base on an error and scored on a doubleplay that, were it not for the error, would have ended the inning. Caguas got all of its 5 runs by the fourth inning. Caguas is batting .313 and pitching 2.57, best in both categories. Due to odd scheduling and the unfinished Roberto Clemente stadium, the next three Caguas home dates, tomorrow and the 20th and 22nd (DH), are against Carolina again.
Rafael Orellanos began by issuing a walk and two hits. A double later in the inning made it 3-0 and this was the difference in the game. Caguas made it 3-2 in the third and it remained 3-2 until the 8th. In the top of the 8th, Caguas loaded the bases on walks by two pitchers; a double scored two, a third run scored on a passed ball, and a fourth scored on a single. Fans started leaving.
In the bottom of the 8th, the corpulent Héctor Villanueva led off for Caguas and I began yelling "Hector" as I do when he visits Nashua, N.H. in the summer (the H here is silent), because here someone else started it. It was contagious and it turns out that what they are yelling is "Porky." The scoreboard would eventually display "Porky Power," and when Caguas won the league and reached the Caribbean World Series, the Spanish-language broadcasters would mention Porky Power in English whenever Villanueva came to bat. In contrast, Héctor Ortiz batted ninth for the Criollos and nobody yelled anything. Despite that huge strike zone, Villanueva walked three times tonight and walked twice last night--at the end of my trip, he was tied for the league lead with 11 walks. The 8th inning was not one of those times, but Caguas closed the gap to its final 7-4 on two errors.
I sat with some oldsters in the first row of general admission. One man introduced me to many others and described the feats of each one in the 40s in the AA league. Later Deacon Jones challenged the oldsters to remember him from decades ago. He spoke decent Cuban (that is, obscenity-laden) Spanish, but some of the swears were English. He explained that he grew up in New York City in a gang (they told him the Spanish word is "ganga") and "after those years, I wasn't going to be afraid of any little white ball."
Now having to make a choice, I drove to Caguas, again hosting Carolina, and it was the best game of the trip. Carolina scored first with two doubles; Caguas countered with a triple and a homer. Carolina tied in the 3rd, Caguas got 3 in the 5th, Carolina got a grand slam in the 7th, Caguas tied and went ahead in the bottom of the 7th. Caguas closer Courtney Duncan came in but loaded the bases. Andres Torres pinch-ran as the tying run at third. With one out, José Viera hit a pitch into right field about 270 feet, just foul. Your cowardly correspondent explained to anyone who would listen that RF Corey Patterson needed to let the ball fall to the ground so that the run couldn't score. This wouldn't be scored an error. But he caught it and gunned Torres out at the plate to end the game.
The only scoring was a Caguas rally in the 4th, begun by Villanueva's second double of the season. Two singles and two outs later, Héctor Ortiz hit a double and Dennis Colón, who had just joined the Caguas team, ended the inning by being easily thrown out at home. Don't know if Colón ignored a sign, but Joel Chimelis immediately replaced him at 1B. J.D.Arteaga (now 3-0) shut Carolina out for 6 innings, but in the 7th, they insisted on using DeWitt (to face one leftie) and Duncan (the closer). The oldsters also found the specialization excessive.
For real excess, Caguas lost the nightcap, 13-2, which lasted until midnight. Francisco Oliveras started, went 2, and took the loss; El Chimilón was ineffective in 2; and so were three others. In the 2nd, Robert Cosby muffed a foul pop out and then baubled a fair chopper against the same batter. The official number of earned runs makes sense only if you assume that this batter would personally have made the 2nd and 3rd outs.
In the middle of the 1st, Ponce starter Ricky Bones warmed up, then had a long talk with the umpire, pointing to his wrist. The issue was a rubber band he was wearing. Caguas manager Santos Alomar had a longer and more heated discussion, then play resumed. Alex Cora singled and Luis Matos bunted him over and broke a finger. Alomar was back out to argue for five more minutes. An inning later Bones hit Caguas DH Aaron Rowand in the knee, forcing him to leave the game and sidelining him for several days.
My neighbors predicted a retaliation; indeed Caguas starter Rafael Orellanos started the third with a double to the ninth man in the order and hit the next batter, José Flores. I thought Flores leaned into the pitch, but the benches cleared and the teams met at the mound, including a lot of team personnel and even the crazy woman who throws candy at people from the dugout roof. (She also shook an entire fifth of rum onto nearby fans two days ago. Aside from Martin the Cowboy Chicken, she is as close as the other 5 teams come to having a mascot.) After much milling about, the plunk of Flores was indeed overturned but Orellanos was tossed anyway for arguing. The field was cleared; then Caguas catcher Héctor Ortiz charged at an umpire but wasn't ejected. Alomar returned for a long negotiation, again heading for the very tolerant crew chief at second base.
El Chimilón came on in relief. The un-beaned Flores bunted and popped fifteen feet straight up and into the catcher's glove. But El Chimilón let Orellanos' runner score and reloaded the bases, two of whom also scored. At 1 hour 32 minutes we reached the middle of the 3rd. Caguas got 1 back in the bottom of the inning but gave up 3 more.
El Nuevo Día gave me a rare disappointment by omitting explanation of the theatrics. The writer only mentions a "tied up" (pegado) Orellanos/Flores at-bat (and says Flores later "fanned") and spends his ink on the mechanics by which the runs were scored.
Bayamón's Doug Linton got the win; he went 7 innings with only two gopher balls accounting for 4 runs. The first one dropped in front of The Outfield sports bar; the second hit the giant inflatable replica of a bottle of Medalla Light, one of three floats on top of The Outfield. Linton came into the 7-11 in Isla Verde where I went for ordinary US coffee; I guided him to El Nuevo Día for the box score.
Caguas hosted the same Indians they had beaten the night before in Mayagüez. In the first game, Chris McBride let Caguas score 2 in the 1st but pitched five without allowing further damage. He hit on the leg the 6th and 8th batters in the order in the 4th inning; that got the fans going but a bad base-stealing attempt ended the threat. Four Caguas pitchers let Mayagüez score a run per inning so it was tied at 4-4 at the end of the regulation 7 innings. Then Francisco Oliveras entered, as the top of the 8th featured one error, and only because you can't count as an error failure to turn a doubleplay and failure of the pitcher to back up a throw from the outfield. Another dropped throw from the outfield to retire a baserunner wasn't an error either. The bottom of the inning was unoffensive. Mayagüez 6-4 in eight; Ernie Nieves got the win.
The second game was really unoffensive; Caguas sent only 26 batters to the plate (21 is the minimum in 7 innings). Chris Rojas pitched 6-1/3 for the win; he griped to the 3B umpire in the 5th, just before hitting Héctor Ortiz in the thigh. El Chimilón pitched 4 and took the loss. Caguas committed 4 errors compared to 1 hit.
There was a rare strikeout 1-3; the third strike got away and the pitcher tracked it halfway up the 3B foul line to complete the play. Saw a pitch that went to the backstop ruled a passed ball because the batter made a horrible swing. The very next pitch did the same thing and was ruled a wild pitch. And finally, a cute grounder that bounced off the thirdbaseman's glove and straight up. The shortstop drew a bead on it like a pop fly, caught it, and gunned the ball home. The catcher couldn't hold it but the runner's slide was to the right of the plate. Don't know what was said but about two seconds after this event, the runner crawled back to the plate and the catcher was late with the tag. The umpire did everything correctly, patiently waiting for someone to make an official play.
Saúl Rivera is the second Rivera on the Caguas pitching staff. His nickname is El Monaguillo which they say means The Acolyte. Regarding Angel Miranda's nickname, no one knows what a chimilón is.
PS--My home-town Nashua Pride acquired Miranda late in the 2001 Atlantic League summer season. He says his father gave him that nickname, and he doesn't know what it means either.
Moving to my row was a man who had either read or caused the Wall Street Journal article about people getting back at airlines. He was being directed to a seat in Row 5 (coach) that he bought, from Row 4 (first class), where he had sat. But they let him keep both his drinks. He told his new seat-mates he was moving back to coach so his wife with the bad knees could fly first class (although both the vacated seats were now occupied by black men). He enchanted these elderly neighbors with other stories. I hoped they did not have spare money to invest.
Arriving in San Juan, the only problem was that the rental car I was given (to park in vacant lots near various dilapidated ballparks) was bright red and the odometer read 000002. A less flashy car was easily negotiated and two latecomers who benefited from this exchange appreciated the upgrade that fell into their laps.
Even though the 18-Nov game took 3:25 and it was midnight before I returned to this hotel, there was parking left. But the next car over had an alarm that has been sounding continuously, playing a well-known and deliberately irritating tune I refer to as the "national anthem of" whatever country it is. The night watchman hoped that, if it doesn't rain hard again, the alarm might be silent. I said we all had to register our cars and he must know whose it is, and the owner could disable the alarm. He said he didn't know who owned the car, because many guests don't register their cars anyway; the bottom line is he was not about to call the tow truck. I pressed him and he returned to the front desk to see if they did know the owner. It is not the first incident that suggests that, in Latin America, such a ruckus at midnight in the middle of the hotel zone does not require special attention. The kicker is that there is no evidence the device actually affects criminal behavior; it is a placebo in a society where there is no cost to irritating other people. In the US, we simply ask you ritual questions regarding whether you have packed your own luggage.
On 24-Nov, in a driving rain, a game in Caguas was suspended in the bottom of the 7th. I imagined the puny motel parking lot filling up and left a game early for the first time this year. But radio on the way home said the result was final. There was one space left.
The next day, despite returning earlier, there was no parking, but waiting a half hour let me take the desk clerk's space on the street. This wait included people of various social classes and levels of inebriation drinking on the street, and a steady stream of cars either trolling for parking spaces or tricked by the one-way service drive that gives every indication of dumping back onto Route 37 until the last minute. The hotel used to rent the vacant lot next door for more parking, but the owner wouldn't sell it (nor, evidently, keep renting it).