Mayagüez Indians "The Sultana of the West" at Estadio Isidoro "Cholo" García Revised in October 2003

The courtyard is the neighborhood's Plaza de Armas

On the side street facing the ballpark, houses have been turned into noisy bars and pool halls open to the street, beer is cheap and it's India (the tasty beer brewed in Mayagüez). Ambulantes with no relation to the team sell shishkebab and fruits in the promenade outside the stadium. There are a few beggars, and they tell me about drug deals and muggings. Drunkenness is epidemic but there is no liquor control or police reaction until maybe after a fight starts.

The baseball tradition, after all, does not go back very far in Latin America. But a tradition that has existed for centuries is to dress up in Sunday finery, take your partner for a stroll in the Plaza de Armas in the center of town, and catch up on the gossip. While the metropolitan ballparks are far away, zoned into their own district far from residences, expensive to get to and maintained for the sole purpose of getting customers in and out, García, with its stone benches that each ring a shade tree, is in fact the Plaza de Armas for the nearby housing projects. You can enter the court for free (indeed, you must in order to approach the ticket window) and, once there, most people come in to watch the game. By comparison, if two hundred people loitered outside the Bithorn, the San Juan police would call for water cannons.

Bright sunshine beats down on the infield, even in winter

After disappearing for a couple years, the Indians web site is back and is the first official Puerto Rico team web site to show the high quality of a minor-league web site in the US or México. The old web site warned that local fans treat baseball with a religious fervor. It's true; fans take umpiring decisions personally and react viscerally and loudly. Once the umpires took several minutes to discuss something with someone in the stands; later in the game, the shouts from one section became so heated that four policemen took notice.

The scoreboard has a line score and a two-line message board that shows the name and defensive position of each batter. The PA announcer conscientiously announces substitutions. They play music between innings and have a few sound effects. The outfield has a small fence with a higher barrier behind it. Both bullpens are beside the grandstand and not visible to most of the fans or the media.

Recent History

Directions

• It's an hour beyond Ponce in the southeast, clockwise around the island on Route 2. This is mostly a 4-lane divided highway with some limited access. There are traffic lights every couple of miles, but at night after a game, the lights are usually with you.

• It's no farther from San Juan if you go counterclockwise around the coast (that's Route 2 as well). I dislike the traffic and the toll-booth anarchy on Route 22 to Arecibo. But after it becomes Route 2 and you make the sudden left turn at Aguadilla, the views of the sea and the mountain ridges are spectacular.

García is on the south end of Mayagüez, well south of the zone of international hotels and shopping centers with American chains, in an area of housing projects. The light standards are visible to the west and are only a few blocks away. Everyone has a horse, some are ridden or are pulling bicyclists; after a while you see horses beyond the fences grazing on the shoulder of the road (from time to time, they tell me, one enters the roadway and gets hit). If driving north from Ponce, you go through a commercial zone, but the left turn to the centro deportivo is marked by a green sign.

When the light standards are directly west, turn toward them from Route 2 onto Duscombe and pass more housing projects on the right. The stadium is on your left; a lovely Atlantic Ocean beach is straight ahead; and you have run out of road. Turn left to park.