LMB

The Shankees had their first win yesterday to bring our record to 1-2. We played in the Estadio Nacional de Beisbol, which was neat with a dash o attached. Due to our team's inability to hit for power or contact, I was moved from lead-off and made my debut in the power hitting 4 hole. Came through with a couple hits, couple RBIs but in the end I'm not a huge fan of batting clean-up.

As explained to me, the Estadio Nacional de Beisbol was constructed in 1978 by the military who were in power at the time. The dimensions are HUGE. It's 393 down the lines which is just ridic. They actually added a secondary fence about 30 feet or so inside of the outfield wall to make it smaller. To give my ig'nant female readers a better understanding it's only 310 down the left field line to the green monster in Fenway and 306 to the Pesky Pole. The reason why they made this stadium was for public relations both within the country and internationally. Anytime the military grabs power there is most likely going to be some violence, bloodshed, curfews, and overall shady practices, hence the need to create some buena onda, positive vibes, and national pride with the people. Argentina has had it's fair share of military take overs and dictators, resulting in widespread murders and disappearances, probably by 1978 they had made a lot of soccer stadiums so they went with something a bit different this time.

We played the Koreans, which was kinda crazy. It was a team of Korean immigrants, they could speak both Korean and Spanish. This was particularly amusing because our team understands/speaks Spanish but not Korean, yet when the coach wanted them to steal he would say it in Spanish, which we understood leading to a couple of pick-offs.

It's strange, just like in the US, most of the Asians live in Chinatown in Buenos Aires and a lot of them own/operate supermarkets. There are big chain supermarkets where I get my meat and stuff from but the Chinese supermarkets are everywhere and they are cheaper but a little sketchier. For example I've been told not to buy meat/dairy from them because they turn off the refrigerators at night to save money. It is a good place to buy your beer.

Question: if you buy your food from a Chinese supermarket does that make all the food you buy Chinese food?

I digress . . .

Back to the Stadium

Sweet-ass features of the Estadio:

- Fenway Park green

- Toothbrush lighting a la the field formerly known as Jacobs

- well-maintained

Stupid features:

- There is only one doorway onto the field area and it is directly behind homeplate, so you can't go through it during an inning and anytime anyone comes through it there is no way for them to close the door once they are on the field, therefore a passed-ball skips right through the doorway.

- Building a stadium that was initially 450 feet to center field

- Home dugout is on the 3rd base line (just a pet peeve of mine)

Amusing cultural tidbit of the day:

- I wanted to buy seeds from the concession stand so I asked my teammate from Venezuela, Gobbo, (that's the nickname for Gabriel and a good one for a third baseman, who gobbles up ground balls, get it?) how to say "sun flower seeds" we spent 2 minutes getting me to say it correctly with pronunciation and everything "semillas de girasol." I go to the concession stand to try and get them and the guy was like WTF? Eventually he understood and he was like "you mean "pibas." Pibas is the word they use in Argentina. I go back and I explain to Gobbo that they didn't have any and that the guy didn't know what I was talking about at first. Gobbo was like well that's because they call them "pibas" here we call them semillas de girasol in Venezuela. Thanks Gobbo.