Yucatan Leones Vs Tabasco Potros
We'd talked about it for some time, since we arrived in Merida a couple of months ago: Going to a Merida Leones baseball game. Futbol, soccer is number 1 in the Yucatan, along with the rest of Mexico but beisbol is a close second, and very hot here in Merida where their beloved Leones won the title last year.
Having picked this Friday night's game to attend, we decide to brave the bus system to Kulkulcan stadium in the chancy southeast corner of the city. We head for the bus stop by foot, walking to the heart of Centro Historico in the center of this grand old colonial city of 760,000 founded in 1542. We admire the beautiful white limestone construction of the lovely casas and government buildings we walk past. Just a block from Lucas de Galves, Merida's huge mercado and right where we had heard it would be, is a line of autobuses “especial” just for the game. We get on and wait maybe 15 minutes in the 95 degree heat and we're off. The bus meanders through the south-east part of the city for about 25 minutes when suddenly the bus driver pulls over and motions across the street to Kulkulcan stadium.
Kulkulcan stadium is quite impressive in its scale and its very colorful design. Many bold colors, indigo blues, vibrant reds, brilliant yellows, splash its façade. We walk up to the ticket box and look at a painted stadium ticket diagram. You can get a 10 Peso ticket, about a buck, good only for the outfield stands, the cheap seats. The highest priced seats, the private boxes are 90P. We settle on what everyone else seems to be buying, the 50P “butaca” seats, which are right along the field. We walk in and get settled. We find that we can sit anywhere in the butaca area except where the seats are marked abondado, reserved. Most seats are available. As I watch batting practice for the opposing team, Mary goes and checks on the souvenir shops. She wants to get Leones shirts for our two boys. We do change seats a couple times; once to get out from behind the screen and another because people were standing next to the railing and blocking our view. They did sit down when the game started. We find ourselves sitting next to a real fan and his wife. They spend the whole game jumping up and down; cheering, booing and eating. It was amazing! For a skinny guy, his wife not so much, they both can really put it away.
The food offerings are nothing like in the states, of course, although they have something familiar that is awfully tempting, a huge ham and cheese hoagie w/chips. We see very colorful cotton candy, kibis, and esquites, a cooked corn treat in a bag. Fans have the vendors just slop the salsa on their esquites til it nearly soaks thru the bottom of the bag. Mary orders one beer, a corona and it is the cheapest beer we've found in the Yucatan yet, just 14P! The beer vendors, here, do it differently. They take orders for beers, pop, bottled water, and then they go fill up a 5 gallon bucket with the beverages on ice and deliver their orders. I like their system.
There's pre-game entertainment of course and sex sells in Mexico like nowhere else, I think. The Leones have a pair of young bare-midriff ball girls who wear white, form fitting pants, that show these girls are no strangers to Butt Blaster machines. Every time they appear from the dugout to run balls to the umpire they get catcalls and whistles from the crowd. They is also a dance team of scantily clad, beautiful young girls that perform between innings, too. And of course they have a mascot. A little guy dressed in a leones, lion's suit. He also dons a cadaver suit, when the other team has a pitching change, and other costumes appropriate for game changes.
The music is loud and there's a pair of drummers in the second deck behind home plate who keep an energetic beat going almost the whole time. The stadium fills gradually and they don't get their full crowd til around the 3rd inning and then I'd say the 13,000 cap. stadium is about three quarters full. The game starts off slowly, with the opposing Potros de Tabasco getting single runs in the 1st and 2nd. Both starting pitchers are clocked between 80 and 85. The Potros pitcher has a dynamite curve that he'll throw on any count. It's still 2-0 in the fourth when the Potros pitcher, with two outs, walks the bases loaded. With the sacks jammed he finally finds the zone and gets the Leon batter to pop out. The stands go crazy; the eating-machine fan next to me nearly loses his mind. I hear “Basura”, garbage being shouted from all around me. I feel sorry for the player.
Finally in the 5th, the Leones get their hitting shoes on. They get a bases loaded opposite field triple to right that scores a couple runs, and they add one more to knot it at 3. The next inning they get an insurance run and in the 7th, with nobody on, their beefy catcher, Said, pronounced Sy eed , Guttierrez, who's listed at 6'1” and 225 lbs, comes to the plate. He gets a shoulder high fast ball and unloads a rocket into the left field stands! The foul poles are 330' and dead center is 400' so I estimate it to be about a 370' shot. The crowd goes wild with chants of “Said! Said!”
Even with the Leones bats coming alive, the game drags with all the pitching changes. The Potros have run at least four relievers out there and the Leones, a couple. At least the relievers have some heat. One of the Leones' relievers clocks in at 88 and his Potros counterpart hits 91. The quality of play is just a little less than I would have guessed. I had googled that this Mexican league was rated triple A, but, and only based on this one game, I don't agree. They make all the routine plays but about only half of the tough ones, although they are never scored errors.
After the 8th, with the Leones in control leading 7-3, we decide to hit the exit and beat the rush to the buses. These hard, plastic seats are not very comfortable, but we'll be back!
