Global Baseball

Last night Mr. Beisbolfan and I went to see the Arizona Diamondbacks play the Mexican national team in a spring training game. The game was a warm-up for the World Baseball Classic, which the Mexican team will play in along with teams from 15 other countries, including the U.S. The WBC is a relatively new event, which has been embraced by baseball fans worldwide, but not so much in our country. I had recently heard some comments on the radio about how passionately worldwide fans root for their countries, especially Latin Americans. Last night we got to experience that passion firsthand. It struck me that most of us in the U.S. are typically rather quiet and reserved, while Mexicans, for example, wear their emotions on their sleeves, and aren't afraid to express themselves. Last night's crowd was split between Diamondbacks fans and fans of the Mexican team, many of whom had come from Sonora for the game. It's hard to say how many were rooting for each team, but the Mexican fans were definitely loudest and most enthusiastic. Lots of them were wearing green shirts & hats, to match the color of their team. There were also some people wearing Venezuelan hats and jerseys. They were among the 8 people sitting in the 4 seats in front of us. On one side of us were a man and his 6 or 7 year old son from Mexico. They sat quietly at first, then the son started yelling at the game in Spanish, only breaking into English once to shout "You suck!". The atmosphere in the stadium was electric, and felt more like a playoff game than just the first week of Spring Training. The Diamondbacks were just working on stretching and working out kinks & improving swings, but the game meant a lot more to the Mexican team and their fans. I'm sure there were lots of happy people when the Mexican team finally won, 19-4, but by then Mr. Beisbolfan and I were home with our hungry dogs.


former Cy Young award winner Brandon Webb heading to the mound

game action

2 flags over TEP

D'backs béisbol