Day 7: Chinese Taipei vs Mexico

We had a Sunday afternoon game at the nicer stadium: Chinese Taipei vs Mexico. The stadium, which I'm told seats about 20,000 was about 3/4 full. I worked third base, so I had an opportunity to really soak up the atmosphere. It was really a festive crowd. I was trying to pick out the songs they were at times chanting (I should say the melodies, as I don't think they were singing American words). In any case, at different points of the game I heard remnants of the following: Popeye the Sailor Man, She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain, When the Saints Come Marchin' In, and the theme from Hawaii 5-0. This in addition to the rhythmic beating of drums, blowing of whistles, and the pounding of thundersticks and megaphones. I had plenty of time to witness this, as we were out there for almost four hours. The first four innings went by quickly in just over an hour, and then we dropped anchor.

There were some interesting plays in the game, which Mexico won 9-5. We had a pole-bender home run (not on my line), a play where a caught stealing was erased due to the ball being a foul ball rather than a foul tip, and warnings issued because a batter took issue with being hit with a pitch. No one on the crew believed he was being intentionally thrown at, but after the benches stated emptying, Corrie (our plate umpire) appropriately put a stop to any thoughts of retaliation. Even though the spread in the game was four runs, Chinese Taipei had the bases loaded and the tying run at the plate when the game ended. In addition to Corrie and I, we had our Japanese umpire at first (Kuma) and Nelson (from Cuba) at second. Corrie did a real nice job on the plate, particularly in light of the length of the game. He handles himself very well on the field and has a very even disposition when situations arise.

Monday was an off-day for us so we went out last night (Sunday) once people were back from the late games. Neil, Fred, Corrie, Willie, Oswaldo, and one of our guides/interpreters (Johnny) all were aboard. We went to a Mexican cantina named Frog's. I hadn't had anything to drink since our party on the boat a week ago, so the Margaritas went down real well. The bartenders were great to us and we met an American guy who works for Corning and spends months at a time in Taiwan. Johnny is a real shy college kid who is majoring in Spanish, and he started to loosen up and have more and more fun as the night progressed.

When Frog's gave us the boot, we went up the street to a karaoke place, where we butchered some classics over the course of the next 2 1/2 hours. We met a girl in there who spoke some English and she even joined in on the fun with us. I think the highlight of that part of the evening was when she and Johnny sang a duet, or perhaps when Fred, who had been shying away from the microphone grabbed it and did a great rendition of the Carpenters' "Yesterday Once More." It should also be pointed out for the record that Oswaldo has a great set of pipes, but we have banned him from wearing his canary yellow shirt for the rest of the trip.

I took many photos throughout this night, which I will try and upload at some point later today. For now, I need to clean up, have some lunch, and see the sites of the city. I think Corrie is going to walk around downtown with me and we'll see what we can see.