Nicaragua: Buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks

Baseball. They say it's America's favorite pastime. It is also Nicaragua's national sport.

The rules are the same in both countries, the habits and superstitions among players are similar, and the fans equally die-hard. What is more interesting, however, are the cultural adaptations which each game takes on, depending on its location.

This past weekend I experienced my first Nicaraguan baseball game and it went a little something like this:

Saturday 1:00pm: The stadium is full and the game begins. After one inning, the rain starts, and the field quickly turns into a giant pond. The pitcher's mound is covered by a black tarp meanwhile the players and spectators watch the field become more saturated with every raindrop. Ten minutes later, an announcement is made that the game will be postponed until the following day at 9:30am. Fans are advised to save their tickets and come back the next morning.

Sunday 9:30am: Once again the stadium is full and everybody is ready to watch a great game of ball. The field, however, is not ready. It remains pretty darn wet from the rainfall the previous day and even though the crew could have shown up to the park a few hours before game time to prepare the field, they began to shovel away the wet dirt and scoop up puddles of water in the outfield at approximately 9:29am. An announcement is made that the start time will be moved back to 11am. The fans let out a collective grumble and shout in frustration at yet another delay. It's remarkable, the stadium actually fills about a half hour BEFORE the game is scheduled to start, unlike the majority of events here in which arriving late is the norm. I'm telling you, baseball is serious business. 

Sunday 11:00am: Play ball! The umpires take the field, the game is resumed, and weather conditions are sunny. The teams battle it out, fans do their share of cheering and smack-talking, and the band livens the atmosphere with their Caribbean drums. 

We reach the top of the 9th, score is tied at 2, and the clock says 1:15pm. In rolls a dark rain cloud...and...you guessed it. Another rain delay. The field drowns in rain water once again and it is soon determined that the game cannot be completed given the current conditions. The 9th inning will begin the following morning (they say at 9:30am, but who really knows). If only the game started at 9:30am on Sunday, the afternoon rain problem could have been avoided and the game probably completed. Instead, the game gets dragged out to a third day. 

Monday morning: maybe the game was finished, but we don't know because we didn't go back to watch the end, nor have we heard the result of the game since then. 

And so concludes the story of my first Nicaraguan baseball experience.