Los Deportes

When you think of Hispanic countries and sports, the first sport that the majority of people will think of is Soccer. In Colombia, it’s no different. Little kids walk around wearing soccer jerseys, kicking soccer balls down the beach. There are makeshift fields everywhere, many of them just fenced in lots of dirt with two goals. It’s all about the game here.

But Soccer isn’t the only sport that people participate in. Down the street from my aunt and uncles house sits a softball stadium where I was lucky enough to see half a game this evening.

The stadium was packed full of people, mostly young but there were a few older gentlemen and ladies there, cheering for Los Indios (the Indians-apparently it’s not an offensive term down here) and Los Eagles.

This wasn’t a beer league either. This was serious, fast-pitch softball. Coaches were calling signs to batters and runners. Every player was playing his heart out; stealing bases whenever they could, snapping throws from center field all the way home. All of the players were communicating well with each other and taking the game very serious.

A couple of amazing notes: the field only had two sponsors, a local technical college and a bar. The scoreboard was like the scoreboard at Wrigley (nothing digital) and, I assume, there was a little kid inside the scoreboard counting balls, strikes, outs and runs. None of the players threw with their left hand and only one player batted left-handed. The bases weren’t even attached to the ground and when a player would slide into a base, it would often go flying into the fence. Many of the Eagles players wore hats from the University of Miami and a few of the fans in the stands wore shirts from the University of Alabama (the SEC apparently gets a lot of love in Colombia, although the Big Ten was close behind as I saw a few hats from the University of Wisconsin).

Although the Eagles massacred the Indians (I believe the score was 14-7), there was something more that brought the people of Cartagena together tonight: a sense of community.

From what I could gather, most of the people there knew each other (I went with my cousin and he must’ve introduced to a half dozen people and talked with numerous others in the 45 minutes we were there). I guess it’s pretty similar to going to sporting events in the United States, but it was much more of a homely atmosphere. People who were cheering for the opposites sides weren’t sitting around busting each others chops (although at times, fans for the Eagles would blow horns when Indian players were at bat); everyone was very cordial with each other. It was definitely a treat to be a part of this experience.