The Azuero Classic

Over the course of my life, I have attended hundreds of sporting events. Some memorable, others mostly forgettable. But two weeks ago, I attended the Azuero Classic and it immediately became one of the most memorable events I’ve attended.

What is the Azuero Classic? It is a baseball game between Herrera (the province I live in) and Los Santos (the province directly below Herrera). These two provinces make up the Azuero Peninsula here in Panama. Naturally, because of the proximity of the two provinces, there is quite the rivalry between the two teams.

So that’s the background for the game. The game took place in the Los Santos stadium, which is in Las Tablas, about an hour bus ride for me. For the game, I was joined by four other Peace Corps Volunteers who live in the Azuero. One calls Herrera his home, while the other three live in Los Santos. Additionally we were joined by some community memebers of the volunteers that live in Los Santos. Here’s a photo of the group:

Now we have that out of the way, I feel like this would be a good time to mention that the adult beverages at the game were 65 cents, so the whole crowd was fired up as the first pitch was thrown. None moreso then the respective bands fo each team, who would play when the other team is pitching.

Los Santos jumped on the board first with a towering two run home run that ended up in a graveyard (not exactly McCovey Cove) over the left field wall. With that, the Los Santos crowd exploded and my Herrera friend and I were on the receiving end of some Spanish taunting.

The top half of the next inning saw Herrera put guys on first and second with no outs. However, the Herrera batter lined out to the first baseman who then tagged the guy caught of first before firing to second to get that runner. That’s right, a triple play! Again, the home crowd exploded and I hung my head as I had a lot more things yelled at me that I didn’t understand.

Everything was at a fever pitch when the game turned on its heels in the bottom of the third. With a Los Santos runner on third, the Herrera pitcher uncorked a wild pitch that went to the backstop. Despite no throw, the Los Santos guy went crashing into the Herrera pitcher. And with that, pandemonium everywhere. The Herrera pitcher started swinging at the Los Santos guy and both benches emptied. You can see the brawl here.

But it gets better. The Herrera-Los Santos fans in the stands started to get into it. Since we were right on the boarder of the two fan bases, we got to see beers and beer cans go flying at each other. Eventually the police came up into the stands to calm everybody down.

After about a twenty minute delay, the game resumed. It was hard to match the intensity after that and Los Santos eased its way to a 5-1 win. Leaving the stadium, my friend and I received some more good natured Spanish trash talking. It was quite enjoyable; I just wish I had a good comeback.