Dear Nica Times:
In recent weeks, I have found that it is very difficult to be a baseball fan in Nicaragua.
It’s not because I don’t love baseball, or that the level of play is not good here, but because it has become mission impossible to find out what time the games are played – or, more accurately, to get the league to stick to its own schedule.
On Nov. 20, some friends and I planned to go to the 6 p.m. baseball game in Masaya.
An hour before the game, as we were preparing to leave the house, I decided to double-check the Web page to make sure that they didn’t change the game time at the last minute. (As you can see, this wasn’t my first rodeo.)
Sure enough, the game had been rescheduled to 1:30 p.m. – in other words, we had already missed it.
Never ones to be deterred easily, we rescheduled our baseball outing for Nov. 23, a Friday afternoon game so we could enjoy the weather and have a few beers to celebrate the end of the week.
Trying to figure out what time the game was supposed to start again proved to be no easy task.
The original schedule for the 2007-2008 season showed the game starting at 6 p.m. The revised schedule (the one printed in The Nica Times), showed the game starting at 1:30 p.m.
But the crazy and whimsical last minute league schedule, showed the game starting at 4 p.m. Even on the league’s Web page, the same game was shown as starting at 1:30 p.m. and 4 p.m., depending on where you clicked.
Frustrated, yet determined not to miss another game because of the league’s internal madness, I decided to call the league’s central office to ask them what time they thought the game was starting.
The friendly woman who answered the phone told me “the game starts at 1:30.” I explained to her that it was also listed as starting at 4, and she answered, “Oh yeah, the game starts at 4.”
Hmmmm. I guess the only way to make sure you don’t miss the game here is to go to the ballpark first thing in the morning and hope the ticket guy knows when to let you in.
Now, as I head out the door to go to the ballpark – with perhaps a 40% chance of actually seeing a game – I just hope that the league has got the date and the city right, and that the game isn’t actually being played tomorrow … in Chinandega.
(P.S. The game was at 6, and it got rained out).
Név Hamis
Granada
