Angels in the Jardin
VIEWPOINT
by Jennie Reiff
I thought Anaheim fans were adept with Thunder Stix until I heard 10,000 Puerto Ricans use them to spontaneously burst into a perfect salsa rhythm.
I recently traveled with three friends to San Juan to watch the Angels take on the Montreal Expos at Hiram Bithorn Stadium, the Expos’ part-time home during the 2003 baseball season. I was curious to see how Major League Baseball, and the Angels in particular, would be accepted on the island.
The New York Mets, Texas Rangers and Florida Marlins were logical choices to be among the opponents for the Expos’ 22 “home games” in San Juan because of their many Hispanic players, including Puerto Rican superstars Roberto Alomar, Juan Gonzalez and Ivan Rodriguez. Though the Angels have just two less-heralded Puerto Rican players (brothers Bengie and Jose Molina), I expected that the team’s status as World Champions would make it popular with the Puerto Rican fans.
As it turned out, that wasn’t the case. Aside from a few other die-hards who made the trip from Southern California and a large contingent of Molina family and friends, the fans seemed largely indifferent about the particulars of which teams were playing.
The Angels were never booed, and the Expos were rarely cheered (of course, after giving up 26 runs, 39 hits and 13 home runs to the Angels in the first two games, there wasn’t much reason to cheer for them). A few people wore T-shirts and hats depicting the logo for the series,an Expos logo next to the Puerto Rican flag,but I don’t recall seeing anyone wearing regular Expos gear.
The most prevalent name around the ballpark was that of Banco Popular, Puerto Rico’s largest bank and the title sponsor of the Expos’ series on the island. The company’s name and logo were ubiquitous during the games, comprising the majority of advertising on the field and in the free souvenir program. Banco Popular even created a Spanish version of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” specifically for the Puerto Rican series. The song manages to mention both the Expos and the company, rhyming “popular” with “cuadangular,” the Spanish word for home run. However, very few people stood during the stretch, and even fewer sang.
Traditional American baseball game customs seemed gratuitous in San Juan. Many times the trumpet call would blare out, followed by silence rather than the “charge!” heard in the U.S. After the scoreboard showed the “bobblehead scramble,” no one yelled out the number of the figure under which the Expos logo was hidden. In America, these diversions are meant to create excitement. In Puerto Rico, they’re unnecessary. I have never seen spectators more intent on the game,and yet at the same time as comfortably detached,as in Puerto Rico.
Despite Southern California’s increased interest in the Angels from last year’s fantastic season, attending a game in Anaheim still feels as much like a social function as a sports event. In Puerto Rico, it’s all about baseball. The fans cheered when it was warranted, not because they were expected to. There were no waves or beach balls.
That’s not to say that the Puerto Rican fans didn’t have some fun with diversions. The Expos mascot Youppi made an occasional appearance between innings, though his Latin dancing suggested that it was not a French-Canadian inside the costume. Curiously, a few times Youppi had the crowd count to three, which they did in French rather than Spanish (I was unclear as to what was supposed to happen after the crowd counted, as nothing ever seemed to).
The rhythmic beat of the Thunder Stix and the between-inning breaks peppered with salsa music, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony gave the atmosphere a Caribbean flavor. Also adding to the flavor of the ballpark were the virgin pi & #324;a coladas, which were circulated by vendors far more often than Pepsi products, and plantain chips sold in small bags like potato chips. And, of course, nearly all of the announcements were made in Spanish.
There were other differences between these games and those in the U.S. Far fewer women and children attend games in Puerto Rico,I estimated that 90% of the crowd was adult males. And even with some last-minute bleacher additions, Hiram Bithorn Stadium seats only 19,000,somewhat larger than a minor league stadium in the states.
Yet the Expos and their opponents have struggled to fill even this small venue. Although some of the games have sold out, the Angels drew only between 10,000 and 11,000 per game. Local diehards blamed the turnout on the stadium, not on a lack of fans. A cab driver I talked to was convinced that Major League baseball could succeed in Puerto Rico if it were played in a state-of-the-art ballpark seating at least 40,000. He claimed it would sell out routinely.
I thought the cabbie was overzealous until I considered that the average ticket price at Hiram Bithorn, even with a lack of pricey skyboxes and luxury seats, is $35. That’s second highest in the Majors, and way above Montreal’s average price of $9. With a larger stadium, more tickets could be offered at affordable prices.
There is no doubt that Puerto Ricans love baseball which, despite gains by basketball, remains their national pastime. The coliseum next to the stadium is named for baseball great Roberto Clemente, a national icon of Puerto Rico, and many of today’s best players hail from the island.
Although economic factors are likely to prevent a big-league team from making a permanent home in Puerto Rico, there is a good chance that the island will become a regular stop on the Major League schedule.
And why not? There is nothing quite like kicking back and enjoying a game with a pi & #324;a colada and a handful of plantain chips. I’ve never liked the bobblehead scramble anyway.
Reiff is a staff writer with the Lake Forest PR firm Waters & Faubel.
