Todos Somos Guerreros

One of the many reasons I wish we had stayed in Oaxaca just a few weeks longer back in 2013 was that we left just a bit before the beginning of baseball season, so we didn't have a chance to see the Oaxaca Guerreros play. So we very quickly remedied that this trip, seeing them the first night they were in town, and hoping to go again in the time we are here.

It is AAA baseball, but at the same time it is different in many ways. For starters, it's dirt cheap to go to a game. The three of us bought tickets that were general admission and ended up sitting three rows behind home plate -- for 70 pesos (less than five US dollars). The snacks were also cheap, meaning that we could indulge our son with potato chips and a paleta and popcorn, all while I was indulging on 20 peso beers.

The energy was similar in a lot of ways to minor league games in the states -- Guerreros fans even did the Tomahawk Chop, which made the Braves fan in me happy even if the relationship with Native Americans seems even more complicated here -- but different in many others. There were cheerleaders, they played loud music during the entire atbats of home players, and people sold fresh empanadas in the stands. Oh, and the visiting team had a little person as a batboy, which added to the surrealism of the event.

One similarity to games in the US is that we couldn't bring our own water bottles in. We had already been surprised when, the day before at the Guelaguetza, we got busted for trying to bring water and food in and they let us check these items and when the event ended we just walked by a tarp where they had laid out everyone's checked food and water and picked up our Dasani bottles and sandwiches. But the baseball game did this one better, as not only did the security guard allow us to check our water bottle by placing it on a shelf next to the entrance, but he encouraged me to come back at any point during the game if I wanted a drink from it! When I told this to K, she literally laughed for five straight minutes at the absurdity of the situation.

Unfortunately in the game we saw, the Guerreros did not do very well and in fact we left after the Mexico City Diablos Rojos scored six runs in the top of the sixth, partly because the game started an hour late due to a rain delay (did I mention that it is the rainy season?) and our son was getting exhausted, and partly because I had lost hope that the Guerreros would come back. Spoiler alert: they lost 12-4.