Caribbean Series-Baseball
Ruizb@aol.com
Fri, 10 Feb 1995 18:33:50 -0500
Puerto Rico hosted the Baseball Caribbean series of baseball.
It was a big event. Because of the Major League strike, many of
the best Latin players that normally are not given permission
to play were playing. More on that farther down this letter.
At the opening ceremonies, Margarita, Jose Roman, and
Cindy Torres, along with three persons on stilts & three
jugglers did a 5 minute funny sketch.
The stadium was filled to capacity, 21,000 fans + local TV +
TV to other LatinAmerican countries & TV tu the USA
Spanish speaking nations.
Margarita hit a "home run" on her unicycle. Jose Roman played
third base. One of the men on stilts tried to steal third base.
Jose rode between his legs, then came from behind, and
carried the runner on his (Jose's) shoulders back to second
base. Of course, without dismounting.
At another time Jose carried Cindy on his shoulder. She was
standing up on his shoulder who had the third base bag.
We have natural grass on our stadium, and it is not as well
kept as the major league stadiums.
I still don't know how Jose can do all those things.
I thought it was very interesting how we could mix two different
disciplines, stilts & unis, each with their own rythm and coming
out with such a good end product.
Back to baseball. Venezuela, Mexico, the Dominican Republic,
& Puerto Rico participated in a round-robin where every team
played each other twice. Puerto Rico & the Dominicans clearly
had the best two teams. The Dominicans has a big leaguer on
almost every position. Their two starters against Puerto Rico
were Jose Rijo who plays for Cincinatti (and who many consider
the best pitcher in the NL) and Pedro Martinez of Montreal,
one of the best young arms in baseball. Neither could get past
the fourth inning against PR. Position players included NL Rookie
of the year Raul Mondesi & Houston's Andujar Cedeno. They
were coaches by Art Howe.
At catcher we had Carlos Delgado who played some left
field for Toronto, & Javi Lopez of Atlanta. AL All-Star Ivan
Rodriguez didn't make the team. At first base our only none
big leaguer, Carmelo Martinez. Second base, Roberto Alomar,
AL All-Star from Toronto, SS Ray Sanchez from the Cubs.
Third Base, Carlos Baerga AL All-Star from Cleveland. LF
Juan Gonzalez AL All-Star from Texas. Home-Run Champ the
last two big leagues complete seasons. CF, Bernie Williams,
from the NY Yankees. RF Ruben Sierra AL All-Star from Oakland,
DH Edgar Martinez who plays for Seattle in the AL & was the
1993 AL batting champion. PR won. Rickie Bones of Milwaukee
pitches the clincher. Roberto Hernandez of the White Sox
finished the game for him.
The Dominicans were second losing only the two games
against us. Roberto Alomar was the MVP.