Baseball: the insane tragedy and the majesty of being/Béisbol: la tragedia del loco y la majestad de ser

I like to think of my adventure here as a version of the hero's journey. I've brought that analogy up before here. Sunday night I achieved the step called "atonement with the father." In monomyth analysis, the atonement of the father is when the hero confronts and is initiated by the person or thing that holds the ultimate power in his/her life. It's the central point of the hero's journey. Everything has led up to it and everything thereafter will be directly influenced by it. Most often this step concerns the hero meeting a human male figure, but it can be any gender or even any entity, not just a person.

Naturally, my atonement step was meeting baseball here. I went to my house of worship for my religious experience: taking in a Dominican League baseball game at Estadio Quisqueya.

Here is the photo album from the day

And the prettiest picture of the day:

I went to see Licey and Escogido play. They are the two teams from Santo Domingo and they share the stadium. That made my game crazier than I could have imagined. There was a home team in name only. Escogido was the home team for the day, meaning they had last ups. I saw red for Escogido and blue for Licey in equal amounts around the stadium. Cheers were equally loud for both teams.

Dominican baseball is the same sport I know on the field. Off the field, I was treated to a different experience. The entire stadium was louder than most games I've been to in the States. Only the two major games I attended in 2010 were louder: the 2010 NL West clincher on October 3, and Game 2 of the World Series, both in San Francisco. The fans had horns and noisemakers, plus there was a small marching band with thundering drums and blaring brass playing tunes for Escogido. Every play had the fans waving their flags, red and blue, and blaring their horns.

I'm a veteran of minor league baseball, so I'm used to the gimmicky between innings entertainment featured in minor league games. They have that here too, in the form of a cheerleading/dance team, wacky mascot antics, and a parade by the marching band. The dancers are Venezuelan and Colombian models who fire T-shirt guns into the crowd, dance on the dugout roof, and ride around the warning track in a classic car with red Escogido flags. Every team has dancers and they all wear skimpy outfits.

The mascots had an epic war the entire game. Escogido's mascot, a lion, had several costume changes throughout the night. He wore a devil costume for Halloween and an umpire's getup to make fun of the umpires. When he challenged Licey's mascot, a tiger, to a dance-off and won, the tiger responded by bringing a stroller out of the dugout with a plush lion toy in it, and pushed the stroller around to make fun of the lion.

I can't go anywhere without talking about the food. The ballpark featured several national brands (Presidente beer, Pizzarelli pizza) and some international brands (Chili's margarita stand). Vendors walked around selling a variety of food: pizza, hot dogs, empanandas, Pringles, and the best vendor of them all would fetch a cold beer for you and bring it to your seat. All you had to do was ask. I was told they have vendors serving people in their seats to eliminate people walking around during the games. Brilliant, if you ask me. I got a beer for 80 pesos, a slice of pizza for 95 pesos, and a hat for 125 pesos. All in all, about US$8, and all of it was top notch. Compare a similar day at the yard in the US; $6-10 for a beer (Budweiser on the cheap end, good beer like Anchor Steam on the expensive end), pizza for $7-10 (quality widely ranging from crappy to mediocre), and a hat for $15-30 (fitted caps run more). On top of your ticket, that can be a pricey day.

I had a hard time choosing a hat to buy. There were several stands set up outside the ballpark with hats from all the teams around the league. I decided to wait until I got inside to check out the team stores. Licey and Escogido had one store each. I didn't find anything I liked for Escogido--their fitted caps were either 6 3/4 or 7 1/4, and my size is 6 7/8. I have a rare size I know. But it's possible to find it. I have several 6 7/8 fitted caps. None of the adjustable hats looked good to me. So I went to the Licey store and realized how limited my choices were there too. Licey is blue. Dodger blue. I can't have a hat in any shade of blue that isn't San Jose State, and I especially can't wear anything blue with my Giants gear. I wore my Juan Marichal shirt to the game. No way in hell would I wear a blue hat with that.

I found an all black Licey adjustable cap that fit me well and looks great, so I bought it. I think it's a kids size, because it's really small. But it fits great so I'm happy with my purchase.

We had an hour long rain delay after clouds quickly swept in. It rained hard for about 20 minutes and the rest of the time the grounds crew worked on the field to get it ready for baseball. This keeps up my streak of rain delays at every ballpark I visit outside of San Francisco. I went to Coors Field in Colorado in 2006 and it rained. Biblical downpour thunder and lightning rain. I went to Comerica Park in 2008 and it rained.

Once the rain left and the players could begin their warmups, I saw Brandon Belt come out of the Leones dugout. Belt plays first base (not outfield. Do you hear me, Giants? NOT outfield) in the Giants system and I've interviewed him a few times for my various reporting jobs in the US. I was excited to see him play. I find it hard to get excited about what I see on the field because I spend so much of my time working around baseball. I wouldn't call it boredom, just getting used to what's there. I don't get starstruck easily, I should say.

But I bounced in my seat to see Belt swing a bat in the on deck circle. I felt a link to what I do in the States to what I'm doing here. I was initiated. Dominican baseball was no longer this cloudy subject I had no real picture of. It became real for me at that moment.

I had a flash of a moment buried in my past last night, too. Years ago, I sat in the arcade section of AT&T Park with some friends and watched the Cardinals and Giants play on a foggy July evening. Next to me was a painfully cute Cardinals fan who tried flirting with me the whole night. He asked me questions about my scorecards, about the field, about the teams and I basically gave him the ice queen act. I didn't realize he was trying to get with me until my friend brought it up on the car ride home.

Sunday night, the cute Escogido fan next to me asked me why I was writing in my notebook. He asked my why I was rooting for Licey. He asked me a lot of things I didn't understand. I tried my best to engage him in conversation.

Naturally, when I was as single as they come and dying for a baseball fan boyfriend, I act like a buffoon. I'm with the love of my life now (baseball and Sam) and I become warm and loquacious. Que malo.

I value my first game outside the US for several reasons, but the biggest one for me is having the chance to go to a game as a fan. I don't get to attend many games just to watch them. Most of the time I'm working: taking notes, keeping score, scouting, watching radar guns, shooting the shit with scouts. When I went to the key games for the 2010 San Francisco Giants, I was on edge the whole time because those games meant something. While last night's game meant the world to me, it wasn't watching the team I gave my life to. It wasn't work. I was able to kick back with a beer and chat and take in the most rewarding experience of my life.

Joseph Campbell, who coined the term "monomyth" offered this explanation of atonement of the father:

The problem of the hero going to meet the father is to open his soul beyond terror to such a degree that he will be ripe to understand how the sickening and insane tragedies of this vast and ruthless cosmos are completely validated in the majesty of Being. The hero transcends life with its peculiar blind spot and for a moment rises to a glimpse of the source. He beholds the face of the father, understands—and the two are atoned.

I opened my soul by submitting to the Dominican Republic's definition of baseball in all its insane tragedies. And still it's as beautiful to me as it ever was. It is the majesty of being.

Baseball and I are atoned.