I just got back from the ball park. I’ve been wanting to go for awhile but the heat is so intimidating betimes I couldn’t even imagine voluntarily attending a ball game on a Sunday afternoon in town. Also, I wasn’t sure when the games were played. You surely don’t want to venture out for naught. But a street vendor confirmed that they play every Sunday, two games. Today we had a bit of cloud cover and it gave me spine.

It’s a proper ballpark with concrete bleachers, a corrugated roof for shade, and a fence around the outfield. The grass is good, and the base paths are marked with fresh lye. The pitcher’s rubber had a bit of a problem. A small cavern had developed under it. Nothing a few shovels of dirt wouldn’t remedy, but this isn’t my line of work.

Costa Rica is not a baseball country. As with most of Latin America, soccer, or rather fútbol, is king. I hear tell there is more baseball in Nicaragua and in Panama. Just the same, the Tico Times, an English-language Costa Rican newspaper, recently reported that pitching prospect Bryan Solano of Costa Rica signed a contract with the Houston Astros. Baseball is here, it just isn’t big. Baseball is the only major sport that I care about. I don’t watch it on TV but I follow it closely in print, mostly for the re-plays.

I entered the gate and looked for the ticket counter. They had one, but there was no one manning it so I took a seat. Some ball players were milling about but no game. A nice old fellow, mid-sixties, was sitting close at hand so I asked him what was going on. I understood him to say that it was the 7th inning stretch. And what a stretch it was.

A fellow in a baseball uniform bustled past me with an enormous bag and began distributing take-out lunches to his team, as well as to some kids, and girlfriends, and possibly wives. Had I sat a little closer I probably would have gotten one too. That would have make me a spectator-in-law, and therefore universally reviled.

It was standard Costa Rican fare: rice and beans with a sautéed banana and a small piece of chicken. I have eaten a lot of this food here and, while it may sound prosaic, it can be very satisfying. It is fair to say that Costa Rican cuisine does not belong in the pantheon of great contributions to world culture, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t delicious.

The 7th inning stretch was more of a picnic than a stretch. There was no organ playing ‘Take Me Out to the Ballpark”. In fact, there was no organ at all. And since there was no place to buy a beer, I crossed the street to a bar and grabbed me a cold one. Great minds, including athletic minds, think alike and so a couple of ball players were doing the same thing. If Doc Ellis can throw a no-hitter on LSD, then I guess these guys can handle a beer.

Like the orchestra tuning up at the opening of Sergeant Pepper, you could tell that things were going to get rolling. A whole lot of take-out containers were heaved into the trash and the players began to search for their gloves.

When you walk into a ball game in a foreign land, and no scoreboard, there are some questions that need answering. Such as, which is the home team? And, what is the score? My new friend explained that ‘Nazareno’ is the home team. I, being of Limon, was instantly an uncompromising fan. The other team was from a town a couple of kilometers out of town. They are to be scorned. I don’t even want to know their name, and I don’t.

There actually is a scoreboard. It’s out there in center field. It just doesn’t have any score on it. So, in case you are wondering, it’s 2-zip, Nazareno.

My team has two bat-boys, one for each bat. One batboy is a disfigured dwarf whose big toes are turned outward at right angles to the axis of his feet. You wonder how I know this. Try finding shoes for that.

The other is a raven-haired bombshell whose shorts would make a Marine haircut look long.

Moving on, Nazareno eventually took the field. Their jerseys bore good American names: Gonzalez, Rodriguez, Martinez, Sanchez. Iverson. Which reminds of a time in 1985 when I was on the steps of the Prado in Madrid having just viewed Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ and learned that the original actually is black and white, therefore the facsimile in my college art history book wasn’t just a cheap ploy to save money on color. Brimming with enlightenment, I struck up a conversation in Spanish with a distinguished looking gentleman who had just viewed the same painting. He asked where I was from. I replied ‘America.’

He said ‘Me too.’

‘Really? Whereabouts?’

‘Argentina.’

I studied the players on the field. Something wasn’t quite right but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Everyone was in their proper positions, yet something was absent. It came clear with the first pitch. No umpires.

If I may risk generalities, Costa Ricans have a decent sense of fairness, same as you or I. A sense of fairness is truly a cultural thing. You can’t tack it down with precision but you know when it’s missing. But, no umpires? That’s a lot to ask of any culture.

Turns out, there was an umpire. One. Since a home plate umpire can’t easily call plays on the bases, the home plate umpire stood behind the pitcher and called the pitches from there, and made calls on the bases as needed. They’ve got this figured out.

As the game progressed it dawned upon me that the crowd was no bigger than the crowd at a Little League game in Blue Hill, Maine. In Blue Hill, that means that pretty well everyone watching the game is pretty well related to someone on the field, or to someone who is watching someone on the field to whom they are related, or wants to be related to someone who is watching someone on the field. It’s not incest, it’s just a small town. I decided to test my theory by asking my friend if he was related to anyone on the field. He said “Por su puesto que sí!” Which translates roughly as “Hell yeah! I gotta son at second base and the pitcher, well, the pitcher’s just a damn good friend of mine! That’s a silly-ass question. Got any more?” I make friends easily.

Occasionally a pop foul would hit the roof and roll out onto the street. The standard drill is that someone runs out of the bar across the street, picks up the ball, and hands it to someone else who runs out of the ball park and receives the ball, and returns it to play.

None of these balls were white. They were all grey or brown, and very dinged up. They had seen a lot of play. I am pretty sure that new balls would travel farther for any given hit. No crack of the bat here, more of a sluggish punch-drunk thud.

My team wore red jerseys. The other team wore blue. Oddly, the center fielder for the blue team was wearing red. And the third baseman for the red team was wearing blue. I see an opportunity for dialogue here, but this isn’t my line of work.