CONT'D: Baseball, Doritos, and Giant Killer Moths: | Page 1, 2

We sat behind the front-running mayoral candidate and his family. Senor Alfonso Gomez Sandoval was a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the all-powerful political machine that utterly dominates nearly every aspect of Mexican public life. I finagled campaign pins and hoped that our support would atone for the beer we accidentally spilled onto the candidate’s shoulder in the fifth inning. Not that we were obnoxious—we were simply going along with the spirit of the crowd, which was raucous. The Guerreros quickly fell behind 4-0 but fought back with a three-run home run in the fifth inning. After taking the lead with another, two-run homer in the eighth, they let Monclova tie the game in the top of the ninth inning. Then, in the bottom of the ninth, Oaxaca scratched out one more run to win the game and the series. Bedlam ensued.

Somehow, we made it onto the field, wearing cheaply made ‘Oaxaca Campeones’ T-shirts we had purchased in the street before the game. Once on the grass, we realized that the frenzied fans had begun to mistake us for actual players. Perhaps it was the shirts, or the fact that we were both relatively tall and mildly athletic-looking gringos (Mexican teams are allowed a few foreign players on their rosters, spots which are usually filled by Americans), or just a bizarre twist of fate. No matter what the reason, we recognized our opportunity: into the dugout, signing baseballs thrust into our hands by starry-eyed Little Leaguers, past the police barricades, up the ramp, into the clubhouse, until suddenly we were grabbed by a watchful security guard and whisked away. The guard ignored my desperate pleas of ‘journalist’, as I motioned frantically with my hands and waved a $30 camera. We emerged from the dugout to find a receiving line of fans stretching into the outfield. As we jogged by, putting up our best jock fronts and doling out high-fives, I had the slightly painful realization that this would be the closest I would ever come to sporting glory. In Mexico, sometimes, in strange ways, dreams really can come true.

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John Hartz lives and writes in Long Island, New York. As a Watson fellow, he traveled the globe studying subway culture in 1998 and 1999.
E-mail: john_hartz@hotmail.com