Wayuu people play baseball in Colombia

Fun Pickoff Play in the CPBL, a breakdown

The yellow team is the CTBC Brothers; the orange is the UniLions. This is part of the fun of watching this league and the others in Asia. It's sad to say, but the gravamen of the game is switching to Japan-Korea-Taiwan while the MLB is static (at best). It's interesting to watch when US teams play teams from Asia and it's obvious that the Asian teams are fundamentally better at basics and more rounded in all aspects of the game. Often, the USA will win on sheer talent, but when the MLB doesn't allow the top 40 from each organization to play internationally that becomes less certain and we lose to Japan, Korea, or AUSTRALIA.

Another Way to Score

Click on Pic to Enlarge

Boer player is running home when he realizes he ain't gonna make it. He turns and starts to book it back to third. He freezes when he sees the third baseman prepping to catch the ball and starts to turn back toward home and the throw from the catcher hits him mid turn. The angle he's turned at when hit sends the ball skittering across the field and the runner completes his turn and makes it home.

Pro tip: A runner hit by a thrown ball is not interference unless the runner purposefully does something to make it happen.

Countries Where They Love Baseball

One of these is from Korea, one from Taiwan, and one from Nicaragua. Each country is playing baseball.

 

You can play in fancy stadiums or functional stadiums. It's about love of the game and these folks all clearly love the sport.

Nicaragua Packs the Stands in Baseball

From Last night's game between Indios del Boer and Esteli. Part of the fun is watching baseball with fans in the stands.

It's not as glossy, it's not in English, and it's only on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Still, they're my favorite games to watch out there right now. Channels to check - YouTube: vivanicaragua13 (follows Boer) (always high quality) - FaceBook: Canal22via (follows Costa Caribe) (good quality, but some places they visit have poor internet up) - Facebook: Cogelasena (I think follows Chinandega Tigres) (low res).

Taiwan Lets Fans Back in Baseball

Today was the first day that the CPBL (Taiwanese Baseball) let fans back into their stadiums.

They let in 1,000 fans, no one could sit closer than two seats from another, and most of them were located in a loose X pattern. They didn't allow food in the stadium although apparently the restaurants outside the stadium were open. They did allow water because it's Taiwan and the high for the day was 90f.

It was fun watching them do the routines and I can't wait to see the stadiums full. They interviewed their top medical official during the game and he was talking about raising the number allowed per game to 2,000 pretty much immediately and higher soon.

And the home team Guardians won a great game to watch 7-6 over the UniLions. Go Guardians!!