Baseball Game

Anécdotas para la posteridad.

As a formal integrant of a Venezuelan family I have noticed in this past years several characteristics that define us very well as “uncommon family” among the others stereotypes. I might say that the two most important ones are been made of a gigantic number of people and to have funny anecdotes of every single member. Having said this, I think one of the best examples that comes into my mind to represent these features is in one of my birth dates, the tenth specifically. It was as I recall a perfect sunny day in San Antonio de Los Altos, located in Los Teques, the place where my closest aunts, uncles and cousins live. My mom, dad and siblings always went there for my birthdays for many reasons, but the mainly was that there, in Las Minas Park we could rent a tinny hovel with a grill and cook all day, eat good steaks and after, play a friendly baseball game with the rest of the family. Las Minas is probably one of the places that truly saw my sister and I grow when we were children.

This funny anecdote begins in October 30^th getting us up as early as possible because the drive from Caracas to San Antonio is without traffic at least one hour. My mom always had a strategic plan to manage the different parts of the house to get the five ready at 8 am. I don’t exactly remember what every person did because I was the guest of honor, I just had to be ready at the door by eight, which was all my job. When we arrived to the park, we could see the other members of my family, maybe sixteen or eighteen already in the place, and we were still missing a few ones. To set an hour for a Venezuelan party to say “Get there one hour later than what we scheduled”. As everybody settles the adults start setting all the equipment to work and all the kids the toys to play, we didn’t need to receive the order, we just knew what to do. To give a little of background to understand this anecdote I have to state the most watched sport in Venezuela is baseball and my family has a particularity: from the eight teams that compose the Major League Baseball in Venezuela we follow only two teams, Los Leones del Caracas and Los Navegantes del Magallanes (Caracas’ Lions and Magallanes’ Sailors). At one moment in your life you have to face which team you are going to deposit all your life in, cheer on for, mourn for when they lose the season or make jokes of the other teams when your team won. “Which team do you chose?” That’s the question I answered by saying Caracas’ Lions like my oldest brother and father and my sister answered by saying Magallanes’ Sailors like my mother. We are rivals when it respects to baseball games and my family knows that pretty well because they also made their choice, you share couch with the people who share your decision. That’s the survival rule. You would not like to have your uncle mocking at you loudly “10 AGAINST 0, NOW WHO’S CRYING?” believe me, I know that very well.

With a bat, one old baseball ball, four gloves for each base player and different things used to label the bases we start the game, Caracas fans versus Magallanes fans. We would flip a coin as always and decide who would bat first. They were first at bat. Few innings, some runs for each team and all is friendly, then my sister, an eight years old girl with one pony tail tighten and two beautiful eyes that would not harm anyone is coming to bat. Because she is the youngest player in the game, we closed the plate so all the fielders will be closer to the bases and catch easily her rolling. The pitcher, one of my cousins threw her the ball slowly so she could get the hit and be excited that she made it and make her smile. At the same time when all this is happening, my grandfather was walking close to the third base where I was standing to congratulate me. And then I saw how my sister, which any of us could believe she could swing that hard, hit the ball straight to my grandfather’s chest. No one spoke for three seconds that felt like three years and then that little cute girl in the home with the bat in hand screamed “WHO TOLD YOU TO WALK IN THAT WAY?!”. Everyone, literally, everyone was laughing so hard when she said that. We never expected that, an apology maybe but, to tell my grandfather to watch out where he walks? That was funny. Actually, he was the first one to start laughing, then stopped, kissed her in the cheek and told her “I’m proud that you chose the Magallanes”. By this day, every single person that made something that was not supposed to do or had not to be, they will receive an automatically “WHO TOLD YOU…?!”.