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ESTADIO HIRAM BITHORN - SANTURCE AND SANJUAN

The site of the capital's only in-town team received and retained many improvements, such as padding, lighting, and bilingual signage, when Major League Baseball opened its 2001 season with a Texas-vs-Toronto game here. It is an unadvertised bonus of a vacation in San Juan that there is such a convenient and inexpensive way to see professional baseball. And "inexpensive" becomes "free" several times a year as businesses such as the long-distance company or a pharmacy chain give away tickets to their customers, resulting in attendance around 20,000. Bithorn is across F.D.R. Avenue from the huge Plaza of the Americas mall. The Crabbers (Cangrejeros) take their name from the neighborhood of Santurce, although Bithorn is instead in Hato Rey. The light standards are visible to the southwest at the intersection of 18 and 22; very easy to enter and exit. Traffic on 18 injects either a rumble, a thump-thump-thump as a truck hits each seam in the expressway, or louder if its cargo is not secure. The light standards around the grandstand lean in toward the field and the press box complex hugs the roof, in the same way as at Loubriel. But Bithorn has a distinctive zig-zag concrete roof. Directions Bithorn is on F.D.R. Boulevard (Route 23), near the merge of the expressways 22 (west toward Bayamon) and 18 (which becomes 52, south toward Caguas/Ponce). If leaving San Juan on 22, you can veer right to stay on 22 rather than 18. Quickly exit up a ramp. When the light turns green, turn left, cross the expressway on Calaf, and continue straight on the street, passing the mall on your left. Calaf has many traffic lights. When Calaf ends, the stadium complex is in front of you across F.D.R. If instead you veer left onto 18, exit quickly onto F.D.R. This is a tricky right exit because traffic from 22 merges in on several lanes from the right. After exiting, do not turn right at the traffic lights; this leads into the mall. Instead, go through the intersection and look for the SALIDA (Exit) down to F.D.R. Turn right at the lights and quickly left into stadium parking. Approaching from the south on 18, take the second ramp for F.D.R. west, a cloverleaf, and follow F.D.R. until the stadium is on your left. Approaching from the west on 22, if you miss the Plaza de las Americas turnoff, stay right and feed into 18. Don't merge into 18 but stay in the right lane and take the SALIDA onto F.D.R. as described above.

ESTADIO ROBERTO CLEMENTE - CAROLINA

Because of Roberto Clemente's prowess with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the manner of his death (in a plane crash transporting relief supplies to Nicaragua after a tropical storm), he is a veritable national hero and the league's newest and most modern stadium takes his name. Clemente Stadium is a major-league ballpark except that the seats don't go all the way around. But they do curve behind the right field foul pole and include upper-level seating and a three-story press-box and luxury-box complex. A roof shelters some of the uppermost seats. Adding an upper deck and solving the traffic problem, it could hold an expansion MLB team (a dream of many people here). The electronics are modern and operated professionally, but not to full potential. The Jumbotron played a Tina Turner concert video before the game. It can also display live or frozen video from the stadium cameras, but didn't show an instant replay. It showed the name and uniform number of each batter, in letters that left a lot of blank space. It did not show the batter's defensive position nor statistics; and there was no comparable display for pitchers and relievers. The screen can display a player's portrait as they do in some US minor leagues, but the only attempt they made was when corpulent Hector Villanueva came to bat for visiting Caguas; then they zoomed in on a fan's T-shirt with a cartoon diagram of a pig's face. Directions Clemente Stadium is on Route 3. From San Juan, take expressway 26 past the airport into Carolina, until it ends at Route 3. The left-hand ramp (to Canóvanas/Fajardo) goes east toward the rest of Carolina. In 2.5 miles, the stadium is on the left just after a bridge over a wide, verdant ravine. The Carolina jail and court building is on the right. Don't look for government road signs to the stadium; there are none. In particular, don't exit at Avenida Roberto Clemente (keep going). If you reach the El Comandante horse track, turn around and go back. Asking for directions to "Clemente" is ambiguous; as well as the avenue, his name is also on another sports complex in Carolina, and on an amateur baseball stadium in the same city, and on the basketball coliseum next to the Bithorn in Hato Rey. Ask for "the Clemente stadium where the Giants play baseball." The traffic light for your left turn into the stadium complex lasts long enough, after awaiting stragglers and scofflaws from the other directions, to admit about 3 cars per five-minute cycle. Police help the flow of traffic, but fans on the Santurce web site still complain about the tapones. They also complain that Carolina doesn't honor the tradition of granting admission to season-ticket holders of local opponents. Concessions have to be reasonable because, the road into the stadium lot passes a plaza with restaurants including Church's, Burger King, SubWay, a pizza-and-pasta joint, and a Chinese restaurant.

Tomadas por Nuestros Paparrazzis personales:

Anthony Santiago y José Santiago Carolina, PR

ESTADIO IDELFONSO SOLA MORALES - CAGUAS

A "criollo" is a native or a home-boy, like criollo cuisine. Criollos are the natives (the city of Caguas was named for an Indian chief) or long-time residents or old-timers. The horse artwork above is from my old-style cap. Although red and white are still the uniform colors, in 2000 the team adopted a blue cap and a new logo showing a player riding a horse with a toothy grin. The player holds a bat which, given the horse's evident attitude, suggests imminent animal cruelty. The stadium's girders, and alternating sections of seats, are in green and orange. Fake owls scare away pigeons before they figure it out. The newspapers refer to the team with the nickname La Yegüita, "the little mare." The south end of Caguas is in the Turabo River valley (you can imagine this between the mountains past center field), so references to the Turabo also mean the Criollos. Morales Park is a sports lounge with a baseball stadium attached. General admission is the least expensive in the league, but an alternative is to go up the enclosed catwalk to the sports lounge and buy appetizers and drinks for normal prices. Such casual fans receive the treatment that other parks only give to luxury boxes. The sports lounge is open independently of the ball club with live entertainment and a dress code, but also available on game nights with casual dress. The lounge was called Bardo's in 1999 and Sports Club in 2000. Terraces of seats face the grandstand through Plexiglas, with counter space and electric outlets. The choice boxes are for officials and press, but you can look over their shoulders and watch the game through their booth. Other boxes are reserved by sponsors, but at the longest desk, only 2 seats are reserved by steady customers. At seats further back from the live action, customers can watch cable TV; sometimes the game is on. There is also a side room with one-armed bandits. The upper parking lot is reserved for VIPs. A larger lower parking lot is patrolled. When this lot fills up, they commandeer city streets with saw horses, with a $2 fee to park in the street. A former owner of the Criollos sold the team to run for mayor, but he and his opponent both favored building a new municipal stadium, with inadequate parking cited as the biggest drawback. Mayor Marín plans a new stadium on the road southeast toward the neighboring town of San Lorenzo. But separately, he has asked the state government to transfer title of Solá Morales to the city. Directions The stadium is in a residential neighborhood south of downtown Caguas, with upper-class homes with lawns to the south, but a painted concrete barrio toward the city center. Take expressway 52 ten miles south from San Juan (the expressway is known as 18 in San Juan). The toll at Caguas is $0.50. If you exit at Route 1, follow this commercial boulevard a mile until a complicated intersection; there, veer right onto the inner ring road, 33. You can also take Exits 18 or 19 and shoot over to 33 as shown. If you take Exit 20, then follow it to Route 1, turn left, and the stadium will be on your right. Or cross Route 1 to circle around the stadium. Turning left at the next light will get you to the lower parking lot. If you're not in a hurry, you could follow Route 1 all the way. In the center of town, the road is slow and congested, but it is a trip backward in time, and the central park is pretty. The streets are one-way, so follow the signs if you choose this route on the way back. Keep an eye on the stadium lights to orient yourself.

ESTADIO FRANCISCO "PAQUITO" MONTANER - PONCE

You have heard of Ponce de León (for whom the city of Ponce was named); here are the Leones de Ponce, the Ponce Lions. Ponce is an interesting local city apart from baseball; it has a colonial tradition, a lot of history and museums, and a central plaza that is a walk back through time. Ponce's size makes it a logical step out-island for US business, but it is on the relaxed side of the island, and far enough away from the capital so that an occasional foreigner is interesting to people. All of the above seem to make Ponce a retirement choice for Puerto Ricans who used to work on the mainland. A visit to Montaner will often sit you next to a guy who used to work in the US and has many stories to tell. This multi-purpose stadium has a track oval between the fans and home plate. Many track-meet seats beyond left field are obstructed by the outfield wall. Astroturf covers most of the track near home plate during baseball season. The track extends in foul territory to the left field fence and there is a similar lane in foul territory next to right field. The visitors' bullpen is at the end of this track, through a gate, behind the left field wall. There is a generous ground rule in these areas for balls that hop the low portable barriers. But the entire diamond is distant from the fans. Some space behind home plate is filled with patio furniture, but reserved for one of the sponsors. The stadium opens to the northwest. Over the left field fence there are some of the island's typical jagged, green hills, leading to mountains. You can not only see the next hour's weather coming in, as in the American Southwest; the hills let you measure how high the clouds are. A color graphic scoreboard displays a variety of game information; for instance, it displays batting averages for each batter (updated each AB). In another format, it can display the batter's results earlier in the same game. This scoreboard is just to the right of center field--in 1999, a fan told me it was just moved there. Its statistics display is the most complete in the league by far. Directions Ponce is on the south shore of Puerto Rico, an hour beyond Caguas on Expressway 52. The cute little ballpark you see at the start of Ponce (just after the Route 1 exit) is not Montaner. Stay on the expressway all the way through Ponce, until 52 ends at Route 2, and double back into Ponce on Route 2. Get in the left lane, cross a canal, and turn left toward the stadium lights. On these two last steps, follow a big green sign toward "Ponce Oeste." This side road has some interesting shanties alongside it containing restaurants and bars. If you stay on 2 until Wal-Mart appears on your right, you have missed the left but you can turn left on Pampanos (585) and approach by sighting the stadium lights. If you pass the Wal-Mart and OfficeMax, turn around, pass Wal-Mart on your left, and turn right on 585.

ESTADIO ISIDORO "CHOLO" GARCIA - MAYAGUEZ

Your Puerto Rico trip will be a success if you acquire the confidence to venture out here and see something truly different. García is the only park in the league where typical Latin commercial chaos is in full flower in the vicinity of the stadium. Large, metropolitan stadia like Bithorn, and glitzy sports bars like the one at Caguas, make the game seem like a mainland tradition grafted onto Puerto Rico; Mayagüez baseball is more criollo. On the side street facing the ballpark, houses have been turned into noisy bars and pool halls open to the street, beer is cheap and it's India (the tasty beer brewed in Mayagüez). Ambulantes with no relation to the team sell shishkebab and fruits in the promenade outside the stadium. There are a few beggars, and they tell me there are also a few drug deals and muggings. Drunkenness is epidemic but there is absolutely no liquor control or police reaction until maybe after a fight starts. The baseball tradition, after all, does not go back very far in Latin America. But a tradition that has existed for centuries is to dress up in Sunday finery, take your partner for a stroll in the Plaza de Armas in the center of town, and catch up on the gossip. While the metropolitan ballparks are far away, zoned into their own district far from residences, expensive to get to and maintained for the sole purpose of getting customers in and out, García, with its stone benches that each ring a shade tree, is in fact the Plaza de Armas for the nearby housing projects. You can enter the court for free (indeed, you must in order to approach the ticket window) and, once there, most people come in to watch the game. By comparison, if two hundred people loitered outside the Bithorn, the San Juan police would call for water cannons. The Indians had a web site with an introduction that says local fans treat the baseball season with a religious fervor. The web site is gone but fans still take umpiring decisions personally and react viscerally and loudly. Once the umpires took several minutes to discuss something with someone in the stands; later in the game, the shouts from one section became so heated that four policemen took notice. The scoreboard has a line score and a two-line message board that shows the name and defensive position of each batter. The PA announcer conscientiously announces substitutions. They played music between innings, and have a few sound effects. The outfield has a small fence with a higher barrier behind it. Both bullpens are beside the grandstand and not visible to most of the fans or the media. Directions Mayagüez is an hour beyond Ponce in the southeast (you cross the mountain range then travel the coast clockwise on Route 2) or about as far going counterclockwise around the coast (that's Route 2 as well). The non-expressways are 4-lane divided highways, often with limited access; there are traffic lights every couple of miles, but after a night game, the lights are usually with you. García is on the south end of Mayagüez, well south of the zone of international hotels and shopping centers with American chains, in an area of housing projects. The light standards are visible to the west and are only a few blocks away. Everyone has a horse, some are ridden or are pulling bicyclists; after a while you see horses beyond the fences grazing on the shoulder of the road (from time to time, they tell me, one enters the roadway and gets hit). If driving north from Ponce, you go through a commercial zone, but the left turn to the centro deportivo is marked by a green sign. When the light standards are directly west, turn toward them from Route 2 onto Duscombe and pass more housing projects on the right. The stadium is on your left; a lovely Atlantic Ocean beach is straight ahead; and you have run out of road. Turn left to park.

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