Jennifer's Sox Site: World Baseball Classic

George and I had a great time in Orlando last night watching the Dominicans stay unbeaten at the World Baseball Classic. They defeated Australia 6-4.

We really just went for the atmosphere and to hang out with a bunch of crazy Hispanic people for a few hours, so the fact that we got some autographs and saw a decent game was just bonus.

To tell you the truth, it was hard to pay attention to the game with all of the screaming, dancing, drum-beating Dominicans being so rowdy from long before the first pitch was thrown, until well after we left. Those people have WAY too much energy. I was telling George that it reminded me a lot of a European soccer game. Except here, I don't think any of the fans really cared much about the outcome, as the Dominicans had already clinched a spot in the second round of the WBC. Of course, we all went nuts when Pujols, Ortiz and Tejada batted though.

The Dominican fans were awesome-- this old lady who I guess is a grounds keeper was running around waving a Dominican flag, and everyone out on the lawn would start chanting "LA VIEJA LA VIEJA" which roughly translates to "GO OLD WOMAN!" They would pick out random gringas and teach them how to salsa and merengue between innings. I swear, those Dominicanos know how to have a good time. And they are incredibly baseball-knowlegeable. I'm bad with recognizing faces, so before the game a lot of them let George and I know who various players were.

I'm jumping around a bit... but before the game we were fortunate enough to get Moises Alou to sign for us. We had given up trying to get autographs on the Dominican side of the field, because it was just a mad house. At one point, Ortiz came over to talk with a woman he knew, and I nearly got trampled. I didn't even get to take a picture because I think a bunch of random Dominicans were trying to kill me. So we left and went over by the Australian dugout. Some cute Aussie pitcher gave me a baseball, which was nice of him. I loved George's line-- "You're a girl, you could get anything you want from him." George got a baseball as well. We saw Ronnie Belliard getting interviewed by the Spanish media about 5 feet away from us, which was pretty cool. He wouldn't sign though... jackass. Then Moises came over and signed autographs for about 20 minutes. He litteraly signed for EVERY single kid who wanted his signature. George and I got both balls signed, plus the Dominican flag, which he was happy to sign for two American kids. I'm hopefully going to fill up that flag with signatures in the upcoming future, as I have tickets to a ton of Red Sox games this year in Tampa Bay/Fenway.

At one point before the game George got bored, and we saw a guy wearing jersey no. 51 signing back over by the Dominican dugout. He asked me who it was, and for some reason I blanked out and thought Bernie Williams was Dominican and not Puerto Rican. So he ran off to get the autograph of "Bernie Williams," who really ended up being a coach. In between all of that mess, we ended up meeting and getting the signature of JUAN MARICHAL, probably the greatest Giants pitcher of all time. That was SO awesome. He signed my baseball right on the sweet spot: "Juan Marichal HOF '83." He was a really nice guy too. What a great experience. Unfortunately we didn't have the camera with us when we ran into Marichal. But just picture an old, decrepit-looking Spanish man, and that's him. I went home and had my dad tell me all about Marichal's career. He told me how he was one of the most fun pitchers to watch, because he was just so dominant and got everyone out. Plus he had that awesome high leg-kick delivery. I guess I would compare his dominance to the Pedro Martinez, cerca '99-'02. I looked up his stats at some site. I had no idea Marichal played a season for the Red Sox. He was washed-up by then, but that was my new fact that I learned today.

After the game commenced, nothing terribly exciting happened... except of course for dancing and singing with all the crazy Dominicans. I tried to take pictures, but once it got dark, my camera didn't cooperate well. My zoom feature doesn't cooperate in the dark for some reason. So I am going to post a ton of pictures (with comments) so that you can see what the atmosphere was like.

I really hope this WBC idea works, because we had such an awesome time. I'd love to go back next time the event is held. It was a great way to kick off Spring Break...

These pictures aren't in any particular order.

Here's Moises Alou signing. He was a really nice fellow:

Best.Sign.Ever. See, even his own countrymen hate him.

The poor man who took this picture spoke no English. So George didn't know when to smile. Way to ruin a great picture of me, Jorge.

This was before the game, when they brought out the flags for each country represented in our Pool.

And all of the players lined up during the flag ceremony:

A shot of the fans in the lawn on the third base side, where we were sitting. They were incredible.

Another fan shot. This time you can see them all playing the drums. MLB had to have made a fortune off of merchandise sales. Everyone there had purchased Dominican jerseys or t-shirts.