Are you sick of paying the high prices of Major League Baseball? Tickets, beer, concessions? Try heading South, way South.
Granada Stadium
We went to a baseball game in Granada, Nicaragua, home of The Sharks. (Los Tiburones.) The previous day, we asked the nice man at the hotel front desk when the next baseball game was. He made some calls on our behalf only to conclude “It starts tomorrow morning around 9.30 or 10, or maybe 10.30.” What?!
We walked to the field early Sunday morning, the streets were deserted, the city was just waking up. We arrived at ten; just as things got underway. Perfect timing.
Go Sharks!
It turned out to be a Sunday morning Double-header. That was just the first difference between MLB and Nicaraguan baseball. Here’s some more!
- Average ticket price at Fenway park this year: $53.38. We paid $ 1.40 per ticket. And that was for both games.
- Stray dogs wander around the stadium looking for hand-outs. One ran onto the field in the bottom of the second causing a short delay of game.
My new friend
- Mets fans pay $6.25 for a hot dog at Citibank Field Park. We got a plastic bag full of yummy home-made fried plantain chips with salsa and Nicaraguan coleslaw, for just 35 cents.
Bag of fried plantains
- Instead of massive HD TV screens, they had a band at the back of the right field seats. As many as eight rotating members, with tubas, trumpets, a drumset and bass drum. Between innings, they blast out funky Latin songs.
Bleacher band
It was now 11 AM, still a little early for beer. So I headed to the concession stand to see if I could get us some refreshing rum cocktails. I massacred the Spanish language trying to accomplish this; The closest row of fans tried to help me out, but it was no use. I ended up pointing at things; cokes, ice. I then pointed to a bottle of liquor gesturing to see if they had anything smaller? No? Ok, I’ll take the big bottle: Turns out it wasn’t rum, it was Nicaraguan sugarcane liquor in a plastic bottle.
How many U.S. stadiums do you know of that you can buy a fifth of booze?
A little help from my friends
- You want a local micro brew at Safeco field, Seattle = $9.75.
- At Sharks stadium, 2 cups of ice + 2 cokes + A fifth of sugarcane liquor
= $6.50. And it’s the Coke that’s expensive.
Sugarcane liquor + cup of ice + coke = priceless
At the end of the eighth inning, both teams came out and shook hands. The game was over after only 8 innings? I guess it was because they were playing a double-header. Bizarro.
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