"Porque es uno, dos, tres ponches y te vas en el partido de beisbol!"

Contrary to what I had been informed prior to arriving in Peru, this country is not "hockey crazy." In fact, it's not crazy for a lot of the sports I'm accustomed to seeing in the US. Now I am all for cultural relativism (to a reasonable extent, at least), but I really miss seeing my LA Kings (talk about a lively second line! Stoll and Williams the points leaders?! And who thought that they would be winning so much without Drew Doughty? Talk about a clutch pickup in Willie Mitchell. And Quick! This kids lives for the competition!) and European cycling action. I assumed that soccer (ok fine, non-US-centric grammar sticklers, football!) would be extremely popular, and it is. Unfortunately for Peru, their local pro teams and national team are very not good. Unfortunately for the local pro teams and national team, their fans know they are very not good. Still, the games here generate a lot of realistic enthusiasm, but also leave enough time to follow other sports. And by "other sports," I mean women's volleyball (small disclaimer: South American ESPN does televise a variety of other sports, but I am analyzing sport popularity primarily by what shows up on network television. By that measure, the only two sports that non-cable toting Peruvians watch are soccer and women's volleyball).

If you were a fly on the wall of the chifa (Chinese restaurant) where I was eating my $2.70 wonton soup, stir fried chicken and vegetables, and fried rice tonight, you would probably land on my dish and proceed to clean your mandibles. However, if you were another patron of the restaurant enjoying a satisfying Chinese-Peruvian fusion meal, you would find me watching a women's volleyball match between the Russian and Korean national teams. This is on Lima network tv, lest we forget. If this broadcast wasn't a testament to Peruvians' love of women's volleyball I don't know what is. Two Asian countries duking it out in a non-finals tournament round can't be that compelling for Peruvians, can it? It certainly wasn't compelling enough for me, so I kept tabs on the fly that was just aching to land on my plate and do a little mandible touch up work. I had much greater sports spectation luck this past weekend, though, when I was able to enjoy the final three games of the 2010 World Series on Spanish language ESPN (there isn't a Peru-specific ESPN channel as far as I know). No one I talked to in Lima caught the games (I think the Belarus-Morocco women were having an exhibition), but I was able to make some keen observations about how baseball is presented differently in Spanish speaking countries.

First observation: 99% of the broadcast is in Spanish. Some of you might want to remind that I was watching SPANISH ESPN, but I still expected more English words to come across in the broadcast. Home run? Nope, quadrangular. Strike? Sorry, ponche. Ball? Forget it, bala. I ignorantly assumed that the English vocabulary of baseball would simply be carried over into the Spanish play-by-play and color, but apparently there is an extensive Spanish baseball vocabulary with which I was not familiar. I had no problems identifying the words above, but things get a little trickier when you are trying to figure out the words for "cut fastball" and "journeyman outfielder." I would have preferred commentary in English, but I still felt the excitement of the games. I even learned some new phrases which are popular with the Spanish announcers. When a pitcher gets a strikeout they will often say, in Spanish mind you, "Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight!" Fouls balls are referred to as souvenirs quite frequently. My favorite comment, however, shows up when a batter hits a home run (or quadrangular, as us Limans, native or adopted, like to say). Rather than the common English remark "and that ball iiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssss OUTTA HERE" or something of that ilk, the Spanish announcers react the same way they would when a goal is scored in a lackluster Peruvian soccer grudge match. Once the ball clears the fence, the announcers launches into an "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH LOOOLOOOLOOOLOOOLOOOLOOO LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Small difference, yes, but I think the guys down here got it right with their reaction to a home run. They aren't all that frequent and are arguably the most exciting single play in baseball, so why not get a little nutty in the booth. You may think that Renteria's home run in game 5 was exciting enough on it's own, but try watching it with a grown man yelling gibberish on your TV broadcast. It definitely turns things up the experience to 11.