Baseball Season Begins in 2016

The Dominican Republic baseball season began Friday night Oct 21st.  Peggy and I purchased tickets for 12 other senior missionaries for the kickoff rivalry game between the Santo Domingo Licey Tigers (blue Randy's team) and the Santo Domingo Escogido Lions (red and black Peggy's team).

Tigers (left) Lionns (right)

The missionaries, Park's, Fuller's, McGuire's, Aitken's, Duke's Lyle Mason, John Olsen, Sister Walton, and Sister Stringam met at the MTC and carpooled about five miles to Jaun Marichal Quesqueya Stadium.  It was an intense and exiting game until the fifth inning when a literal downpour temporarliy halted the game in a the 3-3 tie.   Right from the start the Lions jumped on the Tigers for two runs in the top of the first and a run in the second to go up 3-0.  Peggy was trash talkin,' and dancin' the bachata.  Not to worry, the Tigres came

L-R Jon & Shauna Duke, MIke & Sharon McGuire, Elaine Walton,
Jon & Paula Fuller, Jean Stringam, Park's, Gary & Michelle Aitken,
John Olsen

storming back in the bottom of the 4th with three runs to tie.  The blue fans (home team) were going Dominican crazy!  The salsa music was blasting; the drums poundin' and the blue side of the stadium was taking their turn to celebrate.  Just when we had all finished eating our delicious chicken and cheese empanada (yum, yum) it started to rain.  All the missionaries were saying, "Oh thankyou Elder and Sister Park for buying the tickets 20 rows up from the field under the canopy."  We stayed dry while watching all the of the fans in the more expensive seats close to the field scurry for cover.  We laughed and enjoyed watching the rain hoping it would be over quickly so the game could resume.   Not to be.

The grounds crew rolled out the plastic tarp that covers the infield, but in the course of 30 minutes had to drain off the large pools of water that had collected on it.  We left at 10:00pm seeing no end to the rain.  We had a busy Saturday schedule the next day so no need to be dragging the next day.  We read in the  newspaper that the game resumed at 11:00pm with the Tigers ultimately winning 4-3 (yes!!).  It was a great night with gerat fiends.  Everyone commented on how much fun Dominican baseball is, especially those that were there for the first time.  We ran into several of our students that we hadn't seen for awhile--Jaime Viscaino, Andres Anderson and Candy Brito.  Jaime loves baseball and we enjoyed talkin' ball!  Randy.

Far left - Jaime Viscaino and his LDS Church team