April 12, 2003 [LINK]
¡Beisbol en Puerto Rico!
By timely coincidence, the very same team whose "home field" is this week's new stadium on this Web site is playing its first "home" game this year somewhere else: in Hiram Bithorn Stadium in tropical city of San Juan, Puerto Rico. As reported in the Washington Post, the city paid $2 million to renovate this single deck stadium, which has very short field dimensions and a huge foul territory. (I guess I'll have to do a page for it now that's it's a "major league" ballpark.) This is part of a promotion to rake in some extra bucks for the faltering Expos franchise, which is now owned collectively by Major League Baseball. It is also intended to spark interest in baseball in Caribbean countries. Perhaps getting a psychological boost from the fact that several of their players were born in Puerto Rico, the Expos trounced the Mets 10 to 0. Attendance at Friday night's game was 17,000, over 90 percent of capacity, and three times the number of fans that usually attend Expos games in Montreal. Just wait till next year -- in RFK Stadium!
It was gratifying to learn that Hideki Matsui's (known in Japan as "Godzilla") first at-bat in Yankee Stadium was a grand slam. No player had ever hit a grand slam in his first at-home plate appearance before. The Yanks are now 8 and 1, while the Kansas City Royals continue their amazing winning streak, and are now 9 and 0.