Last night we decided to continue our Mexican cultural experiences and attend a beisbol (baseball) game. Mazatlan has a triple-A rated team called the Venados, the Venados play in the Mexican Pacific League and although they are not having a great year this year, they have historically been one of the top teams in the league. Not really knowing what to expect we arrived at the 14,000 seat stadium just as the game was starting, we found our way to our seats which were between home plate and third base at just above field level (pic)....and thats when the fun started. The fast paced action was non-stop, there were many different mascots from various companies wondering the stands and roaming the field performing their antics, there were venders selling all kinds of weird food and silly trinkets and souvenirs and there was a beer vender that was standing in the aisle next to our seats selling 20 paso ($1.75 USD) Pacificos. The players, whom we are pretty sure make nowhere close to their US counterparts, play an exciting and fun to watch game. This level of play is just below Major League Baseball and I really couldn't tell much difference between the two levels of play. As we all rocked out to the constant and funny choice of music we marveled at how much we were loving Mexican Beisbol. So The Venados (Deer) ended up winning the game with a score of 2-3, and we joined our fellow fans in cheering them on with the call of "VAMOS VENADOS".
Ohh and the cost..... well our fantastic seats were 100 pasos ($8.50), as mentioned earlier beers were about $1.75, you could get whatever kind of baseball food you wanted for next to nothing and I bought a cool Venados shirt for about $9.00. I Guess when the players don't get paid millions of dollars to play, the fans can actually afford to go to a game. No wonder all the fans were in such a great mood.....VAMOS VENADOS!