I was very excited when I saw the Caribbean World Series was being shown live on the MLB Network. I remember watching winter league baseball on a Spanish TV station, channel 44, way back in 1983. Tom Candiotti was matched up against Chris Codiroli. Milwaukee Brewers Candiotti was perfecting his knuckleball, while Codiroli was an up & coming pitcher with the Oakland A’s. It was interesting trying to figure out who was whom, what kind of numbers the players were putting up, and what the announcers were saying. I somehow figured out Candiotti was learning the knuckler, besides actually seeing his pitches float up to homeplate, it seemed like he was pitching on TV almost every night. Besides the language barrier, there was also the snowy picture, UHF still had some bugs back then.
So last night, watching the Caribbean World Series on the MLB Network in English, even if it was over Slingbox, the Ramada room TV doesn’t get the MLB Network, was an exciting prospect. Live baseball in February, can’t beat it, packed stadiums, fans chanting. Then I started watching the game between Puerto Rico & Mexico. Once shooting star lefty Bill Pulsipher was on the hill for Puerto Rico, he went six & one third innings, and allowed only one run, which was impressive until you stopped & realized that there was probably only one legitimate major leaguer in both lineups, Adrian Gonzalez a lefthand hitting star for Mexico, but he can’t hit lefties to save his life. The number three hitter for Puerto Rico was Andy Gonzalez. Andy was with the White Sox in 2007, batting .185 in 189 futile at bats, he was really bad. When this game was still knotted at one after nine innings it was time to say goodnight.
