2011 Baseball World Cup Opening

WOW what a show.  Probably one of the coolest I’ve seen in a while.  Laser lights, 300 dancers, 16 singers, 60x 40 stage.  and actors.  Fireworks, and field fire works.. On and off the field with the stage and portafloor quickly and it didn’t rain. 

Speaking of rain  we had it come down in biblical proportions… not once but twice in 24hrs the following day.  The stadium and field were flooded as were the dugouts, locker rooms, and lower concourse.  A storm water system upgrade is needed at this old park but in true Panamanian style, they broke out the squegees and pumps and cleaned it up pretty quickly.  The field drains fair but again its old and when you play a series of games  in the wettest month of the year you can expect there will be rain delays and challenges.

We have been shuffling guys around the four ballparks.  In order to have a successful tournament we needed to bring in some sportsturf managers to help the local grounds staff with construction and maintenance of the fields.  Everyone is pretty happy with the facilities.   Chad Kropff came in and headed to Aguadulce, Tracy Schneweis Came in today and is headed to Chitre.  Chad and Joe at Panama and Darrell Lemmer is holding down the fort in Santiago.  All good and each of them have their work cut out with all the rain.

PR vs USA game was a thriller. PR ended up on top as they went to the  IBAF  tie breaker rule in the top of the 10th when USA tied it up in the bottom of the 9th.   In Beijing they started the tiebreaker in the 11th . basically placing 2 players on 1st and 2nd at the start of each teams batting order.  

Yesterday, USA bounced back and won over Chinese Taipei last night in Aguadulce.  Check out the games on http://www.ibaf.livesport.tv/?WT.mc_id=ibafofficial