In the spirit of Opening 2009, here’s a post on my trip to the WBC. Thanks to a generous Christmas gift from Cisco and Berta’s “awesomeness”; I went to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) this year in San Diego, CA. The WBC is a baseball tournament sponsored by MLB and professional baseball organizations from around the world. The games were played at PetCo Park, which is the home field of MLB’s San Diego Padres. For the 2009 WBC, PetCo hosted Pool 1 – Mexico, Korea, Japan & Cuba.
The stadium and our hotel are located near the Gaslamp Quarter; a historic neighborhood in downtown San Diego. Cisco, Carlos and I arrived on Saturday afternoon and we enjoyed a great dinner at Donavon’s steak house that night.
Sunday was the first day of Pool 1 competition and we saw all four teams play in a day/night doubleheader. Japan blanked Cuba 6-0 in the day game; and Korea defeated Mexico 8-2 in the night game behind a couple of homeruns. Monday’s matchup featured Mexico and Cuba in an elimination game. Although the faithful showed up in force to cheer on Mexico, our team could not stave off elimination and lost to Cuba 7-4.
The tournament continued through Thursday and Korea and Japan advanced out of Pool 1 onto the Championship round in Los Angeles. By the way, this was the first time in 30 years that Cuba had not advanced to the semi-finals of international competition.
PetCo Park is a new stadium that opened in 2004. One of my favorite features of the ballpark is the “Western Metal Supply Co.” building in left field.
The other favorite is the statue of Tony Gwinn that is beyond Center Field. Tony Gwinn is arguably the best player in the history of the Padres.
Sometimes the only thing that will get Colin to take a nap, especially the afternoon nap, is for me to lay down with him. And if I happen to fall asleep too before I can transfer him to his crib .... well I am happy to take one for the team :)
