It has been a generation since Panama has had professional baseball. From
the 1940s through the early 1970s we had a few major league exhibition games
played here, plus there were local winter leagues that attracted some minor
league pro talent. On November 8 the professional game made its return to Panama
in the form of PROBEIS, which fields four teams with some major leaguers (not
all of them Panamanian), a bunch of minor league prospects and some home-grown
talent that will no doubt be headed north to play next spring.
The league has the blessing of Major League Baseball, which announced its
plans to reduce the number of teams for the first time since the 19th century
a couple of days before play began here. The announcement came as a blow to
Latin America's aspirations to have big league teams, but the return of professional
winter ball softened the blow just a bit for Panamanians.
The greatest player ever produced by Panama, Rod Carew, came down to throw
out the ceremonial first pitch. In televised interviews Carew, who has since
his playing days been a batting instructor with the Anaheim Angels system, said
that he wouldn't like to manage at the major league level, but finds the idea
of managing winter ball in Panama attractive. The Hall of Famer played most
of his career, which was before the big salary days, with the small market Minnesota
Twins, one of the teams most often mentioned as likely to disappear in Major
League Baseball's contraction. Carew said that big salaries have hurt baseball,
and it would be easy to see why a man who earned six-figure salaries might find
it annoying to manage young men who get seven-figure sums yet have batting averages
100 points below his own lifetime statistics.
The opening game itself, played at the National Stadium between the Metro
Panama Cerveceros and the Chiriqui-Bocas Roneros, was a little ragged on the
defensive side by nevertheless exciting.
The game got off with the Roneros' first batter, Alph Coleman, hitting a bloop
single into center field, just past the outstretched glove of charging Cervecero
second baseman Jose Macias. Then came an error, a hard-hit shot off of pitcher
Rafael Medina, a walk and a two-run single. A strikeout and a double play cut
short what could have been a big inning.
In the bottom of the first, the most noteworthy events were the Cerveceros'
(and Detroit Tigers') Jose Macias lining a single down the right field line,
but getting thrown out trying to stretch it into a double, and Roberto Kelly
(also of the Cincinnati Reds) pulling a muscle while running out a pop foul
that was caught to end the inning.
The night's big shot was a homer to left by the Roneros' Coyie Hill in the
top of the sixth, which put the team sponsored by Carta Vieja up 3-0. That advantaged
was wiped out by an eighth inning uprising by the Cerveceros, who got four straight
singles, and after Julio Zuleta (also of the Montreal Expos) struck out, another
two-run single. By innings end the team sponsored by Cerveza Panama was up 4-3.
The Roneros came back to tie the game in the top of the ninth, but in the
bottom Avelino Asprilla singled and Carlos Ruiz doubled him home to give the
Cerveceros a 5-4 win. The winning pitcher was Tim McClaskey, while Julio Rangel
got the defeat. The night's outstanding hitter was Jose Macias, who will likely
be Detroit's regular first baseman next year and who went 3 for 3 for the night
