energetic. Many of the 17,893 attendees — a sell out — walk around the stands and fraternize in the hallways. The mascots start by throwing bananas into the crowd. Chango makes allusions to his penis with the bananas. They perform an impromptu voodoo ceremony atop the away dugout. Chango takes a hit from the cauldron of imaginary elixir. It hits him hard. He walks around the dugout in a daze. He goes back for another hit. Cheerleaders dance


on the field while others walk through the stadium. Many of them text on their phones throughout the game while men indulge in tacos de ojos — the Mexican slang equivalent of eye candy. As the Tori- tas dance before the away dugout, Chango walks up and sprays them with silly string, then does a balle- rina dance while spray- ing the silly string in little circles. He kisses his fin- gers and throws a peace sign up to the crowd. They cheer. A Toro fan’s sign on the jumbotron reads: “#TodosSomosPo- chos.” English: “We are all pochos.” At one point a foul


ball came in behind us, and a young man five rows up catches the ball with his bare right hand while holding a doble de Tecate in the left hand. Our sec- tion erupts. Things seem to be going Toros way. But then, a “jonrun.” (Mexican for “home run”) and Peri- cos lead 1-0, and the game settles into a pitchers’ duel. In the top of the


ninth, the away team scores another run. Toros fail to score in the bot- tom of the inning, and the Pericos celebrate on Gasmart’s turf. I make a mental note


to get reimbursed for my Game 7 tickets at the gas station.


Sentri passes. He enjoys living stateside. He goes to Mexico for work. The 33-year-old has


played baseball around USA, as well as Venezuela and Mexico. “We definitely get the most fans,” he says. “There are other stadi- ums — Mexico City and Puebla — where the fans are really into the game. But we have fans into the game, and more of them.” Does the rowdy atmo-


Tecate beers are sold throughout the ballpark for about $1.50. (It’s $7.25 a beer at Petco.)


Number one fan Randy Arms, 54 and born in Brawley, has long lived around the border. He has blue eyes and blonde hair gone gray. He lives in the Villa Fontana area of Tijuana, not far from the stadium. He played ball in the seventies in Mex- ico. Now, he’s a Toros season ticket holder. He once played at Estadio Gasmart in the late 1970s. He’d told his wife about it. She ultimately learned about Toros, and she sug- gested they go to a game. “I know this field,” he


said as they walked in. “I thought so,” his


wife replied. He was a bit depressed


with how dilapidated the field was 35 years later. “No one had taken care of it,” he laments. “I saw it when it was brand new.” The next year, 2015, he and his wife returned for another game. The field had been restored. Uribe was putting money into the organization. Arms decided to get season tickets, but he wanted four tickets instead of just the two he and his wife would use. “What happened was


one of the vendors selling beer out of the five gallon buckets sets his ass on my shoulder,” he says. “And I was trying to get his ass


off my shoulder, so I said, ‘Okay, honey, I want four seats so when vendors come by to sell beers they can sit there.”’ In 2016, he attended


almost all of the Toros games. The couple he missed, “I didn’t miss ’em by choice.” He says he once paid $20 to Martin during a game after the slugger granted his request to hit a home run. Martin didn’t want to take the cash, but Arms forced it upon him: “A deal’s a deal,” he says. Asked about the


mascots, dancing girls, and jumbotron hijinks, Martin calls them dis- tractions. “I’m not into mascots, I’m into baseball. But Chango is hilarious. He takes his personality a step further than anyone could do in the US. He does some X-rated stuff and kids shouldn’t see that. It’s funny but crass. He harasses the [cheer- leaders], gets in middle of them and throws the rou- tines off and sometimes the girls will jump on him and spray him with confetti string and pull every part of his suit,” he says. “They throw dirt on him. I love Chango, but he deserves that sometimes.” Randy says he doesn’t


care for cheerleaders in baseball. “I wish they weren’t there,” he says.


Mascots Pollo Layo (a chicken), Chango 0Te (a monkey) start by throwing bananas into the crowd.


“But, it brings people out to the game. I do wish they would cut back on them. There are dozens of them.” What surprises him


the most about the she- nanigans at a Toros game? “The middle finger


going up on the jumbo- tron,” says Arms. “You’ll never see that in the US. Some women don’t want to be looked at, and they’ll give you the finger here. That’s really caught my attention.” When there are fights


going on in the stands, Arms is not happy, but he says he’s only seen minor altercations. He compli- ments the strict security at the games. Through- out the 2016 season, Arms introduced himself to Toros management, executives, and players. They liked him, because he knew the game. Randy quickly found himself in the locker room and dugout high-fiving play- ers. “I like the atmosphere in the dugout, especially since I’d played in those dugouts before. It brought back memories.” In the very last games


against Puebla, Toros management began introducing Randy as the team’s number one fan.


“Toros became my sec- ond family,” the gringo says. “Toros opened their doors to me. I was able to go down on the field and build relationships.” He adds, “In the old


days [in the states], players pulled their cars into the parking lot, got out, and walked passed you and you yelled their name and maybe they talked with you and signed things. Today, they park underground. You rarely get to meet them before or after the game. It’s different in Mexico.”


That one player that goes off Dustin Martin, whose walk up song is DC Talk’s “Jesus Freak,” says he was excited to be traded to Tijuana ahead of the 2015 season from Quintana Roo in south- east Mexico. It gave him an opportunity to live in Imperial Beach with his wife, and now their new- born son. He likes Esta- dio Gasmart, and he knew that fan base — one he’s come to love — was good. Before the trade,


Tijuana “wasn’t really on my radar,” he says. He knew it was a border town by San Diego. He and his wife now have


sphere affect the outfield- er’s play? “I don’t really think


about it,” he says. “You get used to it. I might have been a bit shocked the first couple of weeks, but it becomes second nature. I like the music, the fans — I like the brand of baseball a lot more than in the states. Even in the outfield, you can watch the sights and sounds.” When I ask if there’s


anything the MLB could learn from Mexican baseball, he mentions the jumbotron. He definitely thinks the minor leagues should take more after Mexican baseball. “They’d get a lot more fans,” he says. “That’s the truth.” Martin finished the


2016 season with a .325 batting average and 19 home runs. He had many key hits in the playoffs, including the two home runs in the championship series. “I watch the big league playoffs, and there’s always that one player that goes off, hits some hom- ers,” he says. “It was fun to kind of be that guy this year. I’ve taken back some great memories. The walk off in Game 1 was awe- some. My wife and kid were there, but also my parents, sisters, extended family. To be able to share that with them, and watch the Tijuana fans go crazy in that moment, is very special to me and some- thing I’ll never forget.”


— Justin O’Connell ■


26 San Diego Reader April 6, 2017


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