Phoenix – Watching the first few innings of the World Baseball Classic from the Chase Field stands Tuesday was the best way to gain an ink- ling of the determination of U.S. fans and the passion of Mexico’s followers.
There were 32,727 people in the place. Often it seemed as if 32,726 of them were Mexican rooters.
The roof was half opened and the Mexican flags were being flapped by young and old. Nearby was a man in a cowboy hat with his beard painted a shade of red, then white, then green, the colors of the Mexican flag re-created right there on his chin. For good measure, green dust was sprinkled on his beard.
Leave it to good old American ingenuity for a fabulous volley.
This guy may have trumped them all: He wore a Minnesota Twins jersey. He strolled throughout the park, shook an American flag in his left hand and a cardboard sign in his right that read: “WIN ONE FOR KIRBY.”
For Kirby Puckett. Gone now, but forever a part of the best of baseball.
The game was sailing, a scoreless affair through nearly four innings when Derrek Lee walked to the plate. Now, Lee was a solid player for the Florida Marlins but last year found the best of his game and his vigorous power as a Chicago Cub, when he contended for the Triple Crown. He finished with 46 home runs. He would nail an away fastball from Mexican starter Rodrigo Lopez into the right-field stands for a 1-0 U.S. lead in the bottom of the fourth.
That would prove the only run the U.S. would need in a 2-0 victory.
A victory that pleased the Americans. A loss that crushed the Mexican team.
Their manager, Paquin Estrada, walked into the interview room afterward, pulled up a chair and sat, forlorn. You would have sworn the man’s dog had just died. He had that deep, gloomy look that goes with a kick in the gut, a punch to the heart.
“It was tough for him, tough for all of us, but he told us to be ready, to come back, that it is one game and we have more to play,” Mexico center fielder Karim Garcia said. “There is not much you can say that helps when you lose a game like this that you and the country wanted so badly.”
Mexico knows the flip side.
It knocked the U.S. out of the 2004 Olympic tournament. But that U.S. team was primarily a bunch of scrappy college kids.
This time the Mexicans were battling a major-league-fed roster from top to bottom. It showed in the U.S. pitching. It showed in the U.S. power.
What an American way to win a baseball game. Pitch great. Knock the ball out the park.
The old 1-2.
The American game for so long was Maury Wills and Lou Brock and Rickey Henderson and stealing bases and bunting runners over and manufacturing runs. In recent years it has gone longball, sock-it-to-’em, out of the park and over the fences.
Lee did it.
Chipper Jones added another, an opposite-field blast of his own to left field on the first pitch he saw, in the bottom of the seventh, for insurance.
“The way the game was going early, we were going to start looking for hit-and-run opportunities,” said Buck Martinez, the U.S. manager. “I’m glad it never got to that point.”
Because the USA boppers bopped.
“Our hitting coach, Reggie Smith, told us to look to hit it out,” Lee said. “Every guy in our dugout hit at least 20 home runs last year. We’re going to play to our strength. And all that takes is a couple of good swings.”
Jones added: “We’ve got so many good players, so many good hitters, that it is a matter of time before somebody runs into one. I went up there looking to hit the first fastball I got. It happened to be the first pitch I got.”
The U.S. pitchers – starting with Jake Peavy and ending with Cherry Creek High School graduate Brad Lidge – were dominant. Mexico had only four hits, with Garcia collecting two of them.
The U.S. only had six, but two left the park.
In his best English, Lopez described Lee’s homer as “a longball.”
He said the Americans are “bigger and stronger than we are. That is what they do with a mistake.”
Peavy and Jones called this game, this day, one of the best moments of their careers. Peavy said he has never had a better feeling in his life. Jones described the crowd, especially the Mexican portion of it, as electric. He said he had never had more butterflies before any game.
It was an opening game that meant a lot to the U.S. and everything to the Mexican team in this inaugural World Baseball Classic.
And the Americans immersed the root of their game into this international flavor.
The decisive longball. The grand home run.
Or, as the Mexican team would say, “Jonrón!”
Staff writer Thomas George can be reached at 303-820-1994 or tgeorge@denverpost.com.
