Heading to our first Diablos game on the metro
Since Mike grew up in St. Louis, he’s naturally a Cardinals baseball fan like nearly every other citizen of the city. And after a few years together, osmosis turned Angie into an even bigger fan than Mike. We try to see a few games a summer, typically when the Cardinals swing through to play the west coast teams. That’s been difficult, of course, while we’ve been in Mexico.
A short walk to the stadium from the metro station
Luckily for us, there are a pair of professional baseball leagues in Mexico. The biggest, named LMB, is made up of Triple-A level players – there are both young guys just one step away from the majors in the US, and there are some older guys who played for several years in the majors but didn’t really stick with a team.
One of the LMB teams is the Diablos Rojos (Red Devils), and they play in Mexico City. We bought tickets online – like many things in Mexico, tickets are much less expensive than in the US so we could sit in the second row directly behind home plate for $20. An entertaining half hour subway ride dropped us at their brand-new stadium, and we had time to explore the stadium and watch warmups before first pitch.
The Diablos play in a beautiful, brand new stadium
Any baseball fan knows that part of the experience is the game, but part is also enjoying the ballpark food. We’ve come to expect great food everywhere we go in Mexico, and it was no different at the game. The local ballpark delicacy in Mexico City is cochinita pibil tacos – citrus-marinated pork is slow-roasted, rolled into tortillas, and then fried to a golden brown – absolutely delicious!
Delicious cochinita pibil tacos- you can’t find those at Busch Stadium!
Aside from an upgrade in the quality of the food and the fact that all of the announcements and stats are in Spanish, the atmosphere at the game is more or less the same as in the US. Families enjoying the game with their kids, friends relaxing with the slow pace of baseball on a nice summer evening, and everyone singing along (in Spanish, of course) at the seventh inning stretch.
We saw a few familiar faces from MLB, including Brandon Phillips who is now playing for the Diablos
We had such a good time at the first game, we went back for seconds later in the week – Go Diablos!
Fredbird is going to be jealous of Angie’s new mascot buddy, Rocco
