Basketball

The 2008 San Juan del Rio Basketball Tournament Championship Finals ended today in bloodshed and a near riot as hundreds of onlookers rushed the stands to get a better view of a fight provoked by a disgruntled player, nearly resulting in my own death by human stampede.

It looked sort of like this, only more Mexican:



But it was still exciting because the fight began as the game ended and the players were shaking each others' hands, after a really close, intense game that was won in the last fifteen seconds or so by the team that had been down only a half a minute before. All the players were pissed at each other. Everyone was getting technical fouls. It was hot and stuffy in the gym and the people in the stands were hot and stuffy with way too much passion for their team. It was the right environment for something to happen and actually I KNEW something was going to happen, and I actually told my friend to get her baby off the floor where she was playing on her blanket because, like Deanna Troy, I had a feeling.

The fight started when Pablo, who unfortunately was on Team Qro, sucker punched player #15 under the eye instead of shaking his hand in the "good game" lineup thing that teams do after games. Pablo sought refuge in the stands next to his girlfriend, who was sitting next to me, while #15 and his bleeding swelling face followed him, bringing his whole team and the rest of the gymnasium with him. It was scary. The crowd was aggravating the situation and people were holding cameras up in the air and recording the whole thing, probably to put the video of the fight on YouTube.

To be honest, when I saw the whole gymnasium coming towards me, I stood up and walked up the stands to the very top so that I wouldnt get trampled. Death by Stampede is on my mind, because of the recent tragedy in Mexico City in the News Divine nightclub when well nevermind Im too lazy so here http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/21/world/americas/21briefs-10ARETRAMPLE_BRF.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin.

After being blocked in for about 15 minutes, I was finally able to escape death and made it to the other side and out the door, and the last I saw of Pablo and his girlfriend was him sitting in the stands looking all dejected and below him like two hundred people shouting at him and the police trying to grab him by the arm and his girlfriend standing in between them and screaming in the face of one of the officers. I think what happened is that #15's teammates went outside and threw a rock and broke the windshield of her car, thinking it was his.

So, lots and lots of ghetto drama today, thank god, and a special thanks to Pablo and the nosy, destructive people of San Juan del Rio for making it possible. And for bringing the drama to me, because unless it happens right in front of my face, I never get to see it.