SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — When asked about the ubiquity of the thing called pelota in this island's life and culture, Puerto Rico's top justice official said she only has to glance out the windows of her home to catch the dazzling blue-white lights of Hiram Bithorn Stadium. Or to think back to when she was a schoolgirl.
"My father and I, whoever had gotten up first, would go get the paper," said Anabelle Rodriguez, the secretary of justice in the Puerto Rican government. "We wanted to know what Roberto Clemente had done in his at-bats the night before."
Since the first bats, mitts and balls arrived more than a century ago in the baggage train of invading U.S. troops, baseball, or pelota, has become a deeply rooted part of society on this eastern Caribbean island, influencing Puerto Ricans' image of themselves and even how they spend tax money.
This summer, the commonwealth finds itself with its own major league team, or at least a share of one, as the financially shaky Expos split their home stands between Montreal and San Juan.
For 22 games, Les Expos are morphing into Los Expos, and plying their craft at the same wind-buffeted San Juan field Rodriguez can see from her windows. For many Puerto Ricans, it is tacit tribute to the rich talent pool that the island and its nearly 4 million people have become for baseball, and American society as a whole.
"All of our engineers leave. Half of our doctors go to the smaller states," said Father Fernando Pico, a Jesuit priest and history professor at the University of Puerto Rico. Four of Pico's own nephews are doctors, and all practice in the United States.
Baseball can serve as a metaphor for the confused, sometimes contradictory sentiments people here feel toward the mainland, where 2.7 million Puerto Ricans live. It is perfectly possible, said analysts of Puerto Rican politics, for an islander to advocate independence -- the departure of the Yanquis -- while rooting for the New York Yankees.
Even for Puerto Ricans who desire a continuing link with the United States -- either statehood or the current self-governing commonwealth status -- baseball and all sports have become a soft and safe form of nationalism, a cause for self-identification and collective pride.
In 1993, when a nonbinding plebiscite was held about Puerto Rico's future, advocates of keeping the commonwealth noted, among other things, that if the island were to become the 51st state, it would lose the right to send a baseball team and other athletes to the Olympics.
