Rod Carew, the Panama Canal, and, . . . Donald Trump

Aguadulce – Chame, Panama

When I was in 3rd grade I fell in love with baseball. I read a book called Lou Gehrig: The Sandlot Kid, and it was all over from there. 

That book actually had a profound effect on my life. It launched me as a reader; I started devouring everything I could get my hands on about baseball. And I think it was that interest in baseball that helped me start enjoying math – a big part of my identity ever since. 

Why am I telling you all this? Because when I was in 3rd grade the best player on the Twins was Rod Carew. He had just finished flirting with a full-season 400 batting average – a feat not pulled off since, I think, 1941 – when Ted Williams did it. 

Rod Carew being the best player on the Twins, and almost a 400 hitter, made him my favorite player in the world. (In contrast to Reggie Jackson and Diana’s evil Yankees – who I could never root for . . .)

Rod Carew is from Panama. He was born and raised – until he was 14 – in the Canal Zone. So now that we’re in Panama Rod Carew has been on my mind a lot. 

Sadly, the Twins traded Carew to the California Angels before the 1979 season. Kind of broke my heart. But that did not stop me from following Carew’s career. My interest in baseball – and all things baseball statistics – blossomed further when I started playing Strat-O-Matic baseball in the early-80s – with Carew still being a great player at the time.

Never heard of Strat-O-Matic? I’m not surprised. I think there might still be some kind of Strat-O-Matic going on in the world – but it was basically killed by the computer. Was this great game of chance based on the statistics of the players – but it was played with dice. Rolling dice is so yesterday . . . Sad. 

Let me just tell you that all that Strat-O-Matic was great for the development of the young mathematician. I went on to win an award in high school for being essentially the most enthusiastic math person in school (note – not the best – the most enthusiastic – there’s a difference . . .), and then I majored in math in college. I still a love a good math problem and I spend lots of time on the bike converting distances back and forth between kilometers and miles . . . 🙂

Rod Carew played a big role in all that. 

Okay – now on to more on Panama itself. 

Wow. Panama has a much more complicated history than, say, Costa Rica. Let’s just start with a few of the bigger items . . .

Panama was part of Simon Bolivar’s grand Columbia project in the 19th Century. I expect we’ll be learning more about that in the weeks and months ahead . . . For now, know this . . . I guess Panama was never a fully stable part of Columbia – maybe at least partially because the connection between Columbia and Panama was the Darien Gap – which is still basically impassable (which is why we’ll be flying from Panama City to Cartagena). 

For years the U.S. had helped Columbia hold on to Panama. But then in the early-20th Century the U.S., led by President Theodore Roosevelt, became interested in building a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. (The French had tried to do it over the previous 20 years or so, but failed.) The U.S. essentially sold out Columbia and made a new deal with the new Panama to build the canal. 

The deal gave the U.S. a ten mile swath of Panama in which to build the canal and the infrastructure necessary to support it – like locks and dams and such. The U.S. Corps of Engineers built the canal, and, in 1914 the canal formally opened. It is considered one of the seven wonders of the world!

Rod Carew was born and raised in the Canal Zone. I guess the family was dirt poor. When he was fourteen, his mother moved the family to New York City – I think at least partially because by that time young Rodney was already a baseball prodigy.

In 1977,  President Jimmy Carter signed a treaty that, over time, transferred the Canal Zone back to Panama. In 1999 – after a period of joint control – the Canal Zone was formally transferred to Panama.

I tell you all this at least partially because President-Elect Trump apparently told the world today that he thinks maybe the U.S. needs to take the canal back. Diana and I first learned this while sitting in a Chinese restaurant near our hotel – where they had Panamanian news on and Trump was center-stage. I guess it’s kind of a big deal for a country like Panama to learn that the incoming president of the United States has announced that he wants to take over a big part of their country. 

It’s funny. Trump’s pronouncement doesn’t even seem to have registered in the U.S. I guess we’re so used to his various off-the-cuff stuff that we just yawn and go on with life. My sense is that one of Trump’s friends told him their company has to pay too much for canal crossing and the President-elect just took it from there . . .

I wonder what Rod Carew thinks? 

The whole idea is kind of crazy . . . I’m expecting we’ll hear a lot more about this in the days to come. Hopefully Panamanians don’t decide to take it out on us . . . 

Our ride today? It was okay. We covered the ground we had to cover to keep ourselves on track for a Panama City Christmas. But Highway 1 – the road we’ve been on the whole time we’ve been in Panama – kind of degraded as the day went on. The shoulders weren’t great a lot of the time – kind of bumpy, and sometimes just gone altogether. The traffic seemed to get worse as the day wore on as well. 

But whatever. It was still a great day. We’re on a bike trip through Panama. It wasn’t even very hot – with a breeze out of the north and mostly cloudy conditions. And we stopped at the beach – which was beautiful!!!

A few little fun things . . .

Va & Ven. 

This is a little gas station/convenience store in Panama that we have come to love. They have frappes – which we both like – but Diana REALLY loves. We even found a bigger Va & Ven today that had Sbarro pizza, among other yummy things. We’ll miss Va & Ven when we’re done with Panama . . .

We were joking today that if we still had our camping equipment we could just live outside of one of them and be perfectly happy. They have everyting we need . . . But these posts might get a little boring . . .

We were also laughing about the name. As best as we can tell it translates to Go & Come. That’s all good. But what’s funny is the ampersand. Because the Spanish word for “and” is “y” – pronounced “ee”. Hard to understand what the ampersand is accomplishing when the word it s replacing is smaller and easier to write than the ampersand itself. We decided the ampersand is cooler because maybe it is more American. But what do we know?

Juan the Fish Guy. 

So we’re biking along on the shoulder of the road when someone starts to bike toward us with a loaded bike. We don’t think much of it, but we do kind of have a rule between us: people biking the wrong way on the road need to be the ones to go out into traffic. We’re going the right way – why should we risk our lives when they’re going the wrong way?

I’m not sure how much Latin Americans would appreciate this rule – since rules in general seem a little anathema to them – and, after all, it is their country. 

Anyway, most of the time the wrong-way riders yield and we never see them again. Sure enough, this guy moved over for us. But as he approached we realized that the full load we had observed from a distance was made up entirely of fish. Like a lot of fish. Big fish. Stuffed upside down into the basket on the front of his bike. 

His name? Juan. He caught the fish in the ocean and was, I guess, on his way home or to market. He told us he would sell us a fish for $20. So maybe market? (We would have bought a fish if we were staying in an airbnb tonight . . . But, sadly, we’re at a hotel.)

We ended up seeing two other guys biking with fish – both biking the wrong way on the other side of the highway. We never did figure out exactly where or how they were getting these fish – but they were pretty darn impressive. 

Tomorrow we make the final push to Panama City. We’re already making plans for the market we’ll go to in order to pick up groceries for our holiday feast . . . Hopefully we’ll find some more fresh fish there . . .