Our baseball season is officially over. Today, we trekked down to Phoenix Muni to watch the Olympic Qualifying Tournament for The Americas (a sub regional) as two teams that have no chance of making the Olympics—Panama and Guatemala-- squared off in front of 48 loyal fans (on an absolutely gorgeous day).

It was a 12-1 blow out, and it was a miracle that Guatemala scored. They were outmanned but not short on heart. A few of the Panama players are in the minor leagues—Jony Lasso, Avelino Asprilla and Donald Julio. The others are a collection of young talent and older players, still playing their hearts out for their countries.

Of note: they played both countries’ national anthems (no words) and the game was being broadcast back to Panama (as you see in the video). You can just visual millions of Panamanians sitting and hearing the accounts of their heroes thousands of miles away. As we learned after the game, the U.S. swept the five-game tournament and finished on top of the bracket with Canada and Nicaragua finishing in a tie for second at 3-2. The top four teams will advance to the Americas Qualifying Tournament to be held in Cuba in August 2006.

And so it goes. Our season comes to an end until next February in pre-spring training. It’s been a great nine months. We can hardly wait til 2006.