MEXICO CITY — Before coming to Mexico for a two-day series against the San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler said he was planning on some sight-seeing in the city. He ended up seeing more than he expected.
Kapler took the subway from the team’s hotel in the Polanco, an upscale part of Mexico City, to Alfredo Harp Helu Stadium on Friday ahead of the weekend series opener. Somewhere on the roughly 10-mile ride, he got lost.
The manager had some tacos and coffee around 2 p.m., then said he got directions to the ballpark from his iPad. He planned to get off after seven subway stops and walk to the stadium.
“Obviously there no other English speakers on the train. But there’s some sort of notification and everybody spilled off the train like six stops before I needed to get off,” Kapler said.
When there is major maintenance work on one of the lines in Mexico City, the city government provides free buses that go alongside the tracks so passengers can continue to their destinations.
“I figured that that was some sort of normal procedure, but I wasn’t ready for it. So I kind of followed the herd and then ended up in a line for buses. And then I ended up on a bus,” Kapler said.
“So the bus was an adventure. I had enough Spanish and enough Google translate to ask the bus driver to be gracious and let me off on a highway where I walked across several lanes and then ended up walking to the ballpark,” Kapler said with a smile.
Kapler was the last member of the Giants to arrive to the stadium.
“As we’re starting to learn here in Mexico City, the traffic is pretty dense,” he said. “So what I’m learning is that the surface streets, if you can get on a train, that’s the move or be on foot, that’s the move.”
When professional teams from the United States come to Mexico City to play games, the city provides police escorts to navigate faster through traffic.
For the game on Saturday, Kapler probably will take the team bus.