| Venezuelans enjoy baseball, which was introduced
to the country in 1895. The first baseball club was established by a group
of Venezuelan students who had learned the game while they were studying
in the United States. Most cities have a stadium and nearly all villages
and towns have a baseball diamond. The country has a winter baseball league
with 8 teams, which plays from October to the end of January. The most
intense rivalry is between the teams of Magallanes and Caracas. Each February,
the winner plays against teams from Mexico, Puerto Rico and the Dominican
Republic in a competition called the Serie del Caribe. |
| Most
Venezuelans have a television set. The most popular programs include telenovelas
(soap operas) and beauty pageants. Venezuelan telenovelas are also
hits in Argentina, Ecuador and Peru. |
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| Soccer, or fútbol, is also popular,
especially in the Andean region. The popularity of basketball and tennis
is increasing. Horse racing is common. Venezuelan racehorses are among
the best in the world, and many Venezuelan riders and horses have competed
internationally.
Venezuelans like to spend vacations at the beach
or on one of Venezuela's many large freshwater lakes, where they enjoy
water-skiing, surfing, snorkelling, scuba diving, swimming and fishing.
Venezuela's long Caribbean coastline and coral reefs make it an ideal location
for scuba diving. |
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| Some Venezuelans enjoy watching bullfights,
or corridas de toros. The bullfighting stadium in the city of Valencia
can hold up to 27,000 people. Maracay, San Cristobál and Maracaibo
also have bullfights featuring Venezuelan and foreign matadors. Some people
also attend cockfights where roosters fight each other.
A unique pastime in Venezuela is a game called
bolas criollas, or Venezuelan bowling. This team game is played
outdoors on a flat surface. One player throws a target ball three or four
metres away. The players take turns trying to throw their balls as close
as possible to the target ball. The team that throws the highest number
of balls close to the target ball wins. |
| Venezuelans
have won international competitions in water-skiing and motorcycling. There
are also many talented boxers, such as Morocho Hernández and Morochito
Rodríguez, who have competed in the Olympics and other international
competitions. |
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Popular children's games include marbles, kite-flying
and dominoes. One popular game called trompo is played with a wooden
top. Some children play carrucha, making homemade cars out of wooden
boxes, or pelota de goma, a version of baseball played with a rubber
ball, using a fist for the bat.
| Luis
Aparicio is widely thought to be the best baseball player in the history
of Venezuelan baseball. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame
in Cooperstown, New York. |
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