- Dominican Professional Baseball League
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Dominican Professional Baseball League 
Sport Baseball Founded 1951 No. of teams 6 Country(ies) 
Dominican RepublicMost recent champion(s) Toros del Este Official website lidom.com.do The Dominican Professional Baseball League (Spanish: Liga de Beisbol Profesional de la Republica Dominicana) or LIDOM by its acronym in Spanish, is a winter professional baseball league consisting of six teams spread across the Dominican Republic; it is the top baseball league in that country. The league's players include many from Major League Baseball, and the Dominican league's champion plays each year in the Caribbean Series.
Each team plays a fifty-game round-robin schedule that begins at the middle of October and runs to the end of December. The top four teams engage in another round-robin schedule with 18 games per team from the end of December to the end of January; the top two teams in those standings then play a best-of-nine series for the national title. The league's champion advances to the Caribbean Series to play against the representatives from Mexico, Venezuela, and Puerto Rico.[1]
Contents
Teams
Team City Stadium Capacity Águilas Cibaeñas Santiago Estadio Cibao 18,077 Estrellas Orientales San Pedro de Macorís Estadio Tetelo Vargas 8,000 Gigantes del Cibao San Francisco de Macorís Estadio Julian Javier 12,000 Leones del Escogido Santo Domingo Estadio Quisqueya 16,500 Tigres del Licey Santo Domingo Estadio Quisqueya 16,500 Toros del Este La Romana Estadio Francisco Micheli 8,838 Former teams
- Caimanes del Sur (San Cristóbal)
- Delfines del Atlantico (Puerto Plata) (This team did not play and was never officially in the league)
- Pollos del Cibao / Pollos Nacionales / Pollos Béisbol Club (San Francisco de Macorís, from 1999-2002, previously Gigantes del Nordeste, currently Gigantes del Cibao)
History
Baseball was introduced in the Caribbean in 1866 by U.S. sailors loading sugar in the then Spanish colony of Cuba.[citation needed]. Also, it is known that two Cuban students, brothers Ernest and Nemesio Guillo, attended Spring Hill College in Alabama during 1860 and brought baseball to Cuba.[2] Eight years later, in 1874, the first organized game of baseball was played between Cuban teams. In the years to come it would be Cuba that spread baseball throughout the Caribbean. When the Ten Years' War (1868-1878) in Cuba brought turmoil to the colony, many Cubans fled their country and migrated to the Dominican Republic, bringing baseball with them. In the 1920s the Dominicans began to play against neighboring countries.
Founding teams
In the early 1900s, four Dominican teams formed. These teams still exist today, and form the foundation of Dominican professional baseball:
- Tigres del Licey (1907)
- Estrellas Orientales (1911)
- Sandino, later renamed Las Águilas (1937)
- Leones del Escogido (1921)
Championship history
Season Champion Manager Runner-up 1922 Leones del Escogido Luis Alfau Tigres del Licey 1923 Incomplete season 1924 Tigres del Licey Charles A. Dore Leones del Escogido 1929 Tigres del Licey Charles A. Dore Leones del Escogido 1936 Estrellas Orientales Enrique Mejía Tigres del Licey 1937 Dragones de Ciudad Trujillo Lázaro Salazar Aguilas Cibaeñas Team Championships Tigres del Licey 20 (2)* Águilas Cibaeñas 20 Leones del Escogido 13 (1)* Estrellas Orientales 2 (1)* Toros del Este 2 Dragones de Ciudad Trujillo 0 (1)* *Championships won before LIDOM (1951)
See also
References
- ^ HISTORIA DE LA SERIE DEL CARIBE. Accessed on 2011-01-12.
- ^ "Baseball in Mobile". Google.com. http://books.google.com/books?id=sotCek0MKdAC&pg=PA9. Retrieved 14 January 2011.
External links
- http://www.beisbol.org.do – Dominican Baseball Statistics
Dominican Winter Baseball League Categories:- Baseball in the Dominican Republic
- Latin American baseball leagues
- Winter baseball leagues
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