Dominican Professional Baseball League
 | |
| Sport | Baseball |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1951 |
| No. of teams | 6 |
| Country | Dominican Republic |
| Most recent champion(s) | Leones del Escogido |
| Official website | lidom.com.do |
The Dominican Republic Professional Baseball League (Template:Lang-es) 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]
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)
- Leones del Escogido (1921)
- Sandino, later renamed Las Águilas (1937)
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 | 14 (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. Retrieved 14 January 2011.