Following the fire that swept through parts of Santiago’s baseball stadium yesterday morning, Wednesday, 19 November 2014, the Ministry of Public Works, the Aguilas Cibaenas and the Dominican Baseball League have agreed to suspend the games scheduled for this weekend, 22-23 November at the Cibao Ball Park given the scale of the damage. The administrative offices and the area where the games are transmitted suffered the greatest damage, but the grandstand areas were also affected.
Minister of Public Works Gonzalo Castillo headed a commission that will inspect the damages. The fire was apparently caused by a short circuit in one of the VIP boxes in the grandstand.
According to initial assessments, millions of pesos worth of damage was caused as the fire consumed all the transmission areas, part of the Aguilas Cibaenas offices, several VIP boxes and part of the grandstand.
Ballclub president Quilvio Fernandez expressed his appreciation for the support received so far from the Dominican government in terms of repairs to the famous stadium. According to the commission members, President Medina called them more than 15 times for updates on the situation at the stadium. On Saturday, 22 November the Aguilas were supposed to play the Estrellas Orientales and on Sunday 23 November they were due to play their great rivals the Tigres Del Licey.