Tourists staying in Santo Domingo, Juan Dolio, La Romana and even Punta Cana are about half an hour drive away from a baseball stadium to watch how Dominicans play baseball. Those staying in Puerto Plata are about 45 minutes away.
The 70th Dominican Winter Professional Baseball Championship begins on Thursday, 19 October 2023, with games played in the East (La Romana and San Pedro de Macorís ballparks), the capital city and Santiago and San Francisco de Macorís ballparks to the north.
Six teams are playing in the tournament – Tigres del Licey and Leones del Escogido in Santo Domingo, the Toros del Este in La Romana, the Estrellas Orientales in San Pedro de Macoris, the Aguilas Cibaeñas in Santiago and the Gigantes del Cibao in San Francisco de Macoris.
The tournament begins on Thursday with the games between the Toros and Estrellas in San Pedro de Macoris, the Tigres and Leones in Santo Domingo’s Estadio Quisqueya, and the Gigantes playing the Aguilas Cibaeñas in Santiago.
It will be an interesting season. For the first time, the Dominican Baseball League (Lidom) will use timing clocks for the pitcher and the batter as per usage in the Major Leagues. Pitchers will have 15 seconds to throw the ball (20 seconds if there is someone on base), and the batter must be ready in 8 seconds—all this to speed up the game.
Listin Diario shares a bit of history with its readers. The first four years of the Dominican baseball league games were played during the day, on Saturdays and Sundays (1951-1954). In 1955, the Trujillo government inaugurated three new stadiums (Santo Domingo, Santiago and San Pedro de Macorís) with lighting and changed the schedule from the summertime to the fall and winter seasons to not coincide with Major League Baseball and so that Major League figures could play in the Dominican Republic.
The original teams were the Tigres del Licey, the Leones del Escogido, the Aguilas Cibaeñas and the Estrellas Orientales. What is now known as the Dominican Professional Baseball League (Lidom) was founded in 1955 with these four teams.
At that time, there were also important baseball leagues in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Panama. These played seven Caribbean Series from 1949 to 1955.
Read more in Spanish:
Listin Diario
Hoy
Lidom
17 October 2023