Dominican Republic Pastimes, Baseball/ Beisbol

Baseball and Dominican Republic go hand in hand. It is not only the national pastime, it is also a

source of great pride for the Dominicans. The game has been on the island for a long time, the origin of which is disputed much. It is said that Cuba introduced the game to this country. The real competitive game seems to have started with the arrival of the US troops during their occupation of the island in the early 1900's. They played the Dominicans, of course, the Dominican players played to win and show their pride. Thus came about their dominance in the USA baseball venue. Of course, Trujillo, who loved the game, helped to make it what it is today on the island.

The first Latin American to play in the big leagues was infielder Luis Castro who played with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1902. But in the 1980's came the Dominican invasion into USA baseball. They are the largest Hispanic group in baseball with an average of about 1 in 10 players being Dominicans with the numbers are rising each year.

There are 6 major league teams in Dominican Republic but the smaller teams can be found playing in almost every town throughout the country. Organized and unorganized games abound showing just how much the Dominicans love their baseball.

Go just about anywhere in the country and you will see signs of baseball. Be it in a field or in the street. There are games being played in the small parks using a stick and a plastic cap from the large water bottles. This is a special game called Juego de Bitilla (click the link for more info about this game). It is amazing to see the distance one can hit the little blue plastic cap. You can see people playing with balls made of tape and rags. Anything they can find to make a ball and a bat just so they can play their beloved game of ball.

For so many Dominicans it is their dream to be able to play baseball and make money doing it. To go and play in USA Baseball is the goal of much of the youth of the country. For many it is the only way they can see to get ahead and make money to support themselves and their families. You can see children whose families have little money but the child playing baseball had a good uniform, a ball and bat, in hopes that they will achieve the ultimate dream of being discovered by one of the many scouts that visit the country looking for the next big league player.

So next time you visit the island try and see a baseball game. The excitement of the onlookers is contagious. The parties afterwards are fun also. Even if their favorite team does not win there is still celebration. It is fun to see, no matter the hour, after a big game is over the celebrations in the streets. People hanging out of cars. Motorbikes dragging sheets of metal clanging and sparking in the street. People waving flags and hooting and hollering. It is great fun to just observe and better fun to join in. Even if you have no idea who won or lost or who the teams are. It is another celebration Dominican style that is a mush experience.

If you are not in Dominican Republic and want to see or listen to a game most of the web sites for the teams have a link to their television or radio broadcast that can be watched or listened to on the Internet.

Professional Baseball in Dominican Republic (LIDOM)

Perfil Deportivo.com (all sports in Spanish)

Baseball America

Las Aguilas Cibaeñas(Santiago)

Tigres de Licey Baseball

(Santo Domingo)

BASEBALL TEAMS OF DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Gigantes del Cibao

(San Francisco de Macorís)

Leones del Escogido

(Santo Domingo)

Estrellas de Oriente

(San Pedro de Macorís)

Los Toros - Azucareros del Este

(La Romana)

Have you ever heard about the VooDoo curse ace pitcher Pedro Borbon put on the Cincinnati Red's? Check it out in the superstitions page

The Caribbean Series 2006 Tigres de Licey came in secong place to Venezuela. They were in the lead until the 9th. This is the second year in a row Dominican Republic ended up in second place.

All-Star-Juego de Estrellas
American League-Liga Americana
artificial turf or astroturf-grama artificial
at-bat-turno al bate to be up at bat-estar de turno
back stop-baquetó
batting average-promedio de bateo, porcentaje de bateo
ball/baseball-bola, pelota, pildora
ballplayer-beisbolero, jugador; pelotero
base hit-jit, palo, imparable, inatrapable, incogible
base stealer-robador
baseball cap-gorra
baseball game-juego de béisbol, partido de béisbol
baseball player-beisbolero, jugador de béisbol, pelotero
baseball team-equipo de béisbol
bat-bate, palo, madero, tolete
bat boy-mascota
batter/hitter-bateador
batting average-porcentaje de bateo, promedio de bateo
batting cage-campo de bateo
batting order-alineación, orden del bateo
bench-banco, banquillo
bleachers-blichers
bunt-plancha, planchita, toque to bunt-tocar la pelota;
catch-capturar, aguantar, atrapar, quechear
catcher-cácher,quécher, receptor, jugador de la máscara
center field-centrofield, jardín central
center fielder-jardinero central; guardabosque central; centro-ampista
curveball-curva; serpentina
dead ball-de bol
defeat-derrota; pérdida, revés to defeat-derrotar, vencer
diamond-diamante
double play-doble pléy, doble jugada
dugout-dogao
error-error
fan /spectator-fan; fanático, aficionado, espectador
fastball-bola rápida, recta
fielder-fildeador, jugador defensivo
final score-resultado final
first base-la inicial, primera base
first baseman-inicialista, defensor de primer saco
fly ball-flái, flay, batazo de aire, bombo, globo, globito
foul ball-fao, bola fául, bola en territorio malo
go-irse
grand slam-grand slam, jonrón con las bases llenas

ground ball-arrastrada, rola, rolata
home plate-jom, plato
home run-cuadrangular, jonrón

Some Baseball translations

To learn how to use more Dominicanismos check out the language section

Latino players make up 23% of Major League rosters. Puerto Ricans are not included, they are USA citizens.

There is a great charity that distributes baseball gear to the kids that can't afford it. You can send any used equipment to them and they will see that someone that really could use it will recieve the things. To read more about DRBASEBALL.ORG go to our charities page.

In the past it was thought that the town of San Pedro de Macoris produced most of the Dominican Major League baseball players (ie, Sammy Sosa, Tony Fernandez). Now this as changed because of the baseball academies that are found all around the country. As of 2006 the entire country of Dominican Republic can claim many towns as producing some of the baseball greats. The town with the numbers of players are as follows: Santo Domingo - 94. San Pedro de Macoris - 69. San Cristobal/San Francisco de Macoris - 8, Puerto Plata - 8, Maria Trinidad Sanchez/Nagua - 8, Sanchez Ramirez/Cotui - 8, La Romana - 8, La Vega - 7, Azua - 5, Barahona - 5, El Seibo - 5, Monsenor Nouel/Bonao - 4, Espaillat - 3, Dajabon - 2, Elias Pina - 2, Hato Mayor - 2, and Salcedo - 1. (Diario Libre)

You can't watch a baseball game without a great cigar.

Dominican Summer League

Latino Baseball.com

Baseball Latino.net

For a complete listing of Spanish to English and English to Spanish baseball terms in PDF form

All team websites have their schedules listed. They also have links to radio and TV broadcasts of the games. So to see when the next game is or who won or lost go to your favorite teams site and look.

The Victors of The Final Series/ Serie Final of Baseball Games Past:

Los Tígueres del Licey won in: 1951,1953,1958,1963,1969,1970, 1972, 1973, 1976, 1979, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1990, 1993, 1998, 2003, and 2001, 2005, 2006 and 2009.

Las Águilas Ciabaeñas won in: 1952, 1964, 1966, 1971, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1985, 1986, 1992, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2007 and 2008.

Los Leones de Escogido won in: 1955, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1960, 1968, 1980, 1981, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2010 and 2012.

Did you know that X President and Dictator of Dominican Republic, Rafeal Trujillo, was a baseball fan? Heres a little tib-bit on what he did to promote baseball (and himself). People in History-Trujillo - (opens in a new window)

Caribbean Series 2007 Aguilias won the series! The longest baseball game in the Caribbean Baseball Series had 18 innings. The game was 6 hours and 13 minutes long. Played at the Roberto Clemente stadium in Puerto Rico Feburary 2, 2007. The Aguilas Cibaeñas of Dominican Republic won 4 to 3 over the Tigres de Aragua of Venezuela.

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Check out this project started by our Zoner friend Diane Google Earth Community: Baseball Diamonds in Dominican Republic. She is attempting to locate all the baseball fields in the country. Great work!

Baseball/ Beisbol

infielder-jugador del cuadro
inning-capítulo, epsiodio, inin
knuckleball-bola de nudillos
left fielder-jardinero izquierdo
left field-jardín izquierdo, bosque izquierdo
locker room-cuarto de vestirse
lose-perder
misplay-pifiar
mitt-trocha
mound-montículo
out-áo; áut, out
outfielder-guardabosque, jardinero, fil
outfield-bosque, cuadro exterior, jardín
pitch-disparo, envio
pitcher-lanzador, monticular, pícher, serpentinero
pitcher's mound-montículo
play-pleres
pop fly-bola elevada, bombo
rain delay-postergación por lluvia
replay-repetir
right field-jardín derecho, bosque derecho
right fielder-jardinero derecho, guardabosque derecho
rolling-rolin
run-anotación, carrera, rayita
run-batted in-carrera impulsada, carrera remolcada, empujada
safe-cierto, quieto, sei; seif
score-resultado, tanteo to score-anotar; cruzar el plato
scoreboard-pizarra de anotaciones, marcador, pizarrón, tanteador
season tickets-abonos de temporada
second base-la intermedia, segunda base
second baseman-intermedista, camarero, defensor del segundo saco
slide-arrastrarse, barrerse, deslizarse, tirarse
slump-eslom
southpaw/lefty-zurdo, brazo corvo, brazo siniestro, brazo equivocado
spikes-ganchos
spitball-bola ensalivada
steal-base robada;
strike-estraíc, estray
strikeout-ponche
third baseman-antesalista, defensor del tercer saco
throw-disparo, lanzamiento, tiro
triple play -tripleplei, triple jugada, triple matanza
umpire-árbitro, juez de campo

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Buy a Dominican Republic Baseball T-shirt, Jersey or Hat? How about a book or two about Baseball Dominican style. You can find these and more items here at Amazon.com

This is a video taken from Television of the Himno Nacional being sung at the beginning of the second game of the final series between AGUILAS and LICEY. It shows many of the players while you can listen to the National Anthem of Dominican Republic (2007)

To see the Himno Nacional being sung at the beginning of the third game of the series go here

Caribbean Series 2008. Tigres del Licey beat their local foes, the Aguilas Cibaenas (there were 2 Dominican teams as Puerto Rico could not play this year) and won their 10th championship. The score was 8 to 2 (the widest margin in the history of the series). This makes it the 17th Serie del Caribe Championship that Dominican Republic has won.

Dominican Republic has won the most Caribbean Series championships than any other country in the 50 year history of the series.Dominican Republic 19 times, Puerto Rico 14, Cuba 7, Venezuela 6, Mexico 6, Panama 1.

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Buy your Dominican Republic Cigars and all your smoking supplies. Get reviews and all the information you ever needed about cigars.

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Diamonds Rough 
(article written Sunday, February 13, 2005.  Printed with permission by the writer Mark Saxon) Gracias Mark! 
     A 15-year-old boy is sitting on a rusting oil drum 50 feet from the left-field wall of Quisqueya Stadium, this nation's steel-and-concrete shrine to its national pastime.
     Nelson Felix de Leon is watching two older boys play catch in a weedy lot. Atop the high wall, other children have scrambled up to watch famous major leaguers and fringe prospects take infield practice far down the first-base line. De Leon watches, but he doesn't participate. "I don't have a glove, and I don't have cleats," de Leon explains. "And besides, I have to help my mother." The woman is nearby, frying up starchy snacks at her roadside cart for fans of Licey and Escogido to grab,dropping a few pesos in her palm on their way to the game.
     
Most Dominican boys aren't so easily deterred. Young boys here are crafty, searching out ways to play baseball with scant equipment. Miguel Colon, 62, the father of Angels pitcher Bartolo Colon, remembers playing with a wadded up cloth for a ball. Then there's the classic Dominican cliche: kids using milk cartons for gloves. Driving through this sprawling city, or through the green, leafy countryside, it's a common sight: small groups of boys swinging a bat, scooping a grounder or heaving a ball. They're playing on a side street while dodging traffic. And in the clearing of a sugar cane field. And on the beach.

This was America 50 years ago, when baseball still reigned as king of the sports. But subtract the wealth and add a dose of Latin American effervescence. When U.S. troops occupied the country in 1916, baseball emerged as a symbol of national defiance. The Dominicans would challenge the soldiers to baseball games. The locals often won.
That was a long time ago. By now, this country of 10 million people, which shares the Caribbean's second-largest island with Haiti, has become the foreign source for cheap marquee talent. According to the Baseball Encyclopedia, 385 men who have played in the major leagues were born in the Dominican Republic, twice the number from the next-largest foreign source, Venezuela. About 100 Dominicans open a typical season on major-league rosters, 10 percent to 13 percent of all players.Two winters ago, the Angels made a bold stab at another World Series title by signing three of the biggest Dominican stars: Colon, outfielder Jose Guillen and the man who would bring home American League Most Valuable Player honors 11 months later, Vladimir Guerrero.

"Kids over there play baseball from the time they can walk," said Angels general manager Bill Stoneman, whose team opens spring training Wednesday. "They play barefoot, they play scantily clad, they play with things you wouldn't call a baseball. But they're playing baseball a lot more than American or Canadian kids. So it would make sense that a lot more of them are signing pro contracts."

Those are the elite few lucky enough to live a dream. Major League Baseball says 90 percent to 95 percent of Dominican boys who sign to play pro ball never make the majors. Some of those who wash out can look forward to a future cutting sugar cane and making about $150 a month. Others will drive town cars in New York or scrub dishes in Miami.  The guidebooks will tell you the Dominican Republic is a "land of contrasts," and the schisms are, indeed, everywhere: New York Mets pitcher Pedro Martinez's yellow Ferrari rolling over potholed streets past starving beggars; shoeless peasants working in the fields near sprawling estates owned by rum barons; young rural women forced by poverty to sell their bodies in the marble-floored luxury hotels where foreign men come to take advantage of them. But it's also a land flowing with energy, color and joy. How else to explain why so many millionaire baseball players return winter after winter – and after they retire – to live among their people? They could live anywhere and they choose to live on an island where 60 percent of the population lives in grinding poverty.

THE CHOSEN FEW     One warm evening in December, two of the past three American League MVPs were within a 15-minute drive of each other. Both powerful men happened to be sitting around a table playing dominoes with their families. In Nizao, a coastal hamlet 35 miles west of Santo Domingo, the Angels' Guerrero – 2004 MVP – was gathered with a dozen young men, mostly brothers and cousins. A jostling five-mile trip up the road, 2002 MVP Miguel Tejada was sitting around a table with his two brothers, his father, his cousins and a few friends.Tejada had on a black No. 23 Michael Jordan jersey and a matching No. 23 cap. Two of the men in the room had shotguns propped between their legs. Players can't rely on police for protection, so they hire bodyguards   or arm their entourages. Here, the wealthy must protect their assets from the desperately poor. A security guard also sat in front of Tejada's father's house with a semiautomatic weapon. "Don't worry. This is just in case someone tries to do something," Tejada said. "Some of the people in my country are no good."

Guns are everywhere in the country. At Guerrero's house, one of his brothers had a pistol sitting in his lap while a group played dominoes. Fitzgerald Astacio – who works with the agents representing Guerrero, Tejada and Martinez – tucks a nickel- plated .45 magnum under the seat of his black Lexus sport utility vehicle as he heads to the airport to pick up Martinez. Many drivers carry weapons in Santo Domingo.
     Statistics show that the Dominican Republic – while far from dirt-poor by Latin American standards – has among the least-equitable distribution of resources in the Western Hemisphere. Baseball players are aware that they become targets when they return to their countries, a point hammered home when thugs kidnapped the mother of Detroit Tigers pitcher Ugueth Urbina in Venezuela last September. The woman remains captive, with the kidnappers reportedly demanding $3 million.

On this night near the Dominican's southeastern shoreline, however, peace reigned. Tejada, the Baltimore Orioles' powerful shortstop, was slowly sipping a mix of scotch and an energy drink. He shared with two foreign visitors. Oddly, it went down easy with a couple of cubes of ice and a plate full of spaghetti, spicy marinara sauce and grilled red onions. A young woman in the kitchen, the companion of Tejada's elderly father, was dishing it up for the men playing dominoes. "Dominican food," Tejada said.

After a Dominican player strikes gold in the major leagues, he typically builds a small fiefdom in his hometown. If the player is generous, he becomes the local charity. Guerrero and Tejada tote back home bags stuffed with balls, bats and clothes each fall. Tejada and Bartolo Colon are building stadiums for their hometowns. According to some experts, players pump far too much money into baseball facilities and not enough into helping build up the country's faltering education system
.   Tejada's stadium was due to open soon, and he was planning an all-star softball game. This night, Dec. 16, he was sending out invitations to most of the island's best players. The Boston Red Sox's David Ortiz and several others had already said they would be there. "They'll all be there, because it's Tejada," said Virgilio Rojo, a Dominican baseball official. "Everybody likes Miguel." Tejada, Colon and Guerrero are among the most popular major leaguers here. Dominicans say they are sencillo, simple, meaning that success hasn't made them forget their roots.

A NARROW PIPELINE       Dominican talent continues to power the major leagues, even as teams seek new sources of cheap young players in nearby countries such as Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba and Panama. On the Angels' 2004 division title team, the best player, Guerrero, the best starting pitcher, Colon, and the No. 2 run producer, Guillen, all came from this island. So did spot starter Ramon Ortiz and several of the club's top prospects. Most teams mine the island's talent with shiny academies that dot the southern coast. The Angels' is in San Pedro de Macoris. The Dodgers were one of the first to tap this lode with their academy in Campo Las Palmas, near Santo Domingo. With all the scouts about, boys here grab at mirages, hoping they can be the next Sammy Sosa, Tejada or Guerrero. That mentality can be a dangerous trap, according to some who study breakdowns in the Dominican education system.

"Sometimes you wish there was more than just baseball here," said New York Mets general manager Omar Minaya, the game's first Dominican general manager.

Harvard public-policy professor Robert Jensen conducted a study financed by Dominican President Leonel Fernandez a few years ago. He found that baseball isn't just a pipe dream here, it's a dangerous illusion. While the Dominican Republic is essentially a middle-class country by Latin American standards, it has a terrible record of keeping kids in school. About 29 percent of Dominican children reach high school, according to the United Nations. Jensen and his colleagues interviewed thousands of Dominican children to find out why so many of them drop out. One in four boys said he wanted to be a baseball player.

"Baseball is just ruining these kids' lives," Jensen said. "It's the classic thing. They say, 'Look, if I stay home and do my homework, I'm not out there practicing baseball.' They see these baseball guys making so much money. It's like the U.S. The people who spend the most on lottery tickets are the poorest."

For kids who drop out of school intent on playing professional baseball, a more likely fate is the sugar-cane fields and a future built on $10 a day.

Where dreams are all people have, they die hard.

Alex Rodriguez

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Las Estrellas Orientales won in: 1954 and 1967

Los Toros (Azucareros) Este only in 1994 and 2011 (playing against the Estrellas 4 to 2).

Estadio Quisqueya - Santo Domingo, República Dominicana

Home of the baseball teams the Leones del Escogido and the Tigres del Licey. Many large concerts and events are also held in this large stadium. Officially inaugurated October 23, 1955 but has undergone many changes throughout the years.

Location - Avenida Tiradentes and Avenida San Martín, in Ensanche La Fe, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

www.estadioquisqueya.com.do

+click image to enlarge