WHO: The Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela.
WHAT: The annual winter baseball championship of Caribbean Double-A teams.
WHEN: The first week of February.
WHERE: The series rotates each year among the four countries.
WHY: A love affairs with the Boys of Summer in the dead of winter. National pride. A year’s worth of regional bragging rights. A weeklong party for some of baseball’s most passionate and knowledgeable fans. WHY NOT?!
You can learn all about the Serie via our links here, including Wikipedia.
To date, the Baseball Posse has been witness to these festive championships in San Juan, P.R. in 2003 and Santo Domingo, D.R. in 2004.
We missed the 2005 tourney in Mazatlan, but guest columnist Rich Ruybalid brought back his accounts and pics of the Serie, which coincided with Mazatlan’s annual Carnaval celebration. (Nice timing, Rich!)
It won’t surprise baseball fans to know that in the beginning, Cuban teams virtually owned this tournament. The United States used to participate back in the day, as well, but decided it wasn’t worth risking their best players.
More recently, the Dominican Republic has dominated, for obvious reasons. Their 2003 team, for example, featured an infield of 1B David Ortiz, 2B Rafael Furcal, SS Miguel Tejada and 3B Jose Valentin.
What’s their idea of Triple–A baseball, the 1927 Yankees?
But Dominican dominance is being challenged of late by Venezuela and even Mexico.
In 2004, a year after they had more or less disgraced themselves in San Juan, the Mexican team came back with a surprisingly strong showing in Santo Domingo. To no one’s surprise,los dominicanos triumphed both those years.
Then came 2005, and with Mexico not only hosting this year’s Serie in Mazatlan, but the home team representing el tricolor, the stage seemed set for a major upset.
In each of the years since, the host country has won the Series, which gives you an idea of how big of a nationalistic passion play this tournament is. It still doesn’t change the reality that the Dominicans are the annual favorites.
In 2009, though, Mexico will once again host the Serie…and that’s not all. The tourney will be hosted in Mexicali! The Aguilas will welcome the Caribbean champions to the desert — and you know The Posse WILL be in effect for that one!
But hold onto your gorras, folks, becausse there’s something even bigger in the wind.
For the last few years, there’s been some buzz about the possibility of Cuba returning to the Serie. After watching their national team perform in the inaugural World Baseball Classic, to have a chance to see the Cubans in the annual Serie against the Caribbean’s best could only be a baseball junkie’s dream come true.
The Posse is keeping a close eye on this. If there are any developments, we’ll let you know.
