North Americans tend to think of baseball as “theirs,”
but it is as much a “national sport” in several Latin
American countries as it is in the United States. Baseball is more popular than soccer in Cuba, Nicaragua,
the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Panama and
is important in Venezuela and Mexico. Good baseball is
played also in Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, and
Netherlands Antilles. Cuba’s first professional league
was founded in 1878, only two years later than the U.S.
National League, and the game had been introduced in
many areas of Latin America and the Caribbean before
the start of the 20th century.
Cubans learned baseball while attending school in
the United States and brought the game back to Cuba as
early as the 1860s. They in turn took the game to Puerto
Rico, the Dominican Republic, the Yucatán Peninsula of
Mexico, and Venezuela. Baseball interest in Mexico was
also strongly affected by that nation’s close relations with
the United States. Baseball was being played in Panama
(still part of Colombia at the time) by people from
Britain and the United States as early as 1882.
Cuba
In 1866 Nemesio Guillot, a young Cuban attending
school in the United States, brought baseball equipment and enthusiasm for the game with him when he returned to his country. Shortly thereafter another
Cuban, Esteban Bellán, played baseball while attending
Fordham University and then joined the Troy Haymakers, a charter member of the National Association, in
1871, the first year of professional league play in the
United States. The Havana Baseball Club was founded
in 1872 as Cuba’s first professional team, and the
Matanzas Club was established in 1873.
Soon baseball popularity spread throughout the island, and Sunday afternoon games were being played
in nearly every town. Cuban immigrants organized
baseball teams in the United States, and U.S. major
league teams began to visit the island, the Philadelphia
Athletics playing a series of exhibition games against
Cuban professionals in 1886.
Baseball was viewed as a form of expression of
Cuban national spirit, as opposition to Spanish colonialism grew through the later years of the 19th century, and colonial authorities viewed participation in
the game with suspicion, banning the sport for a year
in 1873 and again 1895 when the war for independence
began.
The popularity of the game and the competitive
successes of Cubans and Cuban national teams grew
throughout the 20th century, one of the many high
points being construction of Havana’s Cerro Stadium
in 1946. While opportunities in Cuban sport before
1959 were largely limited to a small and relatively
wealthy elite, baseball (along with boxing) was available to all and even allowed players to earn a living
through participation in the professional game. Professional play was dominated by two teams, Havana and
Almendres. During this period many Cuban players
participated in summer baseball in the United States,
and Cuban professionals were prominent on team rosters of Latin American countries. Black Cubans played
in the U.S. Negro Leagues before major league baseball
was integrated.
Cuba has dominated international amateur baseball competition. Through 1995, Cuba has won 9 of the
12 Pan American Games titles (including the first, in
1951, and the last 7), 12 of the 17 Central American and
Caribbean Games titles, and 21 of the 24 World Amateur Championships they have participated in through
1994.
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico’s first baseball game was played in 1896; a
Spanish Army officer brought the sport from Cuba.
United States soldiers stationed in Puerto Rico after the
Spanish-American War (1898) helped popularize baseball. Government, company, and school teams were organized throughout the island, and players inducted
into the military during World War I played the game in
army camps. Professional play in the Puerto Rican
Winter League began in 1938–1939.
In international amateur baseball Puerto Rico won
the World Championship in 1951 and the Central
American and Caribbean Games title in 1959. Puerto
Rico has also won medals in the Pan American Games
and the Olympic Games, including a bronze in the 1988
Olympics.
Dominican Republic
Baseball was introduced in the Dominican Republic by
Cubans who left their country after civil war began
there in 1868. The game became popular all over the
country, but first developed mainly in the area of sugar
refineries in the southeastern part of the island, where
there was no work during the sugarcane growing season and baseball filled the days of the “dead time.” Important contributions to Dominican baseball were
made by immigrants from the British Virgin Islands
and other British colonies of the Caribbean.
In the early 20th century, many amateur baseball
teams existed, particularly around the cities of Santo
Domingo, Santiago, and San Pedro de Macorís, and in
1907 the first professional team, Licey, was formed in
Santo Domingo. The presence of U.S. troops in the
country from 1916 to 1924 favored the spread of baseball interest, as did the imposing influence of the country’s most prominent fan, President Rafael Trujillo,
during his 31 years of absolute political power. In the
1930s Negro League barnstormers toured the island
each winter.
In 1937 Trujillo’s agents bought the best talent that
could be found in the U.S. Negro Leagues to assure a
championship for the dictator’s Ciudad Trujillo (as
Santo Domingo was then called) Dragons, but this extravagance ended professional baseball in the Dominican Republic for thirteen years, until the lowering of
the race barrier in the U.S. major leagues gave Dominican ballplayers a new opportunity to earn a living at
their game and opened the Dominican Republic to another invasion, this time from American professional
baseball interests.
From the mid-1950s onward connections increased
between U.S. and Dominican baseball. Dominican professional league play was conducted in summer from
1951 through 1954, but with more and more of the top
Dominicans playing summers in the United States, the country adopted a winter schedule (in 1955), so that
both their players and Americans could play the two
seasons and thus augment their incomes. However, after free agency in the U.S. majors allowed salaries to
rise to astronomical figures, the stars of both nationalities had second thoughts about risking injury by playing relatively low-paying winter ball, even if their U.S.
teams would permit it.
With the loss in 1959 of Cuba as a source of players,
U.S. professional teams stepped up scouting operations
in the Dominican Republic and, beginning in 1977, established year-round rookie training camps, such as
the Dodgers’ academy, Campo Las Palmas.
Through 1972, Dominican Republic amateur teams
had hosted the World Amateur Championship once
and won the tournament in 1948. The national team
also won the Pan American Games in 1955 and the
Central American and Caribbean Games in 1962 and
1982.
Mexico
Games had been held by American sailors in Guaymas
and American railroad construction workers in Nuevo
Laredo in 1877, and several Mexican baseball clubs became active in the 1880s and 1890s, especially in Mexico City, Veracruz, and in northern Mexico where they
played Texas teams. Also in the 1890s Cuban immigrants introduced baseball in Yucatán, where it expanded rapidly and took on a life almost independent
from developments of the sport elsewhere in Mexico.
By 1904 there were leagues for amateurs and also for
semiprofessionals. By 1926 there were more than 150
amateur baseball teams in the capital and an extensive
schedule of games was played on Sundays. In the 1920s
there were also several professional teams playing in
the capital and elsewhere, and in 1925 the Mexican
Professional League (summer) was organized. The
Franco-Inglés field in Mexico City was the scene of
most baseball action, and Ernesto Carmona was recognized as the foremost exponent of the sport. The Mexican Pacific Coast League (professional winter play) was
organized in 1945, and teams of northwestern Mexico
have won the Caribbean World Series twice since Mexico’s first participation in the championship in 1971.
Panama
In 1882, 22 years before the isthmus’s independence
from Colombia, Americans and British played baseball
in Panama, as did young Colombians attending school
in the United States when they returned for their
school vacations. In the 1890s the game was still
mainly played by foreigners in Panama City, and when
a club was established in Colón, on the Caribbean side
of the isthmus, in 1892, players traveled by train to play
inter-city matches. Around 1913 baseball activity became clearly divided between Panamanian teams and
those consisting mainly of foreigners in the Canal
Zone. A few U.S. professional players were included in
Canal Zone teams. The racial segregation that existed
in the Canal Zone led to the formation of Colored
Leagues, whose players were largely Antillean men imported to construct the canal. From 1926 to 1935, the
National League became firmly established; it would
become the Professional League. Amateur and Juvenile
Leagues were also founded. By this time the social
background of baseball players had changed considerably from the elites of the first clubs to largely a middle- and working-class composition.
The years 1935–1943 were dominated by semiprofessional play, with black players making up 70 to 75
percent of the rosters (and 95 percent on the teams that
won the national championships most years).Although
professional players had been increasingly employed
on Panamanian and Canal Zone teams since 1932, the
move toward professionalism was completed with establishment of the nation’s Professional League in
1946.
In 1952 the Isthmian League of the Canal Zone disappeared and interest in Panamanian professional play
decreased until 1962, when a short-lived experiment
attempted to revitalize the Professional League by combining it with Nicaragua’s. Under worsening economic
conditions, the Professional League continued until its
demise in 1972. The quality of amateur baseball also
fell off during this period, as did the numbers of Panamanian players employed by minor and major league
teams in the United States.
Venezuela
Baseball was introduced in Venezuela in 1895 by the
Cuban Emilio Cramer. However, the game developed
more slowly there than in some other Caribbean nations. The New York Yankees’ appearance in Venezuela
in 1947 sparked local interest in professional baseball,
and the Venezuelan Winter League has maintained its
strong position in the country. Venezuela has hosted
the Caribbean (and Inter-American) Series nine times
and won the championship seven times.
Nicaragua
The introduction of baseball in Bluefields, on the
northern coast of Nicaragua, in 1889 is attributed to an American resident of the area,who wanted to lure the locals away from cricket. The first organized league competition in Nicaragua was held in Managua in 1911–
1912, with five local teams participating. Bóer, founded
as a neighborhood club in Managua in 1905, won, beginning a long if erratic tradition that still survives.
Military intervention in Nicaragua by the United
States occurred occasionally in the late 19th and early
20th centuries, and from 1912 to 1933 Marines were almost continuously present. Marines stationed in Managua fielded baseball teams and supplied officials for
Nicaraguan baseball competitions.
In 1915 the first enclosed field went into operation
and the first nationwide league play was held, featuring
teams from Managua, Granada, Masaya, Chinandega,
and León. Sunday baseball games were important social occasions and were often attended by the nation’s
president and high government and church officials.
Betting by fans and by the competing teams added interest to the games.
In the 1930s professional baseball was established
in Nicaragua. Like his Dominican counterpart, Trujillo,
Nicaragua’s strongman, Anastasio Somoza, had his
baseball team, Cinco Estrellas. The Nicaraguan professional Winter League functioned from 1956 to 1966,
and Cinco Estrellas won the Inter-American Series title
in 1964. The Sandinista years brought more emphasis
on increasing mass participation in sport, but now professional caliber baseball is again a national passion.
Nicaragua has participated in the World Amateur
Championships since 1939 and hosted the tournament
several times, first in 1948, upon completion of the National Stadium, and most recently in 1994. The national
team won the Central American Games baseball competition in 1977, 1986, and 1994, but has finished no
higher than second place in the more competitive amateur tournaments, including the Central American
and Caribbean Games, the Pan American Games, and
the World Amateur Championships.
International Amateur and
Professional Competition
Latin American amateur baseball is important at all
levels from juvenile to adult recreational and elite play.
The highest level of international competition is the
World Amateur Championships, but fiercely contested
baseball also occurs in the Pan American Games and
other regional games.
Baseball has been an Olympic demonstration sport
seven times: 1912, 1936, 1952 (Finnish baseball), 1956,
1964, 1984, and 1988. It became a medal sport in 1992.
At the 1984 Games, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic (the latter a last-minute replacement for Cuba,
which boycotted the Games) finished low in the eightteam tournament. Puerto Rico won the silver medal in
1988, again in the absence of a boycotting Cuba, and
Cuba won the gold medal in 1992 and in 1996.
An international tournament, the Caribbean World
Series, is used to determine the Latin American professional baseball regional champion each year. Dominated by Cuba before that country dropped professional sports in 1961, this tournament (including four
years in the early 1960s when the competition was
known as the Inter-American Series) has since been
won most by teams from Puerto Rico (8) and Dominican Republic (8).
—RICHARD V. MCGEHEE
Bibliography: Bjarkman, Peter C. (1994) Baseball with a
Latin Beat: A History of the Latin American Game. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Klein, Alan M. (1991) Sugarball: The
American Game, the Dominican Dream. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press. Pettavino, Paula J., and Geralyn Pye.
(1994) Sport in Cuba: The Diamond in the Rough. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Ruck, Rob. (1991)
The Tropic of Baseball: Baseball in the Dominican Republic. Westport, CT: Meckler.