Mid February 2020

Introduction

Puerto Rico has a professional winter baseball league. This past year, there were five teams from around the island – the Indios de Mayaguez, the Gigantes de Carolina, the Criollos de Caugus, and the Atenienses de Manati, and one from San Juan. The San Juan team is the Cangrejeros de Santurce. Their home field is the Hiram Bithorn Stadium in Santurce. We can see the lights of the night games from our balcony. The Puerto Rican league ends its season with a playoff, and this year the Cangrejeros were league champions.

Other coutries around in the Caribbean area also have their winter leagues. As in Puerto Rico, each league ends its season with a playoff that determines the champion. In early February, the league champions from six winter leagues play in the Serie del Caribbe. This year, San Juan hosted the series. This meant there were baseball fans from five countries here during the first week of February, attending the games and otherwise having a good time.

The Teams

This year, there were teams from Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. Colombia replaced the Cuban team as it would have been difficult for the Cubans to obtain visas in time for the series.

The series is intense. The first five days is a round-robin with each team playing each other once. There are three games a day – one at 10:30 AM, one at 2:30 PM, and another at 8:00 PM. As host, the Puerto Rican team plays each of their games at night (exception: they played Sunday afternoon); since Santurce won the Puerto Rican league it had the further advantage of playing on its home field.

Two teams are eliminated after the five day round-robin. The remaining four play on the sixth day, and the two winners meet the next night in the final. So the whole tournament takes a week.

The Venue

All the games were played at Hiram Bithorn Stadium, in the Santurce section of San Juan. The stadium can hold about 19,000 fans. In fact, the stadium was sold out the night the team from the Dominican Republic played the Cangrejeros de Santurce. The home field did not help the Cangrejeros; they lost 5 to 4.

Some History

By the way, Hiram Bithorn was the first Puerto Rican to play in the major leagues. A right-handed pitcher, he played for the Chicago Whie Sox and Cubs during the early and mid 1940s. He was a big man -200 lbs, six feet one inch tall, and threw with a strange windup.

Bithorn had an overall record of 34 wins and 31 losses, with an earned run average (ERA) of 3.16 in 106 innings pitched. He went 18 and 12 in the 1943 season, with an ERA of 2.60. He finished 19 of his 30 starts and led the league with seven shutouts.

Like so many others, Bithorn went into the military and spent two years in the service. After the war, he was ineffective, perhaps because his weight had ballooned to 225 lbs. He died in Mexico in 1951, at age 35. Bithorn was pitching in the Mexican Pacific League, trying to make a comeback. He was shot by a Mexican policeman who was susequently convicted of murder.

Other Puerto Ricans have played major league baseball, including Roberto Clemente, Carlos Beltran, Ivan Rodriguez, Bernie Williams and Jorge Posada, to name a few.

The Games

We went to three games. We saw the morning and afternoon games on the third day of the tournament, and the first semi-final on the sixth day. The games were close and well-played. I’d say the level of play was roughly equivalent to triple-A minor league baseball in the states.

In the 10 30 AM game, the seventh of the tournament, the team from Mexico beat the team from Panama 6 – 1. The Mexican team showed good pitching and defense, and timely hitting.

The 2 30 PM game, the eighth of the tournament, pitted the teams from the Dominican Republic and Colombia against each other. Colombia’s starter, a crafty left-hander, kept the opposing batters off stride. However, he was relieved in the sixth inning while the score was tied at zero. The Colombian reliever promptly gave up a double and then a home run, all the runs the Dominican Republic team needed. They won 4 -0, making the best of their five hits. They also pulled off a triple play inf the eighth, on a failed sacrifice bunt with two on and no outs.

The Semi-Finals

At the end of the five game round-robin, the teams from Mexico and Venezuela stood at 4 -1, the Dominican Republic team was 3 – 2, and the Cangrejeros were at 2 -3. These four advanced; the teams from Colombia and Panama were eliminated.

I’m not sure how the semi-finals pairings were decided. It seems to me Mexico should have been the top seed, as it had defeated Venezuela during the round-robin. Likewise, the Congrejeros should have been seeded last. But the baseball gods thought differently, and the first semi-final had the two 4 – 1 teams play each other.

It was a close game. Venezuela won 1 – 0, avenging its earlier loss to Mexico.

In the second semi-final game, the Dominican Republic team scored two runs in the bottom of the eighth and held on to beat the Cangrejeros 4 – 3.

The next day, in the finals, the Dominican Republic team won 9 – 3 and thus became the champions of the fiftieth Serie del Caribbe.

The Fans

Latin American fans love their baseball. They are knowledgeable, fun-loving, and noisy. And really noisy. Fans come with wooden noisemakers, various percussive instruments, and fog horns. And they use them throughout the game, but especially if something is happening on the field.

The Serie del Caribbe was great fun. I hope it comes back to San Juan soon.

Notes and Sources

See the Wikipedia articles on Hiram Bithorn and Roberto Clemente for more information on them.

All the images are mine except for the image of Bithorn in his windup. That is from the Wikipedia article about him.