Trisha Shetty (Editor)

Caribbean Series

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Sport
  
Baseball

Inaugural season
  
1949

Founded
  
1949

Countries
  
Cuba  Dominican Republic  Mexico North America  Puerto Rico  Venezuela

Most recent champion(s)
  
Criollos de Caguas (4th title)

Most titles
  
Tigres del Licey (10 titles)

The Caribbean Series (Spanish: Serie del Caribe), also called Caribbean World Series, is the highest tournament for professional baseball teams in Latin America, featuring the champions of Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. The tournament location is rotated annually among the countries and is normally played in February after all of the leagues have ended their national tournaments.

Contents

The 2014 Caribbean Series was held at Estadio Nueva Esparta in Margarita Island, Venezuela. Cuba accepted an invitation to take part as a guest in the tournament. The Series would stay with the same five teams in 2015, which was held at Estadio Hiram Bithorn in San Juan, Puerto Rico and 2016 in Estadio Quisqueya in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

History

The competition was the brainchild of Venezuelan baseball entrepreneur Pablo Morales and Oscar Prieto Ortiz, his business partner since 1936, who devised the idea after seeing the success of the now extinct Serie Interamericana in 1946, which featured the clubs Brooklyn Bushwicks from the United States, Cervecería Caracas from Venezuela, Sultanes de Monterrey from Mexico, and an All-Star team composed of Cuban players.

Inspired by the Serie Interamericana and his experience as a former president of the International Baseball Federation, Morales joined Prieto and presented the idea to baseball representatives of Cuba, Panama and Puerto Rico during a meeting held in Havana on August 21, 1948. The representatives then agreed to stage a four-country, round-robin tournament 12-game to be known as the Serie del Caribe, to be launched in Cuba from February 20–25 of 1949.

The Series ran annually from 1949 through 1960, with Cuba winning seven times. However, the event was cancelled after Fidel Castro dissolved all professional baseball in Cuba in 1961. It was not until 1970 when the Caribbean Series was revived. Moreover, the 1981 Caribbean Series was not held due to a Venezuelan League player's strike.

Championships by Final Game

Starting with the 2013 Caribbean Series, a final match was introduced where the two teams with the best win-loss record from the round robin first stage would meet to define the champion. In 2013 the first round consisted of 12 games and each team faced the other teams twice, one as home club and the other as an away team; from 2014 on, with the return of Cuban teams to the tournament, the first stage was changed to a round robin of 10 games where each team faced the other teams once. The following is a list of the final matches and its results:

References

Caribbean Series Wikipedia