[EdwinB]

Although baseball is thought to have been first introduced to the Dominican Republic by United States soldiers serving there, it was its Caribbean neighbor, Cuba, that brought the sport to the country's shores.

Although baseball was very popular and spread throughout Cuba in the early 1860s, the Ten Years' War (1868-1878) forced many of Cuba's passionate baseball fans to flee the country. Several of these download Instagram video people found refuge in the Dominican Republic, where they tried to introduce the sport to the island's natives in the late 1880s and early 1890s.

These efforts were successful, and soon after, games and tournaments were organized throughout the country. In 1921, the four teams (Tigres, Estrellas Orientales, Aguilas and Leones del Esgido) -- which are currently considered the founding teams of the Dominican League -- were created to establish the main professional baseball league.

After taking control of the country in 1930 through a coup, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo took a keen interest in using this professional league as a political and nationalist tool. He decided to unite the Tigres and Leones to form a team called the Dragones de Trujillo for the 1937 season. Although the union was successful and the Dragones won the championship that year, the salary inflation created by Trujillo's actions affected financially. to the league, which resulted in the failure of the league.

Although professional baseball disappeared, amateur baseball on the island continued to grow. Despite half the team being killed in a plane crash, a struggling team from the Dominican Republic came out on top in an international tournament, claiming their first amateur championship. Three years later, with the help of this success, the Dominican winter league was created again with its four original teams. Today, after the addition of two other teams, the Dominican professional league has six teams, each playing 50 regular season games. The top four teams in the regular season advance to the postseason round robin, and the top two teams in that competition advance to play for the championship in a best-of-five series. The Dominican league champion has had excellent performances in the Caribbean Series.