Undefeated Mexico needs just one more victory — in tonight’s championship showdown against the Dominican Republic — to win the Caribbean Series, a tournament for Latin America’s best winter league baseball teams.
The Serie del Caribe, as it is known in Spanish, is being played this year in Mexicali, Baja California, at the Estadio Nido de las Águilas, better known as El Nido, or the Eagles’ Nest. It started a week ago.
Tonight’s championship begins at 9 p.m. Mexico City time and will broadcast in English on MLB.TV and MLB Network for subscribers in the United States. In Mexico, the game can be seen on ESPN Deportes.
The series, which dates back to 1949, is for teams that win championships in their respective professional winter leagues in Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.
In the past, teams from Cuba, Panama and other baseball-loving countries have participated. This year, however, organizers took a novel approach and decided to invite a team from Japan — which didn’t go over well after the baseball-rich nation sent an “all-star” team of mostly amateurs that got outscored 32-5 in four games.
Competing teams are generally identified by country, but they are actually city-based teams that compete in their respective country’s winter leagues from October through January.
Mexico’s representative is the Jalisco Charros, who play in Zapopan, near Guadalajara. This past season, the Charros tied for third place in the 10-team, West Coast-based Mexican Pacific League (LMP), then beat the Culiacán Tomateros in January’s playoff finals.
In Mexicali, the Charros rolled through round-robin play with a 4-0 record, outscoring their opponents 19-4, although a couple of victories were nearly too close for comfort — 2-1 over Venezuela (represented by the Lara Cardenales) and 2-0 over the Dominican Republic team, Leones del Escogido.
In the semifinals, the Mexican squad scored three times in the bottom of the first and held tight for a 3-1 victory over Puerto Rico (Mayagüez Indios). Puerto Rico went on to beat Venezuela 7-4 in Thursday night’s third-place game.
The Dominican Republic — a baseball-obsessed nation that has produced Hall of Famers Pedro Martinez, Juan Marichal and David Ortiz and Hall-of-Famer-to-be Albert Pujols — advanced to tonight’s final with a 5-4 win over Venezuela in 11 innings. The Leones squad is managed by Pujols, who retired from MLB in 2022 after hitting 703 homers, a total eclipsed by only three others.
In the “modern stage” of the series, dating back to 1970, the D.R. is the leader with 22 titles, followed by Puerto Rico (12), Mexico (nine), Venezuela (eight), and Cuba, Panama and Colombia (one each). Last year’s series, contested in Miami, was won by Tiburones de La Guaira from Venezuela.
This year’s Charros are managed by Benji Gil, who led Mexico’s national team to third place in the 2023 World Baseball Classic. That squad’s exhilarating run included a stunning 11-5 victory over the powerhouse U.S. and a 6-5 semifinal loss to eventual champion Japan — a thriller in which the Shohei Ohtani-led team won only by scoring two runs in the bottom of the ninth.
The Charros are composed of top Mexican professionals (some who play in the 20-team Liga Mexicana de Béisbol during the summer); pro players from Major League Baseball and the U.S. minor leagues looking to gain experience; and assorted others from Latin America, the Caribbean and beyond.
The Charros who made the series’ all-tournament team, announced Friday, are second baseman Michael Wielansky, shortstop Jack Mayfield, center fielder Billy Hamilton, left fielder Rudy Martin Jr. and relief pitcher Trevor Clifton. Mexican players snagged six of the 12 spots, including the Tijuana-born Gil as top manager.
Gil, 52, has won five championships as a manager in the LMP, but has never won the Caribbean Series in four previous attempts. However, the man who played eight seasons in “Las Grandes Ligas” (MLB’s nickname in Mexico) as an infielder, winning the 2002 World Series with the Anaheim Angels, is confident things are about to change — even against a team seeking its nation’s 23rd title.
“We’re going to lift that trophy,” Gil said Thursday. “We know it’s going to be a tough game against the Dominican Republic, where everyone will give their all. I’m telling you with all the confidence, with our team playing our baseball, we’re going to lift this trophy.”
Mexico’s five games in Mexicali have each drawn a crowd announced as a sellout of 17,000. But with a stadium capacity of 18,500, maybe tonight’s championship will draw even more.
Mexico News Daily
