Venezuelan baseball team Tiburones de la Guaira celebrating after winning the Caribbean Series final in Miami, Florida, February 9, 2024. Photo: Chandan Khanna/AFP.
Caracas (OrinocoTribune.com)—Venezuela won the Caribbean Series 2024 baseball tournament, beating Dominican Republic in the final. Venezuela’s Tiburones de La Guaira team, led by Oswaldo Guillén, won the tournament by defeating the Dominican team Tigres de Licey 3 runs to zero on Friday. February 9, at the Loandepot Park stadium in Miami, United States. This win by Tiburones put an end to 15 years without any Venezuelan team winning the tournament, in addition to being the team’s first Caribbean Series title. Recently, Tiburones de La Guaira also won the Venezuelan professional baseball championship, ending a 38-year drought.
The Caribbean Series tournament, managed by Major League Baseball (MLB), has been used as a political tool against Venezuela in recent years. As part the US-led hybrid war against Venezuela, the 2018 and 2019 editions of the tournament were moved from Venezuela to other locations at the last minute. Finally, the 2023 edition was held in Venezuela, and the country team ended up in second place after being defeated by Tigres del Licey of the Dominican Republic.
Samba, música y celebración: Tiburones de La Guaira alzó su primer título de la Serie del Caribe pic.twitter.com/s0sfanlE4q
— LaIguanaTV (@la_iguanatv) February 10, 2024
In 2019, the Caribbean Series was scheduled to be hosted by Venezuela. However, giving in to Washington’s regime-change operation using Juan Guaidó, the US Major League Baseball applied pressure to change the host country to Panama. The same thing happened in the 2018 edition of the tournament, which was scheduled to be hosted in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, but was moved to Guadalajara, Mexico, at the last minute.
In the 2024 tournament, Ricardo Pinto, the starting pitcher for Venezuela, was named most valuable player (MVP) of the Caribbean Series. In this game he worked 5.2 innings, struck out 6, received no runs, and was the winner of the game.
One of the scores was made in the fourth innings and the other two in the fifth, respectively by Hernán Pérez and Odubel Herrera. The latter entered the game by replacing the injured Yasiel Puig. Other players such as Alexi Amarista, Luis Torrens, Ramón Flores, Alcides Escobar, Leonardo Reginatto, Wilson Ramos, and Wilfredo Tovar all contributed to the Tiburones’ historic victory.
The most important regional championship
The Caribbean Series (Serie del Caribe) is the oldest and most important baseball championship in Latin American and Caribbean, in which the champion teams of each country’s professional league compete to determine the best.
In Venezuela, where baseball is the most popular sport, many Venezuelans, especially in La Guaira state, home of the Tiburones, massively celebrated the victory of their team that not only ended their 38-year drought this year by winning the Venezuelan professional championship, but also ended Venezuela’s 15-year drought in the Caribbean Series.
Special for Orinoco Tribune by staff
OT/JRE/SC
