Baseball: Venezuela will host the first Caribbean Series played by 8 teams

The sporting event will face the champions of Colombia, Cuba, Curacao, Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and the host country, Venezuela.

From February 2 to 10, Venezuela will host the sixty-fifth Caribbean Series, which for the first time in its history will be played not by six but by eight champion teams from different Latin American and Caribbean professional baseball leagues.

The sporting event will face the teams from Colombia, Cuba, Curacao, Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela itself, which will see action at the Luis Garcia Carneiro stadiums, in the state of La Guaira, and the Simon Bolivar Monument, in Caracas, not yet released, where the opening ceremony will take place.

They will dispute the scepter the teams Vaqueros de Monteria (Colombia), Agricultores (Cuba), WildCats KJ74 (Curacao), Caneros de Los Mochis (Mexico), Federales de Chiriqui (Panama), Indios de Mayaguez (Puerto Rico), Tigres de Licey (Dominican Republic) and Leones del Caracas (Venezuela).

the first match of the contest the teams of Cuba and Curacao will face it in La Guaira this Thursday at 10:30 in the morning. At 12 noon they will collide in Caracas, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

Then, at 3:00 in the afternoon, Colombia and Puerto Rico will continue in La Guaira. At 6:45 in the afternoon the opening ceremony in Caracasand at 8:00 pm, Venezuela and Panama will play in that same stadium.

The 2023 Series will take place in seven days, each with four encounters between the eight participants. The best four will qualify for the semifinal, after which the two winners will dispute the title in the grand finale to be held on February 10.

The venues

For this occasion, the Government of Venezuela prepared two stadiums that have been considered “luxury” and one of the best in Latin America to play and enjoy baseball. In addition, it activated more than 5,000 officials of the public force for protection and security tasks.

One of the venues is the La Guaira stadium, which was inaugurated on January 5, 2020 and has a capacity of 14,300 spectators. This headquarters has the particularity of being located on the Venezuelan coastfacing the waters of the Caribbean Sea.

The other venue is the Simon Bolivar stadium, located in the southwest of Caracas. Qualified as architectural “gem” and “the best in Latin America”, has a capacity to accommodate 40,000 fans and all the modernity required for a large-scale sporting event.

More than eight years without a Series due to US sanctions.

The Caribbean Series It was not carried out in Venezuela since 2014, when the venue was the Nueva Esparta stadium, located on the island of Margarita. On that occasion the Mexican team Los Naranjeros de Hermosillo was titled.

The championship was alien to Venezuela due to the unilateral coercive measures and economic sanctions imposed by the US Government against Caracas.

These measures generated legal conflicts with the Caribbean Professional Baseball Confederation (CBPC) and especially with the American company Major League Baseball (MLB)owner of the rights of the vast majority of professional baseball players, who for several years have been prohibited from playing on Venezuelan soil.

The coercive policies of the US also caused, for two years in a row (2018 and 2019), the suspension at the last minute of the event, which in that edition was to be held in the Venezuelan city of Barquisimeto (Lara state, in the center-west of the country). . With everything already prepared for the contest, there were millionaire losses and other serious economic damages for merchants and businessmen, both local and foreign.

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