History
The baseball tradition in the Dominican Republic starts between 1880 and 1890 when Cuban immigrants and North American businessmen, together with Dominicans, began to practice this sport in the country. The Dominican professional franchises such as Licey in 1907, the Estrellas Orientales in 1911, Escogido in 1921, and the Aguilas Cibaenas in 1937 are older than many of the big league franchises. In fact, many Dominican historians are of the opinion that the best baseball in the world was played in the DR in 1937 during the Ciudad Trujillo championship. Despite the infamous racial barrier, activities between the DR and MLB were carried out before Jackie Robinson broke the barrier in 1947.
Since September 26, 1956 when Osvaldo Virgil made his debut in a Giants uniform after having signed in 1953 for the sum of 300 dollars, more than 420 Dominicans have made it to the big leagues and thousands more in the minor leagues.
Major League Baseball has a presence in the Dominican Republic since 2000, when it established its first baseball operations office outside of New York. One of the three objectives of MLB is to enhance the image of MLB in the community through outreach programs.
Several teams and individuals have pioneered community outreach projects in the DR. This includes, among others, the L.A. Dodgers and Ralph Avila who established the school Futuro Vivo, which addresses the education and health needs in the town of Guerrero since 1988; ex player and coach Manny Mota through the Manny Mota Foundation which has decades of experience carrying out youth development projects; player Miguel Tejada teaming up with the Oakland Athletics for a massive wheel chair donation in 1998; and an MLB donation of $500,000 to help the country reconstruct after the devastating Hurricane George in 1998. From there, various outreach projects have progressed through the Baseball Tomorrow Fund and Reviving Baseball in the Inner City (RBI) program that helped restore baseball fields and sponsored Dominican youth baseball teams. It is common to see newspaper articles of baseball players and teams donating their time and money to community initiatives and disaster relief efforts on the island.
Ever since inaugurating their office in the Dominican Republic in 2000, Major League Baseball had been committed to helping communities in the Dominican Republic. MLB consultant, John Seibel, who was instrumental in the establishment of the DR office, was able to apply decades of experience in development work (Peace Corps, non-governmental organizations, USAID, community based education) to baseball. Seibel was able to visualize the powerful link between baseball and leveraging resources to help the less fortunate in the DR. The idea took three years to evolve but in 2008 progress was achieved with the formation of the Dominican Development Alliance (DDA) between MLB, USAID, and six renowned charitable organizations.
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