2002 Off-Season News

Fourth edition, November 2002

Fans on the unofficial Santurce web site have been typing all summer, mostly on MLB and other mainland sports, which they follow avidly; and also the summer double-A season and other amateur sports on the island. This seems to be the only active baseball site in Puerto Rico; fans also mention the web site of one of the two ball clubs in the Dominican capital, the Tigers of Licey, whose discussion forum is awesome.

But they've discussed the following aspects of the upcoming season:

The San Juan Expos?

A businessman has proposed to relocate the Montreal Expos to San Juan, playing at the Hiram Bithorn stadium. This is preposterous, as few Puerto Ricans will even pay $5 on a daily basis for baseball. Moreover, in 1961, San Juan had the Marlins, the Cardinals' entry in the AAA International League. It opened to over 6,000, but didn't last past that year. It seems another minor-league team should be the first test.

But, more recently, executives from the Expos visited San Juan to view the Bithorn and the Clemente. These guys were talking about having the Expos play home-away-from-home games at both ballparks, perhaps 12 to 20 regular-season games starting in 2003. On such a limited basis, the team would surely sell out, attracting more fans than the 10,000 the Expos typically draw in Montreal.

Sale of Franchises

Julio Hazim's group from the Dominican Republic has bought the Santurce Crabbers, and another Dominican, Daniel Aquino, has bought the Mayagüez Indians. An ownership change in Caguas was rumored in the off-season but did not occur.

Teams in the D.R. have excellent web sites, and I'm anxious to see whether the new owners start a team web site; or, if not, whether Hazim supports Santurce's unofficial site. It will also be interesting to see whether the transaction returns José "Palillo" Santiago to the Santurce microphone; he abdicated late in 2001 after a season of slights.

Foreign owners will not be satisfied with the level of attendance during the regular season, and this might lead to a variety of innovations.

Bithorn Renovation

No sooner had the ownership changed than the municipal government announced a plan to renovate the Hiram Bithorn stadium. Fans protested the timing but it seems it is a 15-month project and will displace league play no matter when it begins. Caguas played one year at the Bithorn, and Carolina shared the Bithorn when it used to be the Senators, so the most likely outcome was for one of these to return the favor and have two teams again play in the same stadium.

The most recent news is that the renovation has been postponed until February 2003, and the issue of a home away from home is deferred until the 2003-04 season. Starting work in February would disrupt one baseball season rather than two. That is, if it starts on time. I recall the slow progress on the Clemente and predict that fans, passing the Bithorn on their way to league games at an alternate site, will see no work being done at the Bithorn.

Renovation at Ponce and Mayagüez

Ponce replaced the infamous, creased artificial turf at the Paquito Montaner stadium. The Lions and Crabbers shared the Bithorn for pre-season practice. There was also some field work at the García in Mayagüez.

The grass in Ponce's new natural surface had not really finished growing in as of Opening Day, and Primera Hora said it was like playing on stony dirt, but players no longer had to worry about getting cut on broken glass when sliding into base.

In both cases, the work was done on time for the start of the regular season, despite a press release on BaseballLatino.org to the contrary, and doubts expressed in newspaper columns. (A writer on the unofficial Santurce web site criticized the press for reporting such "untruths," but even his "95-percent" assurance that the season would start normally had contingencies such as weather.)

Start of 2002-03 Season; Schedule

The current season began on Wednesday, October 30 and the press preceded it with articles on roster moves and pre-season practice. The season was dedicated, and the schedule and league-wide libreta were unveiled, at a press conference in Caguas on October 25. Larry Chott e-mailed me the information from it on November 3 and Charlie put it here on November 4. One of these years we'll find out and publish the schedule for games before they have already begun!

Attendance for the early games was typically low. Santurce fans said the conventional explanation for this was the usual one: major-league teams embargoing their Puerto Rican stars from playing winter baseball. Three of the first four at Mayagüez weren't completed, due to rain, a 16-inning tie, and then a lighting failure.

Bayamón scheduled its annual 11 A.M. start for Election Day, November 5.

Site of the Caribbean Series

Puerto Rico hosts the 2003 Serie del Caribe at the Roberto Clemente stadium in Carolina in February 2003. The best winter teams from Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and the Mexican Pacific League will compete. Unlike the Puerto Rico regular season, don't expect to saunter up and buy tickets and sit anywhere; the Series is always a big media event.

Format of the Caribbean Series

In addition to the four nations that compete in the Serie del Caribe, a professional baseball league resumed in Panamá in 2001, and pro baseball is also played in Cuba. These nations haven't yet been admitted to the Series, but the organizers discussed adding two teams to the Series, and someone asserted that these changes are in effect for 2003. Both schemes augment fan interest at the expense of the integrity of the regular season:

One proposal admits the non-champion with the second-best record in any country. As well as rewarding the nation with the most lopsided regular season, one imagines a thousand ways a league could stage-manage this result for the sake of national pride. The #3 team playing against the #2 team late in the year would have a new reason to lose.
The other proposal gives a second Series berth to the host nation. This would be good for ticket sales but hardly fair. So, for 2003, who would be the second Puerto Rican team? The second-best team in the primera vuelta? That would lessen the importance of the island's post-season. Or are you going to admit to the Caribbean Series both the winner and the loser of the best-of-9 island final series?

Format of the All-Star Game

Usually the LBPPR makes an arbitrary division of teams, such as the capital-district versus out-island split that was used to create a slightly unbalanced schedule in 2001. The All-Star Game is a good chance to see the league's best players, with predominantly major-league names, but the game itself is not important.

It seems that in 2002, subject to the approval of the players' union, the December classic will be Puerto Rico versus the Dominican Republic. This is something to get excited about. On the Santurce fan forum, along with the common hopes that Latin players and Latin America fare well, there is a heap of friendly jousting between the two countries, mostly over who has the better teams and players, past and present. This game will be doubly jam-packed with talent, and any outcome will be used for national pride in debates for decades to come.

New Web Links

A Carolina Giants web site is defined. You can see a different view of the Clemente than mine, and also a photo of its heroic namesake. But the links to other pages aren't yet live.

The www.lbppr.com domain has been bought (and the unofficial Santurce web site shows it as the "official league web site" on its ample page of sports links) but it isn't answering yet.

My Plans

The teams and the restaurants mentioned on this site seem like old friends I ought to visit; not to mention the old friends. It is a fabulous vacation, and just when the weather at home starts to turn really bad. But the air travel system, where out of desire to make your connection, you effectively surrender all your rights to unspecified violation, is simply ruined.

Return to the Puerto Rican Ballparks home page
Return to Charlie's Big Baseball Parks Page