For his close involvement in the Dominican league's establishment and early development,
Pedro Miguel Caratini has been called "the father of Dominican baseball". Four amateur clubs established in the early 1900s still exist today, and form the foundation of Dominican professional baseball:
Tigres del Licey in 1907,
Estrellas Orientales in 1911,
Leones del Escogido in 1921, and Sandino (later renamed
Águilas Cibaeñas) in 1937. The first attempts at an organized professional league came about in the 1920s. Licey, the most successful of the existing amateur teams in
Santo Domingo, played a series of 32 games against an all-star team known as "Escogido" ("the chosen ones"); that tournament was won by Escogido, though Caratini (Licey) took the batting title. A second tournament held the following year, now with four teams (Escogido, Licey, Santiago and San Pedro de Macorís) was suspended with only 34 games of the 48-game schedule played, after Escogido withdrew in protest of a controversial decision to nullify a victory over Licey. Licey won the 1924 series, contested against Escogido, as they did in 1929. However, professional baseball saw a hiatus after the
1930 San Zenón hurricane destroyed both La Primavera and the Gimnasio Escolar, the two existing venues for baseball in Santo Domingo. Another professional tournament was established in 1936, this time with four teams: Licey, Escogido, Santiago, and Estrellas Orientales, which won the 1936 tournament. However, the lavish contracts exhausted team finances, leading to a decline of Dominican baseball until 1950. ==Current teams==