Leones del Caracas
Leones del Caracas | |||||
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Information | |||||
League | 2009–10, 2022–23) | ||||
Caribbean Series championships | 2 (1982, 2006) | ||||
Interamerican Series championships | 1 (1950) | ||||
Former name(s) | Cerveceria Caracas | ||||
Uniforms | |||||
The Caracas Base Ball Club C.A., better known by its commercial name as the Leones del Caracas, is a professional baseball team of the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League (LVPB). The owner and sole shareholder of the sports club is Ricardo Cisneros, president of Ateneas Sports Holding.
Its name comes from the official name of the city of Caracas—Santiago de León de Caracas—which Diego de Losada assigned to it when it was founded in 1567. Consequently, a lion appears as a symbol on the representative coat of arms of the city of Caracas.
Los Leones del Caracas is a very popular team in Venezuela, and is the team with the most titles (21), and has runners-up (17), played finals (34), played post-seasons (3&). Second highest win percentage in the LVBP in regular season: (D-D 2187-2100 51%), post-season: (D-D 206-178 55.0%), finals (D-D 97-78 55.4%).
History
Cervecería Caracas was founded in 1942, after Cervecería Princesa, an early team, was bought and transformed into Caracas. At first, the team played its home games at the old Estadio Cerveza Caracas, which was located in the capital city of Caracas. The team was founded by Martín Tovar Lange and managed by big leaguer Alejandro Carrasquel.
The Princesa team played its last game on May 7, 1942. Then, Caracas debuted four days later with a 7–3 victory over the Criollos (English: Creoles). The game was played in Puerto Cabello, a city on the north coast of Venezuela. Caracas faced its later nemesis, the Navegantes del Magallanes for the first time on December 27 of that year, winning this now historic game by a 3–0 score.
In its first stage, the team won two championship titles before moving to the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League in January 1946.
Since its inception, the Caracas team was characterized by having only Venezuelan players on their roster. The club changed its policy in 1950, after signing catcher Lester Fusselman and outfielder Maurice Mozzali, two St. Louis Cardinals prospects.
In 1952, the franchise was bought by the publicist and sport commentator
By 2001, the descendants of Morales and Prieto sold their shares to the Grupo Cisneros, giving it majority control of the team.
Through 2024, the Caracas team has won 21 championship titles (3 as Cervecería Caracas and 18 as Leones del Caracas), more than any other team in Venezuelan Professional Baseball League history.
In the 2015-16 season, they became the club with the highest average home attendance in the league, with an average of 10,845.[1] The next season, the average attendance was 6,539.
Ballpark
The Estadio Universitario is a multi-use stadium located in Caracas, Venezuela. The stadium holds 22,690 people and was built in 1952.
This stadium forms part of the
Championships
Notes
- a Won the title as Cervecería Caracas. The team changed owners and name in 1952, but the franchise official name, Caracas Base Ball Club, remained constant during all sale transactions in 1949, 1952 and 2001.[2][3]
Caribbean World Series titles
On February 9, 1982, the Leones earned Venezuela's third
On February 7, 2006, the Leones earned Venezuela's first
Retired uniform numbers
1 Pompeyo Davalillo SS Retired |
2 Víctor Davalillo OF Retired |
6 Gonzalo Márquez 1B Retired |
8 Urbano Lugo P Retired |
11 Luis Aparicio SS Retired |
12 César Tovar IF Retired |
17 Alfonso "Chico" Carrasquel SS Retired |
20 Antonio Armas OF Retired |
25 Baudilio Díaz C Retired |
23 Omar Vizquel SS Retired 2008 |
41 Andrés Galarraga 1B Retired 2008 |
* Retired by VPBL
Current roster
Leones del Caracas 2020-2021 Roster | |||||||||
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Players | Coaches | ||||||||
Pitchers
[1] updated on 11 May 2021 |
Catchers
Infielders
Outfielders
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Manager Coaches
(Coaching staff for 2021-22 season) |
See also
- 1953 Caribbean Series
- 1957 Caribbean Series
- 1980 Caribbean Series
- 1982 Caribbean Series
- 2006 Caribbean Series
References
- ^ "La asistencia en la LVBP sigue en caída libre". Meridiano (in Spanish).
- ^ "Bolsonaro dice que Brasil es parte de solución y no un problema ante calentamiento global". El Universal. January 11, 2021.
- ^ "Magallanes doesn't accept Caracas' 20 Championships".
- ^ "Leones.com". stats.leones.com.
- ^ "José Alguacil lidera cuerpo técnico de Leones". leones.com.