SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — Albert Pujols grew up not 30 minutes from Estadio Quisqueya, a quaint, shaded stadium that has housed Santo Domingo’s two baseball teams, the Tigres del Licey and the Leones del Escogido, for 70 years. When he was 10, and the right-field corner was composed of benches instead of seats, he roamed the aisles selling sandwiches with his mother to earn extra money. His cousins rooted for Licey, by far the nation’s most popular team, and so Pujols took on Escogido, at least in part to spite them.
That was the team he cheered for every winter — the team he promised to play with before his major league playing career ended, the team that gave him his first chance to manage last February, and the team with which he won the most improbable, most thrilling of championships earlier this week, knocking off the Licey team that split his and so many other Dominican families for decades.
“Wow,” he said from an interview room late Monday night, his left arm wrapped around the massive Copa Banreservas trophy after Escogido’s nail-biting 6-5 victory over Licey in Game 7. “It still hasn’t hit me.”
Pujols, now 45 years old, and 28 months removed from his last major league game, aspires to someday manage in the big leagues and decided to cut his teeth in the hotbed that is the Dominican Professional Baseball League, commonly known as LIDOM. The championship round against Licey — the team with a record 24 LIDOM titles, including each of the last two — was regarded as one of the best this island had ever seen.
Two of the games lasted at least 13 innings, and another was undecided until the eighth. In Game 4, Pujols’ best player, promising Tampa Bay Rays prospect Junior Caminero, charged at the opposing dugout. In Game 6, Pujols inserted himself into the middle of controversy by asking umpires to ensure the bat that produced Gustavo Núñez’s two-out, ninth-inning, game-tying home run was not corked. It wasn’t, LIDOM officials determined the following morning, setting the stage for a grand finale.
In a winner-take-all Game 7, Escogido pulled ahead with a 454-foot moon shot by Caminero in the top of the ninth. But Licey threatened in the bottom half, placing runners on second and third with two outs against reeling closer Rafael Montero. Francisco Mejía then sent a sinking liner to shallow right field that seemed primed for a championship-clinching walk-off, but Socrates Brito secured it with a diving catch, sending half of Estadio Quisqueya into a frenzy.
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