Official: baseball will begin in Venezuela on November 27

The eight teams will be divided into two groups and will be played in four “bubble” venues: Valencia, Maracay, Barquisimeto and Caracas.

The 2020-21 season of Venezuelan professional baseball will begin on Friday 27 November, announced on Monday 16-N by the president of the League, Giussepe Palmisano.

That day the campaign in Barquisimeto will kick off with the match between Cardenales de Lara and Águilas del Zulia, and the next day the action for the rest of the teams will begin.

“For tomorrow (Tuesday 17-N) we will have the complete program”, said Palmisano.

He explained that it will be played in two groups: Western and Eastern. In the first there will be Cardenales de Lara, Águilas del Zulia, Navegantes del Magallanes and Tigres de Aragua. In the other, Leones del Caracas, Tiburones de La Guaira, Caribes de Anzoáteguiy Bravos de Margarita.

40 matches per team will be played in the regular round.

“There will also be a double game this season, it will be normal. Interdivision games will also be played to have the semifinalists, which will be defined in seven games and then a final with the same format. The champion will be called the best of seven games.

He explained that baseball will be played in four “bubble” venues: Valencia will host the games between Magallanes and Bravos; Maracay de Tigres y Caribes; Barquisimeto de Cardenales y Águilas and Caracas de Leones y Tiburones.

The manager raised the possibility of matches being played with fans in the stands.

“The idea is to have an audience, even long before January. We think that from 1 December we can start experimenting with the public in the stadiums (…) we are evaluating to have 30 or 70% of the capacity” in the parks.

He said bio-sanitary regulations will be respected during the tournament to avoid cases of covid-19.

“We are following the biosecurity protocol imposed by the MLB. We have already made many meetings with the answer we gave last week. We guaranteed the PCR tests with the state with the results in 24-48 hours depending on the tests”.

The Lvbp president has indicated that players belonging to the Major Baseball League (MLB) system will be able to participate in the tournament, with the exception of players with MLB tokens who belong to the Tigres de Aragua and Navegantes del Magallanes.

“These teams will be imported twice as much to compensate for this,” he explained.