Crave Baseball in the Winter? The Dominican Republic is Calling
Want to see some baseball – some really good baseball?
Perhaps in a warm climate during the dead of winter? With passionate fans in a stimulating environment? Care to meet some baseball royalty? And, in off times, hit the beach, dine at interesting restaurants, and visit local points of interest?
Sound good? If so, consider Extra Innings Travel’s annual tour of the Dominican Republic, home of an extremely strong baseball culture and a long-time source of many of Major League Baseball’s (MLB) top stars. In fact, there were 100 Dominicans on MLB rosters at the beginning of the 2025 season, the most from any non-U.S. country. The D.R. has led in this category every year since annual data was first released in 1995.
Taking place in November of each year, the tour covers games of all six teams in the Liga Dominicana (LIDOM), as the Dominican winter league is officially known. Four teams – the Tigres de Licey, Toros del Este, Leones del Escogido, and Estrellas Orientales – are based in the south of the country, closer to the capital city of Santo Domingo, while the Águilas Cibaeñas and Gigantes del Cibao are located in the northern province of Cibao.
Currently in its 71st season, the league features high-level talent and is considered the best of professional baseball’s many offseason winter leagues. Its team rosters include top prospects, Dominicans who play or have played in Major League Baseball, and non-Dominican current or former MLB players. While LIDOM doesn’t feature the contemporary star power that it had in its heyday, there are still plenty of big names – Albert Pujols, Manny Ramirez, Robinson Canó, and Hanley Ramirez come to mind – who play at the tail end of their careers.
The LIDOM champion goes on to compete against winners of the leagues from Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba, and more in the annual Caribbean Series, which Dominican teams have won 29 times. The Tigres del Licey have been the most successful individual club with 11 titles, the most recent in 2023.
Canadian Paul Barnes has been on seven trips with Extra Innings Travel (formerly known as JapanBall), the most recent being the company’s first trip to the D.R. in 2021.
“I really enjoyed it. It was so different from the other trips I’d been on with the company,” he said. “The culture there is so different from Japan because the people are so spontaneous. It’s kind of like soccer in England. [Japan and the Dominican Republic] are so different that it’s a nice contrast.
“It’s the only place I’ve been where I could buy a bottle of rum and drink some of it at the game,” he added with a laugh.
That’s not to say that Barnes didn’t thoroughly enjoy his trips to Japan. He just was struck by the differences in the two environments.
“Japan is terrific,” Barnes said. “In fact, I’m going back this coming spring. But, in terms of player and local access, it’s much easier in the D.R., where it feels like you’re in the middle of everything. Like when we ran into [New York Mets star] Juan Soto and his family at a barbecue restaurant. He was very gracious, signed autographs, and took pictures with us. And then, a couple of days later, we ran into [San Diego Padres standout] Fernando Tatis Jr. at the training facility, and he was the same way.
“People there seem to respect the athletes’ space. It’s just part and parcel of the laid-back nature of the country.”
Southern Californian Jamie Kozlevcar, who went on the 2025 tour with her husband Mark, agreed. “It was amazing how accessible the players were, and I felt so welcome everywhere we went. It seemed like they were happy we were there to visit.” Mark recalled a time when the group was checking into a hotel, and former MLB outfielder and all-time LIDOM career hits leader Luis Polonia entered the lobby: “He was very nice and took photos with us. It was great. [In the DR] you kind of expect to meet someone you didn’t know you were going to meet,” Mark said with a laugh.
Both Japanese and Dominican fans are very passionate about the sport and ardently support their favorite teams, but the stadium atmospheres are different. The cheering at a game in Japan [and Korea, as well] is more orchestrated and regimented, while crowds in the D.R. are more spontaneous. It would not raise eyebrows, for example, if a conga line formed and began snaking through the stands.
“The fan experience makes it well worth going to a game in the D.R.,” said Ken Sins, who lives near Seattle and has been on five tours with Extra Innings Travel. “The bands, the food, and the passion that you see and feel. And, of course, the quality of play is very good.”
Aside from games themselves, tour members get to visit everything from sandlot fields to pristine MLB development academies, all while getting a behind-the-scenes look at the players, coaches, and traditions that make Dominican baseball special.
Sins said that “going with the group offered a lot of behind-the-scenes experiences. We were able to meet some of the young players, which was really interesting, and we got to visit various academies and see how the young players there work not only on baseball skills but on their education and learning English. We also went to another development facility that was kind of like Driveline, and we heard about some of the innovative techniques it was using to help players get better. That was pretty cool.
“Another interesting activity was meeting with a team’s general manager before a game and learning more about how he ran the club and some of the challenges he faced.”
Pam and Steve Ikeda are Southern Californians who have been on six tours with Extra Innings Travel, including the inaugural Dominican Republic trip that Barnes joined and another to the northern region a couple of years later.
“It was great to see the development of the young people there . . . how the kids are brought up in baseball,” Pam said. “We visited a youth baseball organization and had the opportunity to donate, which was very special – we could see how they appreciated it. In most cases, we don’t have opportunities to see children directly benefit from gifts. It was neat to see it work up to the teenage level.”
Steve added, “It was exciting to do things like going to [former MLB pitcher] Bartolo Colon’s academy. It’s great to see where different players grew up and played. Another great memory was meeting Pablo Cruz, the legendary and most respected scout in the Caribbean.
“And something that keeps coming back to me is the D.R. food scene – specifically being able to dine at two restaurants vetted by [Extra Innings Travel president] Shane [Barclay] and [local guide] Pachi [Francisco Castillo] and where Anthony Bourdain once enjoyed meals – Barra Payan and Meson de Bari.”
Barclay is no newcomer to the country. He studied abroad and lived with a host family in Santiago, and then lived in Santo Domingo for two years while working in International Baseball Operations for MLB’s Office of the Commissioner. After moving to MLB’s New York office, he continued to travel there for work and has operated tours to the Dominican Republic since 2021.
Castillo, known to all as Pachi, is charged with doing pretty much whatever needs to be done – a simple description for a job that can be anything but simple.
“He’s a real go-to, on-the-ground person,” Barclay said. “Anything that comes up there, he’s our guy. It’s vital to have people on the ground that you trust, and I trust him 100 percent to handle any issues.”
Castillo says, “I do a lot of things throughout the year, not just when people are here on tour. Sometimes I can get better hotel rates because I’m from here, can talk to the hotel people directly, and understand the way we negotiate, which is very different from the way it’s done in the U.S. I also arrange transportation and try to get better rates.”
Together, the two combine their knowledge to design a tour that includes both baseball and non-baseball activities.
“Overall, the itinerary created at least a bit of a view into day-to-day life in the D.R.,” according to Barnes. “Most people don’t see that; they just get on the bus from the airport and go right to a resort. But we saw some local restaurants and got into parts of Santo Domingo I hadn’t seen . . . not just the colonial-era part.”
The just-completed reprise of the tour included, to name just some:
- The Museum of San Pedro de Macorís Ballplayers, which highlights the many outstanding players from that single town
- A trip to a cigar micro-factory
- A tour of the “Cave of Wonders”
- An MLB instructional league game and academy tour
- Visit to a youth program
- Meeting at the official MLB bank with the VP of MLB accounts
- A tour of the Colonial Zone section of Santo Domingo, which was the first European settlement in the new world
- A tour of a cacao farm
Jamie Kozlevcar said, “The thing that surprised me was the [visit to the official MLB] bank. You wouldn’t think a bank would be interesting, but they told us a lot about how they educate young players – who suddenly have money – about handling their finances wisely. How they decide to manage it gives them some insights into their character.”
Mark, who also took the tour in 2024, thought the cacao farm was particularly interesting: “They let us taste the raw fruit, and then we got to pour our own chocolate.”
“That was A+,” Jamie agreed.
Gwen Kagaoan, who also went on the 2025 trip, thought the mix of baseball and non-baseball activities was good – “about 50-50. I wouldn’t want the trip to be solely about baseball. I wanted to experience the culture, the food, and everything else that I could.”
Kagaoan, who lives in the San Francisco Bay area, also went to the Dominican Republic with Extra Innings Travel in 2023, but only to the southern part of the country.
“After I went on the first trip, I knew I really wanted to finish out the second segment,” she said.
For Rohn Brown, who lives near Richmond, Virginia, the most recent tour was a milestone – “my first real trip outside the U.S. I had been to Tijuana once for a few hours, but that had been it, so this was a brand-new experience for me.”
Brown, whose son Ryan accompanied him on the southern portion of the tour, added, “I’m a pretty hard-core baseball fan; I don’t just turn it on when the World Series comes around. So this was something I’d wanted to do for a long time.
“You could tell that there was a lot of thought put into the program, and the way it was described [in promotional materials] was very accurate as to what actually happened. We got to enjoy the whole experience of the Dominican baseball machine, and there also were some really interesting non-baseball things like the caverns and the cigar factory.”
Kagaoan added that “they do a good job of curating the trip based on what people like. There were several people on the last trip that were interested in caves, so that excursion was great for them. I thought it was a fun experience, too, and it was something I probably would not have thought to do if I was traveling on my own.”
Like the others, Kagaoan and Brown also enjoyed visiting the youth academy.
Kagaoan, who has coached softball at the collegiate level, said that visits to the academies were her favorite part of the trip. “Having coached youth programs at home, it brought me joy to see youth programs there and help support them through equipment donations. I was able to provide hats, fielding gloves, dozens of game-used MLB baseballs, and several hundred baseball cards.
Photo Courtesy of Gwen Kagaoan.
“We visited three youth programs, and I played catch with the kids at each one. At one, they even called me ‘Mrs. Ohtani’! They were impressed that a woman could throw as hard and far as they could. Any time there was a girl at the academy, the tour people made sure she got the chance to play catch with me.”
Brown said that “getting to observe the youth programs, interacting with the people, and being able to donate is pretty cool. And it gives you a different perspective on baseball in the D.R. It was one of the many things that made the trip a great one.
“The tour was extremely professional and well run. The people know so many people and have so much knowledge of the country that it opened a lot of doors. And they were very flexible and wanted to help us in any way they could. They helped me get in touch with a friend of a friend who is an ex-major leaguer – Francisco Cabrera, formerly of the Braves. That type of service made it a great trip.”
Jamie Kozlevcar found the trip to be “incredibly educational. There was so much that I didn’t understand, and I learned a lot about the culture through baseball – something I do understand. It reminded me of reading ‘The Chrysanthemum and the Bat’” (Robert Whiting’s 1977 book, which utilizes Japanese baseball to help explain aspects of Japanese culture.)
Barnes said, “I would 100-percent go back to the D.R., and I would not go with another baseball travel group. Extra Innings Travel is the best.”
