There's Baseball in Nicaragua

 The Ministry of Baseball

There’s Baseball in Nicaragua

An English guide to the German Pomares Ordonez

What is La Liga German Pomares Ordonez (GPO)?

Full name ‘National Championship of Superior Baseball of Nicaragua’, the Pomares is classed as an amateur competition organized by the Nicaraguan Superior Baseball Commission. That being said, due to it being an amateur competition, it’s a hell of a lot more fun than most professional leagues. For starters, it has 18 teams competing, the 4 pro teams from the LBPN (Liga Beisbol Profesionel de Nicaragua), and 14 amateur teams from across the country of Nicaragua. Secondly, the quality of baseball being played is akin to that of Single A. What this means though, is you’re gonna see more 9-7 games than you will 4-1 with plenty of blown leads and single team double-figure games along the way.

How does the German Pomares Ordonez work?

The competition runs from February to August and is split into multiple stages. The first stage sees the 18 teams split into 3 groups of 6 with the top 3 teams from each group moving on to the second stage, along with the 3 runners up with the best record across the whole competition (basically Wildcards). Each team plays 30 games against the teams in their respective division with a tiebreaker game to be played to determine qualification to the next stage in the event of a tie. The second stage sees the 12 teams that qualified from the first stage all placed in a league together, with the top 8 moving on to the postseason. Each team plays 33 games, one 3 game series against each team in the division, once again with a tiebreaker game to be played if there’s a tie for qualification to the play-offs.

The postseason

The 8 teams that qualified for the playoffs from the second stage are seeded 1 to 8 based on their place in the division after the 33 games have been played. The first round of the postseason is the quarter-final stage, each match-up is a best of five with the first team to win 3 games moving on. After that is the semi-final stage - once again standard seeding is still in place, but now each match-up is 7 games with the first to win 4 games qualifying for the Final series. The Final series is a best of 7 series, same as the semi-final, with home advantage being decided by which team has the highest number of wins from the first and second stages of the competition combined. The winners of the Final series, as you may have guessed, are crowned champions of the GPO!

What’s Different about the GPO?

Well, there are a few things. Mostly off the field stuff, but we’ll start with the big difference that you may see on the field.

The Extra-innings Rule

This is a fun one. Extras’ in the GPO don’t exactly work like the Majors. Instead of simply playing more standard innings until someone wins the old fashioned way, GPO extras’ begin with one runner on first and one on second with 0 outs with the winner decided by sudden death. So theoretically instead of needing a home run to walk off in one swing, you only need a single, preferably a deep one though.

The Pitching Rule

In an effort to protect the arms of pitchers, the CNBS has implemented a rule which states no pitcher may work as both a starter and a reliever in a single calendar week and no pitcher, relief or starter, may pitch more than 110 pitches a game or 110 pitches a week, whichever comes first. The one exception to this rule is if a starting pitcher has pitched either a no-hitter or perfect game up until the point he reaches 110 pitches, he is allowed to continue pitching until either he has achieved the record or lost the chance to do so i.e. a base hit or walk

The ‘Knock-out’ Rule

This is basically a more dramatic way of saying the ‘mercy’ rule. If a team has a 10 run lead after the 7th inning of a game then they are automatically given the win. The ‘Super Knock-out’ rule is used when a team has a 15 run lead after the 5th inning.

Roberto Clemente

Roberto Clemente registered 3000 hits in his career, won 2 World Series, and was World Series MVP for the 1971 World Series win with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Being born in Puerto Rico meant that when he was enshrined in the MLB HoF in 1973, Clemente was the first player of Latin American and Caribbean descent to be so. However, Clemente's legacy in Nicaragua goes well beyond the diamond. Roberto was a passionate humanitarian involved with many charity and aid projects within the United States and abroad. On December 23rd, 1972, Managua was struck by a devastating earthquake. Clemente immediately set about arranging for relief supplies to be sent to the Nicaraguan capital, however, soon learned that the three planes that were sent to deliver aid packages in the week following the earthquake had been redirected and stolen by the corrupt Somoza government. Due to this Clemente decided to escort the fourth plane to Managua himself, believing his presence on board would prevent the plane from being redirected. On New Years' Eve 1972, Clemente's plane, overloaded and poorly maintained, suffered engine failure shortly after take-off and crashed into the Atlantic ocean off the coast of Puerto Rico. Clemente's body was never recovered and baseball went into a period of mourning that saw the MLB Hof waive the 10 season waiting period and induct Clemente into the Hall of Fame on March 20th, 1973, just under 4 months after his death. For this reason, It is forbidden for any player or coach to wear No. 21 in the GPO, in order to honor his legend.

The Roster

There’s a lot of roster regulation for the GPO, some of which affect who's out on the field. So you’ve got some context for the numbers in this article, the roster limit in the GPO is 25.

Age Categories

Registered players are categorized on the roster by age, this is to promote the development of young players and for payroll reasons. The three categories are U23 (players 23 and below), U26 (players aged between 26 and 24), and Senior (players aged 27 and above). A team must have a minimum of 8 U23’s, a minimum of 7 U26’s, and a maximum of 10 Seniors. On game day a team must have at least 3 U23’s and 3 U26’s in its line-up at all times, failure to comply with these rules will result in an automatic loss of game for the infringing team.

Foreign/professional players

It is strictly forbidden for any active MLB or MiLB player to be registered to a GPO roster, plain and simple. If a player is scouted by an MLB organization during the GPO season then they may choose to complete the season before leaving to join the organization that scouted them or leave immediately after being scouted but not be allowed to resume playing in the GPO. There are some geographic exceptions to the limit of foreign players on a team roster, these include: Nueva Segovia, Madriz, Boaco, and Rio San Juan are allowed to sign a maximum of 3 foreign players, and Zelaya Central is allowed to sign 8 foreign players due to it being located in the South Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region. The other 13 teams are allowed only 1 foreign player on their roster and foreign players must play for the team in the region listed on their ID.

The Reinforcements system

This is a really fun system that takes place after each stage of the GPO and works like a draft except you know exactly how good the players are. It allows players from the knocked-out teams from the previous stage to be selected as replacement players for the qualified team's rosters. So for example, this would be like the Washington Nationals dropping Adam Eaton and signing Mike Trout after qualifying as a wildcard. Madness!

A brief history

Since 1970 the GPO has been known officially as the National Championship of Superior Baseball of Nicaragua. In its 50 year history, it has only had one year where a championship was not played, this was in 1979 when the Nicaraguan revolution took place and there were armed skirmishes across the nation between the Somoza dictatorship and Guerilla forces led by, you guessed it, the man himself German Pomares Ordonez. Just weeks after his revolutionary success, he was mortally wounded in a battle with retreating Somoza forces near Jinotega. When the competition resumed in 1980 it was renamed the National Superior Baseball Championship "Germán Pomares Ordóñez", nicknamed the Pomares or GPO, and German was officially declared a national hero in 1981.

How can I watch it?

As far as we at the ministry are aware, there are 2 games from each round of fixtures broadcast on youtube via the ‘vivanicaragua13’ youtube channel. One on Saturday and One on Sunday. The various social media channels for the competition can be found below.

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