While it is thought by many that baseball was first introduced to the Dominican Republic by United States Army soldiers stationed there, it was actually its Caribbean neighbor, Cuba, which brought the sport to the shores of the country.

Although baseball was becoming very popular and widespread throughout Cuba in the early 1860s, the Ten Years War (1868-1878) forced many of Cuba's most passionate baseball fans to flee the country. Many of these individuals found solace on the shores of the Dominican Republic, where they attempted to introduce the sport to the island's natives in the late 1880s and early 1890s.