Dominican Heritage on a Kachi Glove

No country in the world produces more Major League Baseball players per capita than the Dominican Republic. The Kachi flag program exists, in large part, because of what the DR has built.

The country in baseball

Baseball is the national sport, full stop. The professional winter league, LIDOM (Liga de Béisbol Profesional de la República Dominicana), runs six clubs across the island and feeds directly into the Caribbean Series, where the Dominican Republic is the most successful nation in the tournament's history. Tigres del Licey alone has captured eleven Caribbean Series titles — the most of any club in the event — and the rivalry between Licey and Águilas Cibaeñas defines the LIDOM calendar the way Yankees–Red Sox defines the AL East. Águilas, based in Santiago, leans into a Cibao-region identity; Licey, in Santo Domingo, runs the capital. Estrellas Orientales, Toros del Este, Gigantes del Cibao, and Leones del Escogido round out the league.

San Pedro de Macorís earned its reputation as the "Cradle of Shortstops" through generations of infielders signed out of its sugar-mill towns — Tony Fernández, Alfredo Griffin, Rafael Ramírez, Pepe Frías. Every one of MLB's 30 organizations runs an academy in the DR, and according to MLB's Santo Domingo office, those academies inject an average of more than $90 million a year into the local economy through facilities, staff, and signing bonuses. Most of the complexes are clustered in the Boca Chica corridor east of Santo Domingo, in a stretch of land informally known as "Baseball City." The Dominican Summer League — MLB's lowest-level affiliated minor league — runs entirely on Dominican soil and is where the majority of internationally signed prospects begin their professional careers.

On the international stage, the Dominican team won the 2013 World Baseball Classic with a perfect 8–0 run, the only undefeated champion in the event's history. The country has also reached the WBC semifinals or final in multiple editions and supplies a heavy share of the rosters of the Caribbean Series field every February.

A moment that defined the country in MLB

March 19, 2013, AT&T Park, San Francisco. The Dominican Republic finished off an undefeated WBC tournament with a 3–0 win over Puerto Rico, with Robinson Canó named tournament MVP and Fernando Rodney closing out a perfect run that doubled as a public coronation of a generation — Canó, Reyes, Encarnación, Beltré, Cruz — playing for the country rather than for thirty different MLB teams. It was the first time in the tournament's history that any country had run the table, and it remains the cleanest single moment of the modern Dominican era.

Notable players

• Juan Marichal — Hall of Fame, dominant right-hander of the 1960s San Francisco Giants and the first Dominican player elected to Cooperstown.
• Pedro Martínez — Hall of Fame, three-time Cy Young Award winner, dominant ace of the early-2000s Red Sox; born in Manoguayabo.
• Vladimir Guerrero Sr. — Hall of Fame, 2004 AL MVP and one of the greatest bad-ball hitters in the sport's history.
• David Ortiz — Hall of Fame, three-time World Series champion and the defining clutch hitter of the 2000s Red Sox.
• Albert Pujols — three-time NL MVP, member of the 700 home run club, and one of only four players ever to hit 700.
• Manny Ramírez — twelve-time All-Star, two-time World Series champion, 2004 World Series MVP.
• Sammy Sosa — 1998 NL MVP and the only player to hit 60+ home runs in three separate seasons.
• Adrián Beltré — Hall of Fame third baseman, 3,000-hit and 400-home-run club, five-time Gold Glove.
• Robinson Canó — eight-time All-Star, multiple Silver Sluggers at second base, 2013 WBC MVP.
• Juan Soto — multi-time All-Star and Silver Slugger, 2019 World Series champion with the Nationals.
• Vladimir Guerrero Jr. — multi-time All-Star first baseman, 2021 AL home run leader and Home Run Derby champion.
• Fernando Tatís Jr. — multi-time All-Star and Silver Slugger, signed out of Estación Mella.

The Kachi flag option

Choose the Dominican flag and we embroider it on the wrist strap or pinky finger of your custom glove — your call on placement — at no additional cost. The colors are matched to the official flag, not approximated. Carlos Castillo's career through Japan's NPB and Taiwan's CPBL was spent in clubhouses with Dominican players who carried their country with them every time they walked to the bullpen — including some of the names listed above. The flag option is on the configurator because a glove for a player from this country should say so.