Choque de Gigantes

Built on the back of a Caribbean Series

Choque de Gigantes did not grow out of a club's history or a promoter's hunch. It was announced on 17 July 2024 by the Miami Marlins, the Caribbean Professional Baseball Confederation and representatives of three winter leagues, months after Miami had hosted the Caribbean Series and demonstrated that a mid-February tournament of Latin American clubs could fill a Major League ballpark in Florida.

The logic was straightforward. loanDepot Park sits in Little Havana, holds 36,742, and has already hosted World Baseball Classic rounds and the 2024 Caribbean Series. The surrounding city contains large Venezuelan, Puerto Rican, Cuban and Dominican populations, many of whom cannot easily travel to see their clubs play at home. Rather than wait for the Caribbean Series to rotate back — the confederation has since confirmed Miami for 2028 — the organisers created a November fixture of their own, timed to the opening weeks of the Caribbean winter season when rosters are assembled and sharp but the domestic schedules are still loose enough to release players for a weekend abroad.

For the leagues, the appeal was commercial as much as sentimental. Giuseppe Palmisano, president of the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League, has framed the Miami partnership as part of a deliberate internationalisation push: taking club brands, not just national teams, to a market that already follows them.

The first edition, and the home run that ended it

The inaugural tournament ran from 8 to 10 November 2024 and was a genuine knockout competition rather than an exhibition. Six clubs entered: Navegantes del Magallanes, Leones del Caracas and Cardenales de Lara from Venezuela; Criollos de Caguas and Cangrejeros de Santurce from Puerto Rico; and Estrellas Orientales from the Dominican Republic. The bracket put preliminary games on the Friday, semi-finals on the Saturday and a third-place play-off and final on the Sunday.

Magallanes came through the semi-final against Estrellas Orientales and met Criollos de Caguas in the final, winning 4–3 in ten innings. Carlos Rodríguez doubled in the seventh to level the game; Jacob Rhinesmith settled it with a two-run home run in the tenth. Leones del Caracas took third place. The rosters were not padded with prospects — Eugenio Suárez and Miguel Sanó were among the Major League regulars who turned out.

The attendance told the organisers what they needed to know. More than 60,000 people passed through the gates across the three days, and the Magallanes–Leones del Caracas meeting alone drew upwards of 31,500. That single figure, for a winter-league game between two Venezuelan clubs played 1,300 miles from either home ground, is the number the event has been built on since.

Two clubs instead of six

The second edition, announced on 10 September 2026, abandons the six-team bracket for something narrower and louder: two games between Navegantes del Magallanes and Tiburones de La Guaira, on Saturday 14 November at 7pm and Sunday 15 November at 1pm. Both are Venezuelan clubs with large followings, and the switch concentrates the weekend on a single domestic rivalry rather than spreading it across three leagues.

Both sides also arrive with recent claims on the venue. Magallanes won the 2024 tournament here. Tiburones won the Venezuelan league title in 2023–24, ending a 38-year drought, and went on to represent the country at the Caribbean Series staged in this same ballpark.

The 2026 games carry a stated purpose beyond the baseball. A portion of ticket revenue is earmarked for communities affected by the earthquakes that struck Venezuela on 24 June 2026, and the four organising parties — the Marlins, the LVBP, Tiburones and Magallanes — have committed to publishing the percentages and timelines of what is handed over. The Marlins had already donated $100,000 to Global Empowerment Mission and $40,000 to the We Love Venezuela Foundation for the same relief effort.

Héctor Arias, president of Magallanes, thanked the Marlins for backing the country as well as hosting its Florida diaspora. Roberto Mirabal Acosta of Tiburones pitched the weekend as a showcase for the standard of Venezuelan professional baseball. Marlins president Caroline O'Connor described the series as something that would bring generations of supporters together around the sport while continuing the earthquake appeal. Organisers have said openly that they expect a full house.

Miguel Rojas, one last time at 19

The weekend has acquired a second storyline. Miguel Rojas, 37, will end his professional playing career in a Tiburones de La Guaira uniform at Choque de Gigantes, a detail confirmed in reporting on 19 October 2026.

Rojas played 13 Major League seasons with the Marlins and the Los Angeles Dodgers, finishing with a.260 average, 61 home runs and 386 runs batted in, and won World Series rings with the Dodgers in 2024 and 2025. His career was built on defence, positional versatility and game sense rather than power. In Venezuela he spent ten seasons with La Guaira wearing number 19 and was part of the side that broke the club's 38-year title drought in 2023–24.

That he is retiring in Miami, in front of the city where he spent most of his Major League career, and in the colours of the club he came through at home, gives the series a farewell it did not plan for and could not have bought.

Where it stands now

Two editions in, Choque de Gigantes has established itself as a fixture rather than a one-off, but it has also changed shape fast. The 2024 version was a six-club, three-nation knockout; the 2026 version is a single-rivalry double-header with a charitable purpose attached. Which model becomes the template is still open, and the answer will probably be settled by what the two Venezuelan clubs draw in November.

Ticketing has been handled through the Marlins rather than the leagues, which has kept the event inside a Major League operation. Presale access opened on 14 September 2026 for 2027 Marlins members, followed on 18 September by a general presale for supporters who had bought individual tickets to a 2026 Marlins home game by 13 September. Seats for the two games start at $27, with sales running through Marlins.com/Choque.

The wider context matters too. Miami is scheduled to host the Caribbean Series again in 2028, and the confederation's willingness to keep returning suggests the November series functions as more than a standalone weekend — it is a recurring test of how much Caribbean club baseball the city will absorb outside the main tournament calendar.