Águilas del Zulia | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|||||
League | LVBP | ||||
Location | Maracaibo | ||||
Ballpark | Estadio Luis Aparicio El Grande | ||||
Year founded | 1969 | ||||
League championships | (6) 1984, 1989, 1992, 1993, 2000, 2017 | ||||
Caribbean World Series championships | (2) 1984, 1989 | ||||
Uniforms | |||||
|
Home
Away
The Águilas del Zulia (English: Zulia Eagles) is a Venezuelan professional baseball team based in Maracaibo which plays in the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League.
The team was founded in 1969 and debuted in the 1969–70 season. The franchise began in 1946 as Sabios de Vargas, then was renamed Santa Marta BBC in 1954, before moving to Valencia and plays as the Industriales de Valencia from 1955–56 through 1967-68. The Industriales later moved to Acarigua and were renamed Llaneros de Acarigua for the 1968-69 season.
After the collapse of the Liga Occidental de Béisbol Profesional in 1963, the Zulia state was left without a professional baseball team. In the following years there were many efforts to bring baseball back to the state, but the efforts were not realized until 1969, when the Águilas del Zulia joined the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. Two baseball people were behind the formation of the team, Luis Rodolfo Machado B., main shareholder of the extinct Centauros de Maracaibo club, and Juan Antonio Yanes, former Patriotas de Venezuela owner.
Machado found a group of local investors to buy the aforementioned Llaneros de Acarigua when the team folded after their only season in the VPBL. By then the Acarigua team was put up for sale by its owners after losing money for numerous years, including the hazardous Valencia Industriales experience. Among the investors were Simón Bromberg, Rubén Darío Barboza, Gabriel Fernández, Edgardo Fuenmayor Arrieta, Guillermo Echeto La Roche, Sixto Márquez, José Trinidad Martínez, Douglas Mavárez Granadillo, Ernesto Montiel, Fernando Pérez Amado, Vinicio Pineda Gil, Alberto Plumacher, Antonio Quintero Parra, Lucas Rincón Colmenares, Heberto Rutilio Ríos, and Hugo Suárez Romero.