Atenienses de Manatí () is a professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

team based in

Manatí, Puerto Rico Manatí () is a Manatí barrio-pueblo, city and Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality of Puerto Rico on the northern coast. It is north of Morovis, Puerto Rico, Morovis and Ciales, Puerto Rico, Ciales, east of Florida, Puerto Rico, Florid ...

. ''Atenienses'' is the team name for most sport teams representing Manatí in state-level tournaments. The Atenienses appeared in

Liga de Béisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente The Roberto Clemente Professional Baseball League (Spanish: Liga de Béisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente, abbreviation LBPRC) is the main professional baseball league in Puerto Rico; it is colloquially referred to as the Puerto Rican Winter le ...

when

José Valentín José Antonio Valentín (born October 12, 1969) is a Puerto Rican former professional baseball infielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Milwaukee Brewers (–), Chicago White Sox (–), Los Angeles Dodgers (), and New Y ...

acquired the Cangrejeros de Santurce and relocated them to Manatí for the 2004–05 season. For the 2008–09 season, the team returned to San Juan as the Cangrejeros, after which the league was suspended only to return in 2012 and 2013, and from 2019 to the present. Their home stadium in Manatí is the Estadio Municipal Pedro Román Meléndez. On January 11, 2021, the team was given the go ahead to play again, after having cancelled games due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. In January 2021,

Yadier Molina Yadier Benjamín Molina (; born July 13, 1982) is a Puerto Rican professional baseball Manager (baseball), manager and former catcher who is the manager of the Águilas Cibaeñas of the Dominican Professional Baseball League. He played his entir ...

, a

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

catcher who played for the

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Centra ...

for 18 years, said he wanted to play for the Atenienses and the league was looking to work him into the season.

References

Defunct baseball teams in Puerto Rico Liga de Béisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente Professional baseball teams in Puerto Rico Manatí, Puerto Rico {{PuertoRico-sport-stub