San Pedro de Macorís: The Dominican City That Became a Big-League Pipeline
109 major leaguers, 62 All-Star selections, two MVPs and a famous run of shortstops. What the data says about baseball's most famous hometown.
Major league debuts by players from San Pedro de Macorís, by decade
Ask a Dominican fan where ballplayers come from and you will hear one name before any other: San Pedro de Macorís, the sugar-mill city on the country’s southeast coast. The numbers back up the reputation.
Third in all of Latin America
109 major leaguers were born in San Pedro de Macorís. Only two places in Latin America have produced more: the capital, Santo Domingo (221), and Havana (183). Both are cities of millions.
That total is 11.6% of every Dominican-born player in history. Roughly one in nine Dominican major leaguers comes from this one city.
A pipeline that started in 1962
The first two players from San Pedro, outfielder Manny Jiménez and shortstop Amado Samuel, both debuted in 1962. Rico Carty followed a year later. After that, the flow never stopped: 15 debuts in the 1980s, 22 in the 1990s, and 24 in each of the next two decades. Twelve San Pedro natives played in the majors in 2025.
The cradle of shortstops, by the numbers
San Pedro’s nickname is la cuna de los campocortos, the cradle of shortstops. Our data agrees:
- 16 of its 64 position players were primarily shortstops. That’s about 25%, more than double the share across all of MLB history (about 11% of position players).
- Add 13 second basemen, and nearly half of San Pedro’s position players lived in the middle infield.
- San Pedro produced almost one in five Dominican shortstops (16 of 86), though it accounts for one in nine Dominican players overall.
The standard-bearer is Tony Fernández, who won four straight Gold Gloves at shortstop from 1986 to 1989 and collected 2,276 hits.
The stars
- Robinson Canó: 2,639 hits, 335 home runs and eight All-Star selections, the most of any San Pedro native.
- Sammy Sosa: 609 home runs and the 1998 National League MVP.
- Alfonso Soriano: 412 home runs and seven All-Star selections.
- George Bell: the 1987 American League MVP, the first Dominican to win the award.
- Pedro Guerrero: five-time All-Star and a .300 career hitter.
Together, San Pedro’s players have collected 30,857 hits and 3,453 home runs, with 20 different All-Stars among them.
Still waiting: a Hall of Famer. No San Pedro native has been inducted yet, which makes Canó’s and Sosa’s cases a hometown debate as much as a national one.
See all 109 players from San Pedro de Macorís →
Statistics through the 2025 season, from the SABR Lahman Baseball Database. Positions are each player’s primary position by games played.