Cigars and Community: Stories from Tamboril’s DBL Factory

While baseball is called America’s pastime, baseball and cigars are the Dominican Republic’s passions. Some of the world’s best players including Juan Soto, Julio Rodriguez, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. are from the D.R. The heart of the cigar passions beats in Tamboril near Santiago, known as the “Cigar Capital of the World.” It is the home of many factories including La Arora, LFD, and Dominican Big Leaguer (DBL). We recently toured the DBL factory -our previous post was about the tour itself. This is a story from that day about cigars bringing people together and creating an amazing experience.

We’ll start the story with Luis Barrera – although he isn’t the story. Luis Barrera was born in Tamboril in November of 1995. Like so many Dominicans, he lived the dream of playing major league baseball. His career highlight with the A’s was in May 2022 when he hit a 2-out, bottom of the ninth, 3-run walk-off homerun to beat the Angels. We didn’t meet Luis on our tour but we met his dad. His dad is the DBL factory manager and was part of the group that hosted us that day. We didn’t hear about Luis from his father. We heard about Luis from a super guy who happened to stop into the factory that day.

His name is Kyle Bradley, Vice-President of Ministry Advancement for Go Ministries in the D.R. Go is a Christian mission organization whose purpose is to transform communities through churches, medical care, education and sports. They are building a sports complex near the DBL factory. One of its major sponsors is NBA All-star Karl-Anthony Townes to honor his late mother, a native Dominican.

When Kyle said that Luis Barrera played in the Angels organization at one point, we wondered if he played there when Hazleton’s Joe Maddon managed the team. It turns out he didn’t play for Maddon, but Kyle’s eyes lit up – he’s from Illinois and a huge Cubs fan. Maddon led the Cubs to their first World Series Championship in 2016. Maddon managed in the Majors for 19 years in Tampa, Chicago, and for the Angels. He’s a 3-time Manager of the Year, reached the World Series in 2008 where his Rays lost to the Phillies, and won a World Championship with the Cubs. Kyle couldn’t believe that Tommy and Michael know Joe Maddon and that he lives in the Hazleton area.

Joe Maddon is also a co-founder and driving force behind the Hazleton Integration Project. Its Hazleton One Community Center offers early childhood development though education, sports and cultural programs. Their mission is similar to Go’s mission.

Think about this! A factory tour to Kyle to Luis Barrera and his father to Joe Maddon and to two organizations changing lives, one in Tamboril and one on Hazleton. The connections were amazing! All from talking to people we met over cigars in the DBL lounge.

Cigars are like that. Stop in any lounge where people are having cigars and there are good people to meet. You have in common enjoying a cigar – and you meet great people with interesting stories, experiences and backgrounds. They create connections and community – we see it here at Smoke Rings every day.

Have a great cigar story, comments or questions? Share it in the comments.