Quick rundown:
The Liga Nacional Puertorriqueña is the league of an independent Republic of Puerto Rico, inaugurated in 1871*, and currently in its fifteenth season.
* I may or may not have originally misdated the Grito de Lares to 1863, which would have given the LNP eight years to start operations, rather than three.
You can see what I've been doing with it in the links below. The main thing is that every town in Puerto Rico gets a team, and since there are 78 towns in (modern) Puerto Rico, there are two leagues of 39 teams, divided into thirteen divisions of three teams apiece. Yes, this means the playoffs have 32 total teams and five rounds. It's a Whole Thing.
Anyway, I wanted to post a few stories from it: the good sometimes, the bad certainly, but most importantly, the weird, and it doesn't get much weirder than this.
The man I want to talk about right now is Fernando Rodríguez, who has pitched for the Petroleros de Peñuelas since 1875. His stat** card is below.
** If you're not used to 1880s baseball, based on his engine ratings, a modern equivalent of Fernando would be rocking a 5.52 ERA and a 5.66 FIP, with -1.1 WAR. He'd have struck out 61 and walked 48. (In a season, mind you.)