The Dantos de Managua (English: Managua Tapirs) are a Nicaraguan baseball club. Since their foundation in 1981, they have played in the Germán Pomares Championship, the country's semi-pro summer league. The team is also expected to join the Nicaraguan Professional Baseball League for the 2026âÂÂ27 winter league season.
Dantos were named in honor of , a Sandinista fighter during the Nicaraguan Revolution killed in 1979. It is among the most successful in the Pomares league, winning nine championships; four of them were won between 1985 and 1991, a stretch that earned Dantos the nickname La Maquinaria Roja ("The Red Machine"). The team is also sponsored by, and closely associated with, the Nicaraguan Armed Forces.
The Dantos team has its historical roots in Cinco Estrellas, a professional baseball club based in Managua that was sponsored by the Nicaraguan National Guard and its leader, dictator Anastasio Somoza. The team had a rivalry with Indios del Bóer, which was colored by the political situation in the country; opponents of Somoza generally rooted against Cinco Estrellas. After the Somoza family fled the country in 1979 and the FSLN took power, Cinco Estrellas did not return to First Division of amateur baseball. But two years later, Dantos, like Cinco Estrellas, would be founded as a team sponsored by and closely associated with the armed forces; the team was originally known as Dantos del E.P.S., for the Ejército Popular Sandinista.
Dantos were founded by Humberto Ortega, brother of Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega and chief of the Sandinista Army. The team was named after FSLN fighter Germán Pomares Ordóñez, who was nicknamed "El Danto" ("The Tapir") for his ability to forge trails through the dense mountain terrain; Pomares, a baseball fan and uncle of future big-leaguer Vicente Padilla, was killed in 1979, two months before the Sandinistas toppled the Somoza dictatorship.
The team enjoyed success in the late 1980s and won four championships, defeating Granada in 1985, Bóer in 1987, Costa in 1988, and Chinandega in 1991. Its first manager was Octavio Abea, a former Mexican Leaguer, though later managers included César JarquÃÂn and Omar Cisneros. The team was dissolved after the 1993 season, after the Sandinistas lost power in the 1990 Nicaraguan general election.
Dantos returned in 2013, after Daniel Ortega returned to power as president of Nicaragua. Since then, the team has won five Pomares titles, in 2016, 2018, 2021, 2023, and 2025. It also earned the right to represent Nicaragua at the 2026 Baseball Champions League Americas in Mexico City.
The team has been criticized for its close association with the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. La Prensa describe the Nicaraguan government support of Los Dantos, and of baseball in Nicaragua as a whole, as a form of bread and circuses.