The Sabios de Vargas (English: Vargas Wisemen) was a baseball club that became a founding member of the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League in its inaugural season of 1946. Though the team originally represented the city of La Guaira, Vargas, it played its home games in Caracas, at the now-extinct Estadio Cerveza Caracas.
The first baseball club to bear the name Vargas was founded in 1907 by sports promoter Vicente Ortega, made up of a roster of youth from La Guaira State. After several decades, the name reemerged under the ownership of Juan Reggetti, Oscar âÂÂNegroâ Prieto y Pablo Morales in 1937. That year, Vargas won the first division amateur tournament under the management of Pelayo Chacón; it would win successive amateur titles in 1939 (under Chacon) and 1940 (under Isidro Fabré). During this period, the team's roster included native Venezuelan players such as Vidal López, Carlos "Terremoto" Ascanio, and Chucho Ramos, as well as foreign imports from Negro league baseball such as Ray Dandridge (nicknamed "Talúa" in Venezuela) and Alejandro Oms.
The VPBL opening game was realized on January 12, 1946. Besides Vargas, the circuit included the CervecerÃÂa Caracas, Navegantes del Magallanes and Patriotas de Venezuela teams, which resulted in a revised schedule of 30 games in which each team played its three opponents 10 times apiece. During the first season, the games were played on Thursdays and Saturdays on the afternoons, and Sundays in the morning. When the ballpark was fitted with electric lights, a game was added on Tuesday nights.
In 1946 Vargas was co-managed by pitcher Daniel Canónico and catcher Roy Campanella, both of whom led the team to the title with an 18âÂÂ12 record. Notably, pitcher Roy Welmaker hurled in 25 of the 30 games, including 25 starts, and posted a 12âÂÂ8 record with 139 strikeouts and a 2.68 earned run average in innings of work. Welmaker led the league in victories, strikeouts and ERA to win easily the Triple crown.
The league divided the 1946âÂÂ47 season in two parts, while the number of games in the schedule was increased to 36. The final Championship Series faced first-half winner Vargas against CervecerÃÂa, second-half champ, in a best-of-five series. Vargas defeated CervecerÃÂa, 3 to 1, to become the first team to win consecutive titles in the league.
Vargas finished second in 1947âÂÂ48, but retired during the 1948âÂÂ49 season due to economical problems. Eventually, the team continued to play for the next four seasons but never was able to recover its initial prestige, before finally folding at the end of the 1952âÂÂ53 season. They changed their name to the Santa Marta BBC in 1954.