 María Elena Batista

María Elena ("Mari") Batista is a former sports administrator in Puerto Rico.As the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico's longest-serving Director of Sports and Recreation from January 2001, to January 2012, she helped revive the previously underused and dilapidated Hiram Bithorn Stadium, attracting MLB's Opening Day Game in 2001, twenty-two yearly home games of the now defunct Montreal Expos (now known as the Washington Nationals) in 2003 and 2004, the 2006 and 2009 World Baseball Classic games and a series of MLB New York Mets games in 2010.