- Professional baseball in Taiwan
Professional baseball in
Taiwan started with the founding of theChinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) in1989 . At its1997 peak, Taiwan had two leagues and 11 professional teams. The competingTaiwan Major League ran from1997 until its absorption by the CPBL in2003 .The professional game has suffered from several game-fixing
scandal s which has led to sharp declines in game attendance.Historical background
The first official baseball team in Taiwan was formed in 1906, when the island was a Japanese colony by the Middle School of the Taiwan Governor-General's National Language School (present-day Jianguo Senior High School; 建國高級中學), and the first organized baseball game was played by this team and the baseball team of the Normal School of the Taiwan Governor-General's National Language School (present-day
Taipei Municipal University of Education ). From 1906 through the mid 1920s, Taiwan's baseball teams consisted of mostly Japanese players. Taiwanese players didn't become actively involved in the sport until the “Neng-Gao Club” in the mid 1920s, and theKano baseball team in the early 1930s.The CPBL
The Chinese Professional Baseball League was founded in 1989 with four teams and grew to seven at one point. As of 2006, there are six teams competing for the championship of
Taiwan Series .Since 2005, the winner of the
Taiwan Series represents Taiwan in theAsia Series , competing with championship teams fromJapan ,South Korea andChina 's professional leagues.The TML
The Taiwan Major League was founded in 1997 by then chairman of
TVBS , a popular cable TV channel company, after losing the nine-year (1997 to 2006) broadcasting rights bid of CPBL games toVideoland Television Network . TVBS was the broadcasting right holder from 1993 to 1996.The league was set-up to compete with the CPBL, but after years of losses, the TML was absorbed by the CPBL in 2003.
Exporting Talent
While Taiwan has been producing great baseball talent for the last few decades, its best players usually leave the domestic league to play at professional teams in
Japan orNorth America . In the 1980s, Taiwanese pitchers such asTai-Yuan Kuo andKatsuo Soh (莊勝雄) posted impressive numbers atSeibu Lions andChiba Lotte Marines , respectively, of Japan'sNippon Professional Baseball . More recently, young stars such as outfielderChin-Feng Chen and pitchersChien-Ming Wang ,Chin-Hui Tsao , andHong-Chih Kuo became the first group of Taiwanese players to play in North AmericanMajor League Baseball .ee also
*
Chinese Professional Baseball League
*Taiwan Major League
*Taiwan Series
*Konami Cup Asia Series
*Chinese Taipei baseball team
*Professional baseball in Japan Further reading
* Yu, Junwei. "Playing in Isolation: A History of Baseball in Taiwan". Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2007. ISBN 0803211406.
External links
* [http://baseballguru.com/andrewwong/taiwanesebaseballprimer.html Taiwanese Baseball Primer]
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