Taiwan, which calls baseball its national sport, is facing yet another professional baseball game-fixing scandal. What future does professional baseball have? Will the scam destroy it?
The earliest recorded game-fixing scandal in the US occurred in 1865. Three members of the New York Mutuals accepted US$100 each for throwing the Sept. 28 game to the Brooklyn Eckfords. Two of them were suspended for life.
In 1877, the Louisville Scandal took place. The scandal nearly destroyed professional baseball in the US. Eventually, the Louisville team folded and four players involved were suspended for life.
A similar gambling scandal happened in Taiwan in 1997. At that time, Kuo Chien-chen (
Then Taiwanese player Chen Chin-feng (
Today, professional baseball is facing another gambling scandal, eight years since the last one. Will the sport be able to revitalize its fans' trust in the same way US professional baseball did after the 1905 and 1908 scandals involving the New York Giants, and even the 1920 Black Sox scandal, in which media discovered that the 1919 World Series had been fixed?
Perhaps Taiwan can make it, and we certainly hope that it can. But there is nothing that can work as an injection to revitalize the sport at present.
Besides, compared to the relatively healthier system of US professional baseball, the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) only passively accepts judicial investigations, and has never taken any active moves.
Fans would rather believe that the players and staff involved in the scandal are absolutely innocent. But if the current suspicions turn out to be true, there is reason to worry and wonder how the CPBL will go about bringing back the passionate support of its fans.
Wang Chao-yu is a student in the Graduate Institute of American Studies at Tamkang University.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS