With 10,000 enthusiastic fans expected to pack the Taipei County Stadium in Sinjhuang this afternoon to cheer on their favorite baseball heroes, the 2006 Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) All-Star Game will take center stage to showcase the best and brightest of Taiwan's only true professional team athletes.
This year's highly anticipated mid-summer classic will feature an all-star cast from the North and the South, doing battle on North's ground with bus loads of fans from southern Taiwan starting to flood into the capital by yesterday morning.
The North, made up of the elite players from the Macoto Cobras, the Brother Elephants, and the Chinatrust Whales, will take on the top players of the La New Bears, the President Lions, and the Sinon Bulls to present the South.
Taking the mound for the North will be crowd favorite Lin "Little Chick" En-yu of the Cobras, the Most Valuable Player of last season and current strikeout leader (with 124). Standing opposite of Lin will be Lions staff ace Pan "Du Du" Wei-luen, who beat out Bulls righty Yang Jien-fu by a slim 112,687-to-111,165 voting margin for the right to start the contest for his team.
The rest of the top vote-getters for the North's starting nine are catcher Wu Jau-hui (Cobras), first baseman Tsai Fong-an (Elephants), second baseman Deng Shih-yang (Cobras), third baseman Wang Jin-yong (Elephants), shortstop Cheng Chang-ming (Whales), outfielders Hsieh "the Ugly" Jia-shien (Cobras), Chi Jung-lin (Whales), and Peng "Chia Chia" Cheng-min (Elephants), and designated hitter Tseng Han-chou (Whales).
Rounding out the rest of the South's starting lineup are catcher Yeh Jung-chang (Bulls), first baseman Hsu Guo-long (Bulls), second baseman Chang "Red Monkey" Jia-hao (Bulls), third baseman Chang "Prince of the Forest" Tai-shan (Bulls), shortstop Lin Chih-sheng (Bears), outfielders Tseng Hua-wei (Bulls), Chang Jien-ming (Bulls) and Chen Chin-fong (Bears), and designated hitter Huang Chung-yi (Bulls).
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