A full-house is expected at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium in Tianmu this afternoon as the Chinese Professional Baseball League’s (CPBL) 20th season starts with a showdown between the Uni-President Lions and the Brother Elephants.
The highly anticipated rematch of last year’s Taiwan Series that saw the Lions needing to go the full, seven-game distance before capturing their second straight title will feature the Lions ace Pan “Du Du” Wei-luen, who has won at least 10 games in all of the six seasons he has spent in the league and his counterpart Kobayashi Ryokan of the Elephants, who picked up 10 wins in his first season with the Elephants last year with a solid 2.67 earned run average.
Leading the potent attack for the Lions will be Pan Wu-hsiung and Chen Lien-hong, who averaged .346 and .314 with 13 homers apiece last season. The Elephants will try to counter with their own bashing trio consisting of Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min, Chen “Golden Warrior” Chih-yuan and Chen Guan-ren, who all finished the year with above .300 averages.
Also making a grand appearance on Opening Day will be President Ma Ying-jeou, who is scheduled to toss the ceremonial first pitch at 5pm to cap a fun-packed pre-game program at the Tienmu ballpark that includes a batting cage and pitcher’s challenge for the youngsters.
Meanwhile, with the admittance of the local professional baseball league into the legalized sports gaming system, all eyes will undoubtedly be focused on how well the players and the league officials fare in the upcoming season, given the longstanding match-fixing problem that has troubled Taiwanese baseball.
Even though the Elephants have openly banned their players from joining the newly established players’ association and taken the heat for being the “odd ball” among the four remaining teams in the league (down from six after the dismantling of the dmedia T-Rex and Chinatrust Whales in the off-season), players from the Lions, the Bears and the Bulls have all agreed to a new self-disciplinary policy instituted by the association that will place 10 percent of each of the three team’s players’ monthly earnings in a league-designated account for as long as they are involved with professional baseball.
A player can only claim his escrowed fund after retirement and after receiving a league-issued certificate clearing him of any involvement with gambling.
“We hope this new policy will make those temped to break the rules from doing so, because a large sum of money could be at stake,” Players Association president Yeh Jung-chang said.
Marloon Herrera was crying — happy tears. With Cuba trailing in the fifth inning of its Little League World Series (LLWS) opener on Thursday, Herrera lined a two-run double to give his team the lead. When the Czech Republic, representing Europe-Africa, made a pitching change, he ran over to give his third base coach a hug. Cuba went on to win 4-1. It was the first game at this year’s tournament for both sides, but it was also the beginning of Cuba’s second appearance in the series ever — and it was emotional. “You breathe baseball in Cuba,” manager Everaldo Machado said on
Taiwan on Friday beat Australia 11-0 at the Little League World Series in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Taiwan are represented at the tournament by Taoyuan’s Gueishan Elementary School, who won the Asia-Pacific regional tournament to earn the trip to the US. Australia are represented by the Hills Red team from Sydney. Taiwan advanced to a game tomorrow against Santa Clara, representing Cuba, who won 4-1 against the Czech Republic’s Brno, the Europe-Africa regional qualifiers. Australian starter Sayre Howick had a tough time controlling his pitches at Volunteer Stadium, one of which allowed Taiwan to open their account. They scored six in the inning and
World Boxing, an international amateur boxing organization formed last year after a breakdown in relations between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Boxing Association (IBA), has announced the admission of Taiwan, along with four other nations, into its growing list of members. In a statement released on its Web site on Friday, the Swiss- based organization said that in addition to Taiwan, admitted as Chinese Taipei, Bhutan, Ecuador, Fiji and Pakistan have also become members. The new members all have well-rounded national and international boxing programs as well as transparency in the leadership and management of their national boxing programs,
COOLED DOWN: Du Plessis apologized after the fight for comments about his Nigerian-born opponent, after Adesanya said he planned to take the belt back to Africa South African Dricus du Plessis yesterday took a flurry of body hits across four rounds before defeating Israel Adesanya by submission to retain his middleweight championship at UFC 305. After scoring some early takedowns, Du Plessis (22-2) had to withstand a flurry of body strikes from Adesanya through the middle rounds, which appeared to be taking a toll on the 30-year-old South African as the fight progressed. However, a left hook followed by three rights helped bring Adesanya down, giving Du Plessis the opening he wanted as he swiftly got the choke hold that forced the Nigerian-born New Zealander to tap out