The Taipei Dome held its first closed-door baseball game on Tuesday, with four teams from Taiwan’s top amateur league facing off in a double-header, ahead of the long-awaited opening.
Players and coaches praised the stadium, which saw Taipei Highwealth play New Taipei Heran in the morning, followed by a game between Taiwan Cooperative Bank and Xports in the afternoon.
Taipei Highwealth coach Huang Chin-chih (黃欽智), a former Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) player, said the stadium felt comfortable and he heard positive comments from the players.
Photo courtesy of New Taipei Heran
It was impossible to have every detail right all at once, Huang said, adding that adjustments would be made based on opinions collected after the games.
New Taipei Heran pitcher Hung Hsin-chi (洪心騏) said the overall environment inside the dome was great and the dugout and the bullpen were comfortable.
Hung, who was brought into the game in the eighth inning with a runner on first base and struck out three while yielding one run on one hit, said that more clay should be placed behind the pitcher’s mound to stop pitchers from losing their footing when performing pickoffs.
Hung added that the color of the stadium’s roof and seats, which are gray and white, might make it difficult to track fly balls.
Taiwan Cooperative Bank pitcher Wu Sheng-feng (吳昇峰) said that seating in other stadiums tended to be darker to prevent players from losing sight of the ball.
Wu, who pitched for Taiwan WBSC Premier 12 in 2019 at the Tokyo Dome, also mentioned the lack of clay behind the mound.
While he did not play on Tuesday, Wu said that his teammates had told him the grass in the outfield was a bit too soft and might lead to outfielders twisting their ankles.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Actor Lee Wei (李威) was released on bail on Monday after being named as a suspect in the death of a woman whose body was found in the meeting place of a Buddhist group in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) last year, prosecutors said. Lee, 44, was released on NT$300,000 (US$9,148) bail, while his wife, surnamed Chien (簡), was released on NT$150,000 bail after both were summoned to give statements regarding the woman’s death. The home of Lee, who has retreated from the entertainment business in the past few years, was also searched by prosecutors and police earlier on Monday. Lee was questioned three