Chin-Feng Chen

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Chin-Feng Chen (b. October 28, 1977, in Tainan City, Taiwan) (Traditional Chinese: 陳金鋒; pinyin: Chén Jīnfēng) is a baseball outfielder who was the first player born in Taiwan to play in Major League Baseball.

He played with the Los Angeles Dodgers during parts of the 2002 to 2004 seasons, but played only sparingly. In 2005, Chen wondered openly whether to refuse an assignment back to their AAA team, the Las Vegas 51s, to instead try to catch on with another major league team or return to play for the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) in Taiwan. Eventually, Chen did agree to return to Las Vegas.

Chen was the second Taiwanese player to ever get a hit in the Major Leagues (the first player to do so is former Colorado Rockies pitcher Chin-hui Tsao). After his contract with the Dodgers organization expired after the 2005 season, Chen announced on December 26, 2005, that, in order to stay closer to his parents, he would not return to North America for the 2006 season, but would instead enter the CPBL draft. He was promptly selected by the La New Bears. Chen had completed his first complete baseball season at the hometown Taiwan in 2006. He ranked first on many aspects such as the highest hit-rate and 81 RBI for the whole season. He also led La New Bears team to win the championship title and he also won his first MVP title for the final series matches. Later on in the second Asian baseball tournament, he showed the best performance again and gained lots of attentions from Japanese and Korean baseball Clubs, including the well-known Orix Buffaloes team. But he rejected the contract from this Japanese team and made the decision to stay in Taiwan for at least one more year with his beloved La New Bears team-mates.

Chen is a Taiwanese aborigine (Siraya tribal ancestry), as is Tsao.[1]

Since Chen's debut, three other Taiwanese baseball players have played in MLB: the Rockies' Tsao (now with the Dodgers), the New York Yankees' Chien-Ming Wang, and the Dodgers' Hong-Chih Kuo.