Professional baseball in Taiwan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Professional baseball in Taiwan started with the founding of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL 中華職業棒球聯盟) in 1989. At its 1997 peak, Taiwan had two leagues and a 11 professional teams. The competing Taiwan Major League ran from 1997 until its absorption by the CPBL in 2003.

The professional game has suffered from game-fixing scandals leading to sharp declines in game attendance.

1 The CPBL
2 The TML
3 Exporting Talent
4 See Also
5 External links

[edit] The CPBL

Main article: Chinese Professional Baseball League

The Chinese Professional Baseball League was founded in 1989 with four teams and eventually grew to seven. As of 2006 six teams compete for places in the Taiwan Series.

Also since 2005, the winner of the Taiwan Series represents Taiwan in the Asia Series to compete with teams from Japan, South Korea and China's professional leagues.

[edit] The TML

Main article: Taiwan Major League

The Taiwan Major League was founded in 1997 by the head of TVBS after losing the bid to broadcast CPBL games from 1997 to 2006 (TVBS won this bid earlier from 1993 to 1996). The league was designed to compete with the CPBL, but after years of losses, the TML was absorbed by the CPBL in 2003.

[edit] Exporting Talent

While Taiwan has been producing great baseball talent for the last few decades, its best players usually leave the domestic league to play for professional teams in Japan or North America. In the 1980s, Taiwanese pitchers such as Taigen Kaku (郭泰源) and Katsuo Soh (莊勝雄) posted impressive numbers for Seibu Lions and Chiba Lotte Marines, respectively, of Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball. More recently, young stars such as(outfielder Chin-Feng Chen and pitchers Chien-Ming Wang, Chin-Hui Tsao and Hong-Chih Kuo) became the first group of Taiwanese players to reach the North American Major League Baseball.