Uni-President Lions

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Uni-President Lions
League Chinese Professional Baseball League
Location Tainan, Taiwan
Ballpark Tainan Baseball Stadium
Year Founded 1989
Nickname(s) Nan-ba-tien (南霸天)
Shih-tzu-chun (獅子軍)
League championships 1991 2nd Half
1993 2nd Half
1995 1st Half
1995 2nd Half
1996 1st Half
2000 2nd Half
2001 1st Half
2004 1st Half
Taiwan Series championships 1991, 1995, 1996, 2000
Colors Green and orange
Uniforms
Team colors
Team colors
Team emblem
Team colors
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Team colors
Team colours
　
Home
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Team emblem
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Away


The Uni-President Lions (統一獅) are a professional baseball team based in Tainan, Taiwan. It is owned by the Uni-President Corporation, one of Taiwan's largest conglomerate. It has a strong fan base in southern Taiwan, especially around the Tainan area. The Lions are nicknamed Shih-tzu-chun (獅子軍, Lions Corps) by fans and Nan-ba-tien (南霸天, Overlord of the South) by others.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Amateur Era

Lions players warming up before a game.
Lions players warming up before a game.

The Lions organization was first founded as amateur Uni-President Baseball Team (統一棒球隊) in 1989, for the purpose of training and preparation for professionalization in the next year. The corporation had in mind to draw players from Taipower, an amateur baseball team based in nearby Kaohsiung that has been producing some of the best players Taiwan had offered, but this idea was soon met with difficulties.

Uni-President originally offered Lin Chia-hsiang, the then head coach of Taipower, the position as manager of the new team, which Lin accepted at first and agreed to recruit players within Taipower for the Uni-President. However, players were reluctant to join the new baseball league, and Lin could only secure six players, far below the 15 players minimum requirement of the amateur league. Lin then turned down the offer, leaving Uni-President in a difficult situation. The team then turned to Cheng Kuen-chih, a former coach of Taipower respected by players and coaches alike, to take the position as manager and recruit players. Cheng then used his connection to convince players to join the team, and the team barely past the 15 players requirement after Brother baseball team lent two players to Uni-President.

The team then join the amateur league, and participated in two amateur series. However, unlike Brother and Wei Chuan, who had a long amateur history with active players, over half of Uni-President's players were retired players from Taipower, thus did not performed as good as the other teams. This flaw also caused the Lions great pain in their first years of professional baseball. The team was professionalized in 1990, the year CPBL was founded.

[edit] Rise of the Lions

Alternative logo of the Lions
Alternative logo of the Lions

The team was professionalized on January 1, 1990, following the formation of CPBL. The mascot that was chosen for Uni-President was Lions, hence the team was renamed Uni-President Lions. The Lions played the opening game of CPBL on March 17, 1990 against Brother Elephants in the now demolished Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium; the Lions defeated the Elephants 4-3, scoring their first victory in professional baseball. However, the Lions performed poorly in the first half-season, place fourth with a losing streak of eight games following their first victory. The Lions managed to do better in the second half-season, place second in the second half and third overall.

The season of 1991 saw a great improvement in the Lions' performance. The Lions placed first in the second half-season, and advanced to the playoff to play Wei Chuan Dragons, which they defeat 4-2 and won their first seasonal title. However, the next three years saw the dominance of the Elephants, who won three consecutive season titles from 1992 to 1994, and defeated the Lions 4-2 in the 1993 playoff. It was around this time that the Lions and Elephants developed a long-lasting rivalry.

In the season of 1995, the Elephants suffered when CPBL increased the tours from three games to four games. The Elephants, lacked a decent pitching staff, could not have an efficient rotation going while the Lions benefited from its strong pitching staff with the so-called "Four Aces" that helped the Lions dominated the league. The Lions won both half-seasonal titles and was declared the seasonal champion. The Lions would again win the seasonal title in 1996, after easily defeated the Dragons four games to two in the playoff.

After the 1996 playoff, many believed the Lions would continued to dominate CPBL, but competitions from a new competitor, game-fixing scandal, and a loophole in the regulation destroyed the Lions' bid for a third consecutive title.

[edit] Black Eagles Scandal and TML

The Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium is the home stadium of the Lions.
The Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium is the home stadium of the Lions.

The impact of the formation of Taiwan Major League on the Lions was relatively light, although they lost their star pitcher Kuo Chin-Hsing to the new competitor; on the contrary, another ace, Jose Nunez, was signed by Daiei Hawks in the same year, reduced the "Four Aces" to two. Also, the Black Eagles Scandal in mid-season of 1997 was a major blow to the Lions. The Lions had to suspend several players due to allegation of their involvement in the scandal, and shut down the team expansion project which was part of the formation of the CPBL minor league. However, the Lions performed extremely well despites these events, and was only prevented from winning the season title by regulation.

At the end of 1997 season, the Lions led the league with 58-7-31, surpassing the Dragons (46-4-46) and China Times Eagles (41-4-51), ranked third and fourth respectively. However, the regulation dicated that the Taiwan Series should be played by the team that leads the league in the first half-season and the team in the second half-season. It was assumed that if a team leads the league in the whole year, it should have ranked first in both half-seasons, and thus allowed to participate in the championship series. The loophole became obvious when the Dragons(ranked seventh in the first half but first in the second half) and the Eagles(ranked first in the first half and seventh in the second half) got their tickets to Taiwan Series, and the Lions could not do anything about it. The loophole was fixed in the following year, but the Lions lost their dominance to the Dragons, whom went on to win three consecutive season titles, during which the Lions would be eliminated by them in the first round of playoff of 1998 and 1999.

[edit] CPBL-TML Merger and "San-bao Incident"

The merger of the two leagues brought the number of teams in CPBL from four to six, but did not present any problem to the Lions. The Lions managed to best the two new teams in the season of 2003, but failed to secure a ticket to the Taiwan Series. Since 2004, the Lions performed considerably well by advance into the Taiwan Series in every season, but was met with defeats each time. The Lions were defeated by Sinon Bulls in 2004, Macoto Cobras in 2005, and La New Bears in 2006. Despites these defeats, the Lions were praised for its stable performance over the years, and are considered one of the best team in Taiwan.

The so-called San-bao Incident (三寶事件, literally means Incident of Three Treasures) took place in the end of 2004 season. After being defeated in the Taiwan Series, the organization concluded that the Lions needed to make drastic change to their lineup, and laid off seven players including designated hitter Lo Min-ching, outfielder Chen Cheng-hsien, and catcher Tseng Chih-chen, the three most senior players on the team who are collectively referred as San-bao (三寶, three treasure). This move was opposed by the majority of fans, who speculated the organization was hiding the reason of this move. After protest messages have paralyzed the Lions' website, the organization decided to offer the three coach position on the team, to which Tseng and Chen accepted; however, Lo, who was only several RBIs away from his 700th RBI, wanted to continue his career as player, and signed with Macoto Cobras. Lo retired at the end of 2005 season and returned to the Lions to take up the hitting coach position. After the 2006 season, Tseng and Chen were laid off due to the downsize of the coaching staff, and Lo was promoted to the bench coach of minor league team.

[edit] Organization

[edit] Minor League

A minor league game with La New Bears
A minor league game with La New Bears

The Lions were credited as the first organization to form a minor league team. As early as 1990, when CPBL was first formed, the Lions began to scout for talented players for the project. The minor team, however, was disbanded due to lack of opponent and players. In 1997, the Lions again formed a minor league team, but it met the same fate as its predecessor due to the game-fixing scandal and the decline in attendance. No further expansion was made until after the CPBL-TML merger took place.

In late 2003, after the merger of the two competing league, the Chinese Taipei Baseball Association began to cooperate with CPBL to form a minor league. At first, the Lions were very supportive of this project, but later back out due to financial reason. However, in early 2006, the Lions announced the revival of the minor league project, and began the expansion of the team. There are currently a major team and a minor team in the organization, with separate coaching staff, medical staff, transportation, and games schedule in accordance with CPBL minor league.

[edit] Style of Play

Manager Ohashi during warm-up.
Manager Ohashi during warm-up.

The Lions are known to the heavy Japanese influence on its style of play. Throughout its history, the Lions have hired many Japanese coaches serving as pitching, batting, and head coaches. The Lions' lineup was established on the traditional Japanese baseball doctrine, with emphasis on a strong pitching staff, a good defense lineup, and speed on the bases. It is not uncommon to see some very conservative plays, such as sacrifice bunts, when the Lions were on the offense. Consequently, the Lions enjoys the lowest overall ERA as a team in CPBL, but also have lower scores output, hence the Lions rely on foreign players to strengthen the offensive lineup. This style of play has made the Lions the traditional rival of Brother Elephants, who have a strong offensive lineup, high HR and score output, but lack a decent pitching staff.

Some fans have criticized the Lions for being "too Japanese," and have repeatedly urged the management to hire more indigenous coaches on the coaching staff. The fans supporting the hiring of more indigenous coaches argued that foreign coaches do not understand the Taiwanese tradition of baseball, and the barrier of languages would prevent a trusting relationship between the players and coaches. These claims have been rebuffed by the supporters of the current policy, who argued that some of the Japanese coaches have worked in Taiwan for so many years, that communication with indigenous players and coaches does not present a problem to them; some others also pointed out that, since baseball was introduced to Taiwan by the Japanese, Japanese baseball traditions influenced Taiwanese baseball players significantly, and there is really no need to separate Japanese and Taiwanese tradition in baseball. Furthermore, many baseball critics in Taiwan question the ability of Taiwanese coaches to manage a professional team. Taiwanese coaches are notorious of extensive use the few players they trust, that these players are frequent to injuries and some forced to retired from a career in baseball. This issue is still under heated debates among the fans of Lions and other teams.

[edit] Foreign Cooperation/Exchange

The Lions have participated in several CPBL hosted friendly matches with teams from other parts of Asia, as well as some games hosted by the other organizations, such as the Asia-Pacific Super Baseball Games in 1996, which the Lions won by defeating Daiei Hawks(1:0) and Hanhwa Eagles(3:1). The Lions also played some friendly matches hosted by themselves, the most recent one was the three games held with Kia Tigers, who defeated the Lions in all three games(0:2, 3:8, 0:1) in 2005. These defeats has influenced the Lions greatly, and they began to recruit pitchers of different pitching styles and pitches in the following season.

On the other hand, the Lions have been working with other organization in the Asia and North America to improve the performance of the organization, collaborators includes Yomiuri Giants of NPB's Central League and Red Sox organization of MLB.

[edit] Records

[edit] Regular Season

Season First Half-Season Second Half-Season
Wins Losses Ties Pct. Place Wins Losses Ties Pct. Place
1990 16 29 0 .356 4 21 20 4 .512 2
1991 21 20 4 .512 2 25 14 6 .641 1
1992 20 23 2 .465 3 21 22 2 .488 2
1993 25 20 0 .556 3 29 14 2 .674 1
1994 22 20 3 .524 3 26 18 1 .591 2
1995 32 17 1 .653 1 30 19 1 .612 1
1996 34 15 1 .694 1 26 22 2 .542 3
1997 28 16 4 .636 2 30 15 3 .667 2
1998 57 45 3 .563 2
1999 56 37 0 .602 2
2000 17 27 1 .386 4 27 16 2 .628 1
2001 27 14 4 .659 1 22 23 0 .489 3
2002 18 24 3 .429 4 14 30 1 .318 4
2003 24 23 3 .511 4 30 16 4 .652 2
2004 28 18 4 .543 1 26 22 2 .542 3
2005 24 26 0 .480 5 24 23 3 .511 3
2006 28 18 4 .609 2 20 27 3 .426 5
2007 4 9 0 .308 6 - - - - -

Last update: 3/31/2007

[edit] CPBL Playoffs/Taiwan Series

Players were introduced in the second game of first round of the 2006 Playoff.
Players were introduced in the second game of first round of the 2006 Playoff.
Season Preliminary Round Championship Round
Opponent Wins Losses Opponent Wins Losses
1991 Wei Chuan Dragons 4 2
1993 Brother Elephants 2 4
1995
1996 Wei Chuan Dragons 4 2
1998 Wei Chuan Dragons 1 2 - - -
1999 Wei Chuan Dragons 1 2 - - -
2000 Sinon Bulls 4 3
2001 Brother Elephants 3 4
2004 Sinon Bulls 3 4
2005 Macoto Cobras 1 3 - - -
2006 Sinon Bulls 3 0 La New Bears 0 4

Note: The Lions won the championship in 1995 by virtue of winning both half-seasons.

[edit] Challenger Cup

Season First Round Final Round
Opponent Wins Losses Opponent Wins Losses
1994 China Times Eagles 2 0 Brother Elephants 3 0
1995 - - - Mercuries Tigers 1 3

[edit] Coaches

[edit] Managers

Manager # Manager Name Years Games Wins Losses Ties
1 Cheng Kuen-chi (鄭昆吉) 1990 - 1993 360 178 162 20
2 Oishi Yataro (大石彌太郎) 1994 - 1996 290 170 111 9
3 Lin Chia-Hsiang (林家祥) 1997 - 1998 194 111 73 10
4 Inoue Osamu (井上 修) 1998 7 3 4 0
5 Tseng Chih-chen (曾智偵) 1999 - 2002 353 178 164 11
6 Takenouchi Masashi (竹之內雅史) 2000 10 3 7 0
7 Hsieh Chang-heng (謝長亨) 2003 - 2005 250 132 105 13
8 Ohashi Yutaka (大橋 穰) 2005 - Present 150 72 68 10

* Record for the current manager is only through the last complete half-season.

[edit] Coaching Staff

Position Major Team Minor Team
Manager Ohashi Yutaka (大橋 穰) Lo Min-ching (羅敏卿)
Bench Coach Inoue Osamu (井上 修)
Hitting Coach
Pitching Coach Sakai Kojiro (酒井光次郎) Wu Chun-liang (吳俊良)
Base Running Coach Lo Kuo-chang (羅國璋)
Infield Fielding Coach
Outfield Fielding Coach Lu Wen-sheng (呂文生)
Strength & Cond. Coach Isshiki Yu (一色 優) Chang Shen-chen (張聲鎮)

[edit] Players

[edit] Active Roster

[edit] Pitchers

[edit] Catchers

[edit] Infielders

[edit] Outfielders

[edit] Notable Former Players

[edit] Retired Number

  • 22 - The number of former player, coach, and manager Tseng Chih-chen, who played for 12 years and coached for 6 years for the Lions, for his achievement as player. This number was un-retired when Tseng came out of retirement in 2003, and, although no ceremony took place, was retired again when Tseng retired for the second time in 2005.

Note: The names of Japanese coaches/players may not be accurate because Uni-President Lions have only released their name in Chinese characters, which may not be their actual name in Japanese characters.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Chinese

[edit] English

Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL)
Brother Elephants · Uni-President Lions · Sinon Bulls · Chinatrust Whales · Macoto Cobras · La New Bears

Taiwan Series · Asia Series

Taiwan Major League (former) · Defunct teams · Chinese Taipei Baseball Association
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