Chinese Professional Baseball League

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Chinese Professional Baseball League
Current season or competition:
2008 Chinese Professional Baseball League season
Chinese Professional Baseball League
Sport Baseball
Founded 1989
No. of teams 6
Country(ies) Taiwan
Most recent
champion(s)		 Uni-President Lions
Official website cpbl.com.tw (Chinese)

The Chinese Professional Baseball League (Traditional Chinese: 中華職業棒球大聯盟) or CPBL is the professional baseball league in Taiwan. Established in 1989[1], the first game was played by the Uni-President Lions visiting Brother Elephants's home at the Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium on March 17, 1990. In 2003, the CPBL absorbed the competing Taiwan Major League. As of 2006, the CPBL has six teams with average attendance of approximately 3,000 per game.

Contents

[edit] History

Baseball in Taiwan began during Japanese rule, and the Taiwan national baseball teams won numerous Little League World Series championships in the 1970s and 1980s, plus the bronze medal in the 1984 Summer Olympics. However, there were no local professional teams.

The idea to form a professional baseball league in Taiwan was first suggested and realized by local Brother Hotel's chairman Teng-Sheng Hung(洪騰勝). He formed his amateur Brother Hotel baseball team in 1984 and decided to professionalize this team in 1987. However he needed more teams to form a league: throughout 1988 and 1989 Hung visited numerous Taiwanese businesses trying to form professional baseball clubs. Most of his requests were rejected, but Wei-Chuan, Mercuries, and Uni-President finally agreed. The Chinese Professional Baseball League was established on October 23, 1989, with Hung Teng-sheng acted as secretary-general. Hung is known as the "Father of the CPBL."

[edit] Game-Fixing Scandals

Despite its young age, professional baseball in Taiwan had suffered two game-fixing scandals. Both times led to sharp decline in game attendance and broke many fans' hearts. However, many die-hard fans do not blame the players. Instead fans blame gangs and gamblers for their greed and forcing players to participate in game-fixing with violence and threats. They also blamed the police and the league for being unable to provide a safe environment for players to play in.

[edit] The August 3 Incident

The first sign of the scandals was the so-called "August 3 Incident" when a group of weapon-carrying local black gang members rushed into a Taichung hotel and threatened 5 Brother Elephant players, including then superstar Yi-Hsin Chen(陳義信), to cooperate with them and fix games for their gambling business in the evening of August 3, 1996. CPBL reported to the police immediately and these black gang members were soon seized, but rumors abounded.

[edit] The Black Eagles Incident

The rumors came true in January 1997, just before the season started: With clear evidence, prosecutors seized a chain of CPBL players — including several famous ones who won the silver medal in the 1992 Summer Olympics — for game-fixing. During the judicial process, more and more players, mostly from the China Times Eagles, were found involved in game-fixing and were expelled by CPBL. In June 1997 only two China Times Eagle Taiwanese players remained clean, and six other teams had to lend China Times Eagle players for the team to finish the season.

The China Times Eagles were disbanded the next year as a result, and CPBL's average attendance declined sharply, from the peak 6,000 in 1994 to merely 1,000~1,500 in 1998. However threats remained: in August 1997 the "August 3 Incident" was replayed in Kaohsiung but with victims changed to Mercuries Tigers. In April 1999, the Wei Chuan Dragons' then manager Hsu Sheng-ming (徐生明) was attacked and wounded near his Taipei residence. Mercuries Tigers and Wei Chuan Dragons also could not survive the financial loss brought about and closed down after the 1999 season ended. The whole event was later nicknamed as "The Black Eagles Incident" due to the fact that the China Times Eagles was most seriously involved.

[edit] The 2005 Game-Fixing Scandal

In July 2005 another gambling-related scandal erupted when local Next Magazine published a story which photographed Chinatrust Whales Australian pitcher Brad Purcell (柏德) showing up at a Taipei lounge bar along with several local black gang members. This report further pointed out several suspicious games in May and June 2005, and listed nearly 10 players involved, mostly international.

Local prosecutor Wei-Yueh Hsu (徐維嶽) took up the case and imprisoned La New Bears catcher Chao-Ying Chen (陳昭穎) and Macoto Cobras coach Sheng-Fong Tsai(蔡生豐) on July 27, both of whom were immediately expelled. However on August 22 Hsu released the two because "they had made full confessions". Bradley Purcell himself had been fired earlier by Chinatrust Whales and left Taiwan in advance before the judicial action started.

Hsu Wei-yueh later summoned a total of near 15 players (including Sinon Bulls American pitcher Jeff Andra (飛勇), La New Bears Puerto Rican infielder Victor Rodriguez (羅德里茲) and Chinatrust Whales Dominican pitcher Emiliano Giron (吉龍)) from 4 CPBL teams(minus Brother Elephants and Uni-President Lions) and claimed they were implicated. None of them admitted the guilt but Wei-Yueh Hsu still ruled that most of them needed bail worth NT$ 100,000 to be released. CPBL immediately expelled those players who needed to post bail. The real situation remains unknown so far, but with the recent lack of investigative advances and indictments--not to mention the fact that Wei-Yueh Hsu himself was later involved in other bribe-accepting scandals, which led to his suspension and imprisonment since September 2005--there is growing suspicion about the truthfulness of these judicial actions.

[edit] Taiwan Major League

Main article: Taiwan Major League

The CPBL faced a competing league in 1997 when the Taiwan Major League was founded. After running at a loss, the CPBL absorbed the TML in 2003, adding two teams.

[edit] Organization

Teams are owned and named after large Taiwanese companies, as in Japan's NPB or in South Korea's KBO. Each team manages a regional market, with a home city, but does not play its games exclusively in that market. Besides these home cities, regular games are also held in Hsinchu, Douliou at Douliou Baseball Stadium, Chiayi at Chiayi Baseball Field, Pingtung at Pingtung Baseball Field, Luodong, Hualien and Taitung with less frequency.

Each year the season spans from March to October, with a one-week all-star break in June or July, which separates the season into upper and lower halves. Championship series are held in late October or early November: before 2004 the 2 teams with highest winning percentage separately in the upper and lower halves would compete in the championship series. If the same team won both halves, this team was awarded a direct championship. Since 2005 the championship rules changed to a system based on lower-A United States minor league baseball:

  • If the two half-season champions are different teams:
Round 1: The half-season champion with the higher winning percentage receives a bye in the first round. The team with the highest winning percentage, not including either half-season champion, receives a wild card, and plays the other half-season champion. The team that wins the best-of-five series advances.
Round 2: The winner of Round 1 plays against the remaining half-season champion. The team that wins the best-of-seven series is awarded the overall championship.
  • If both half-seasons are won by the same team:
Round 1: The team with the second-highest winning percentage plays the team with the third-highest winning percentage. The team that wins the best-of-five series advances.
Round 2: Round 1's winner plays against the team that won both half-seasons. The championship series becomes a six-game series, with the team which won both halves starting with a 1-0 advantage. The winner of the series is then awarded the overall championship.

In 1998 and 1999 the CPBL ever experimented another set of championship rules in which the season was not halved, and the 2nd and 3rd place teams played in the semifinal, with a three-game series determining the winner, who played for the championship with the first-place team. Although such system was short-lived in CPBL, the TML later adopted it throughout its history.

Also since 2005 the champion team will represent Taiwan in the Asia Series to compete with other champion teams from Japan, South Korea and China's professional baseball leagues.

[edit] International Players

A typical monthly salary for an international player is in the US$ 5,000-12,000 range, which is competitive with A, AA, or even low level AAA minor league salaries. This has attracted North American, Caribbean, Australian as well as Japanese and South Korean players. These players contributed to a relatively high level of baseball, but many people criticized that hiring so many international players hindered the growth of local players. In response to the criticisms, the CPBL now limits the number of international players who may play for each team to 4 per team, 3 on the major league team and 1 on the minor; an international player, once sent to the minor league team, must wait 14 days before being allowed to be sent back to the major league. Before the 2006 season, in light of the rumored involvement of international players in recent scandals, the CPBL considered reducing the limit to 2 per team, but decided against it.

International players (other than Japanese and Korean players, whose names are already written in Chinese characters) are given Chinese epithets, usually two to three characters in length, to increase familiarity with Taiwanese fans. These epithets are generally loose transliterations of the players' names and are generally chosen as terms meant to convey strength or might. One example is Jeff Andra, whose epithet is Feiyong (飛勇) — meaning, literally, a flying brave man. (La New Bears appears to buck this trend; their foreign players' epithets are generally simple transliterations.)

[edit] Current Teams

[edit] Defunct Teams

[edit] Championship by season

Main article: Taiwan Series
  • 1990: Wei Chuan Dragons defeated Mercuries Tigers, 4-2
  • 1991: Uni-President Lions defeated Wei Chuan Dragons, 4-3
  • 1992: Brother Elephants (by winning both half-seasons)
  • 1993: Brother Elephants defeated Uni-President Lions, 4-2
  • 1994: Brother Elephants (by winning both half-seasons)
  • 1995: Uni-President Lions (by winning both half-seasons)
  • 1996: Uni-President Lions defeated Wei Chuan Dragons, 4-2
  • 1997: Wei Chuan Dragons defeated Chinatimes Eagles, 4-2
  • 1998: Wei Chuan Dragons defeated Sinon Bulls, 4-3
  • 1999: Wei Chuan Dragons defeated Chinatrust Whales, 4-1
  • 2000: Uni-President Lions defeated Sinon Bulls, 4-3
  • 2001: Brother Elephants defeated Uni-President Lions, 4-3
  • 2002: Brother Elephants defeated Chinatrust Whales, 4-0
  • 2003: Brother Elephants defeated Sinon Bulls, 4-2
  • 2004: Sinon Bulls defeated Uni-President Lions, 4-3
  • 2005: Sinon Bulls defeated Macoto Cobras, 4-0
  • 2006: La New Bears defeated Uni-President Lions, 4-0
  • 2007: Uni-President Lions defeated La New Bears, 4-3

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

  1. ^ Intro of CPBL
v • d • e
Chinese Professional Baseball League
Teams
Seasons
1989 • 1990 • 1991 • 1992 • 1993 • 1994 • 1995 • 1996 • 1997 • 1998 • 1999 • 2000 • 2001 • 2002 • 2003 • 2004 • 2005 • 2006 • 2007 • 2008
Taiwan Series • Asia Series
Taiwan Major League (former) • Defunct teams:Wei Chuan Dragons/Mercuries Tigers/China Times Eagles • Chinese Taipei Baseball Association