Baseball in Taiwan

From being a sport played mostly by foreigners on lazy Sunday afternoons, Baseball in Taiwan took a turn when professional baseball under the aegis of Chinese Professional Baseball League was started in 1989. The first official match was played between the teams Uni-Presidents Lions and Brother Elephants on March 17, 1990.

As late as 2006, professional Baseball in Taiwan was defined by one league and six professional teams.

The growing competition among the professional Baseball teams in Taiwan is reflected in the hiring of foreign nationals in the teams. Amidst the growing criticism, the number of international players has been limited to three per team.

The Taiwan National Baseball Team is one of the best teams in Asia- up in the league with Japan and South Korea. The team has won the Asian Baseball Championship on four occasions in 1983, 1987, 1989 and 2001. The national beat the likes of Japan, China, and South Korea to win a gold medal at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha.

Over the years, Taiwan has produced quite a number of talented baseball players most of who leave the domestic league for greener shores in Japan or North America.

Some of the young players who have made it to the competitive circle outside Taiwan are Chien-Ming Wang, Hong-Chih Kuo and Chin-Hui Tsao. These three young players are the first to make it into North America’s Major League Baseball.