Sports Review: Taiwan - Baseball - CPBL - Taiwanese National Sport
CPBL(Chinese Professional Baseball League) is heading to the start of the 29th season now. Baseball has always been Taiwan's national sport, and I am a baseball lover as you can tell from my cover page. Now, without further ado, let me introduce the history of CPBL!
In the first year of CPBL(1990), there were a total of four amateur baseball teams in the league, which were Brother Elephants, Uni-Lions, Mercuries Tigers, and Wei-Chuan Dragons. The first game was Uni-Lions verses Brother Elephants, and the baseball stadium was people mountain people sea. All seats were sold out, people that did not buy the tickets had to watch the game on TV. It was actually a major event even though they couldn't watch the game live, people still gathered to watch the broadcast, and the result was 4 to 3. Uni-Lions took the win.
In 1996, Junguo Bear, and China-Times Eagles join CPBL and increased the line up to six teams. Over the next year, another team named China-Trust Whales also joined the league. This is the year that CPBL has the most teams in total. Each team represented a different city in Taiwan, and the fans all support their home team. In the 8th year of CPBL, every family's leisure activity was to watch the baseball game on TV or go to the stadium to cheer for the team. When the postseason started, people described the scene as crazy. Everyone was trying their best to get a ticket. If they did not get the ticket successfully, they would take a day off from the company just to watch the postseason. This shows how important baseball is to Taiwanese people.
However, good circumstances don't last long, because of financial issues, China-Times Eagles, Mercuries Tigers, and Wei-Chuan Dragons announced to disband their teams in the tenth year of CPBL. At the same time, Dragons just reached three consecutive championships. The fans and players were still immersed in the champion feeling, and the team suddenly announced such a shocking news, which made people feel that's a pity for Wei-Chuan. In addition, all the fans no matter if the person is a Dragon's fan or not, all took to the streets to protest after one week. The fans hoped Wei-Chuan could be back in the league because every baseball fan knew how important Wei-Chuan Dragons is in CPBL. Dragons did a lot of memorable things in those ten years. Nevertheless, the protest did not succeed at all and the league cut to only four teams.
In the 14th year of CPBL(2003), two amateur baseball teams named La New Bears and Dmedia T-Rex joined the league. Fans were all welcome and happy to see more company wants to invest in baseball teams and join the CPBL. This made lots of teenagers start to play baseball, and most boys' dreamed of becoming professional baseball players. At that time, baseball was described as the "Taiwan National Sport" with no doubt.
In the 19th year of CPBL(2008), the league faced the most serious game-fixing ever. The boss and the manager of Dmedia T-Rex forced all players to lose on purpose, which is called game-fixing. They sent money to the player's bank accounts if the team lost. Although some players knew that it is illegal to play game-fixing and they rejected, the boss threaten them to do the same as other players, otherwise the players would be fired. When the prosecutor found out this serious act, they sued all players, coaches, and the chairman. Furthermore, CPBL punished all Dmedia T-Rex's players and coaches by dishonorably discharging them, which means they can never play or coach in the CPBL, and they cannot even go to watch baseball games in Taiwan ever again.
There is an old saying that goes, "It never rains but it pours." At the same time, China-Trust Whales announced to disband the team because China-Trust changed the boss, and the new boss doesn't like sports at all. The boss said, "Having a baseball team is just wasting money, why would I do that kind of stupid thing? I'm the new boss now, and I am going to do things that benefit our company!
Fortunately, all teams learned the lesson that game-fixing should not exist in the league.
In the 22nd year of CPBL(2011), La New Bears changed their name to Lamigo Monkeys. Also, Lamigo Monkeys won their first championship right after they changed their name, like it was fate. Two years after(2013), Sinon Bulls sold their team to Kaohsiung EDA, and their mascot was a rhino. In addition, Brother Elephants sold their team, too. Surprisingly, they sold their team to China-Trust, which is the company that own China-Trust Whales before! People were all shocked but happy to know that China-Trust announced to come back to CPBL again. They named their team by keeping the original "Brother Elephants" and add China-Trust in the front of the team's name.
As Brother Elephants also announced to sell the team, Uni-Lions is the only team from the original 1990 lineup. Furthermore, In the year 2017, EDA Rhinos sold their team to a company called Fubon. They chose the name "Guardians" and the image of a knight as their mascot. Until now, this is the 29th year of CPBL(2018), and I hope all players can continue to play as hard as they can. Also, I wish all four teams' managers and coaches can learn from the past, and never game-fix again. The fans will definitely be willing to go to the games more, cheering for their favorite teams, with pride!
Fubon Guardians, China-Trust Brothers, Uni-Lions, and Lamigo Monkeys are the four teams that plays in CPBL now(2018).
Reminder: Just click the team's name and their official website will come out!