With names like Brian Grant and John Thompson in the league, it may seem like the Taiwan Major League is loaded with some high-powered basketball talent and coaching.
But the Miami Heat power forward and the former Georgetown Hoya head coach are not toiling away in Taiwan.
Instead, the Brian Grant and John Thompson on TML rosters are just two of the new import players in this season in Taiwan's junior circuit.
Grant and Thompson spent last season together far from the limelight in California pitching for the Sonoma County Crushers in the independent Western League.
Grant ended up this year in Chiayi with the Luka while Thompson is down the road in Kaohsiung playing for the Fala.
Grant led the Western League with a 2.11 ERA last year while going 5-2.
Thompson was 6-0 with a 2.54 ERA.
Other import pitchers on the Fala roster are Frank Rodriguez and Lioner Vasquez. Rodriguez was 1-2 (2.96) with the Fala last season, while Vasquez returns to Taiwan after playing for the old Mercury Tigers in the CPBL back in 1995. Vasquez, by the way, is immortalized on a fan Web site (http://tigers.idv.tw) along with 79 other largely obscure and for the most part forgettable foreign players who played for the Tigers, who folded after the 1999 season.
One of the few Mercury survivors listed on the site is Melvin Mora, who currently starts in left field for the Baltimore Orioles. Completing the Fala import roster this season is shortstop Rafael Ozuna, who spent last season in the Western League with the Solano Steelheads.
Among the Latin and North American imports with the Taichung Agan roster this year are Victor Cepeda and Juan Quintanilla. Cepeda pitched last year for Carolina in the Puerto Rican League while Quintanilla was 4-2 during the regular season for Taichung last year.
Quintanilla pitched a complete game to win Game Six of last season's TML Championship series to give Taichung the title.
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