`Man with golden arm' morphs into `king of lunchbox'

Ace baseball pitcher Huang Ping-yang (黃平洋) proved yesterday that he is equally invincible at selling boxed lunches as he is on the diamond.

One thousand of his "Huang Ping-yang Nostalgic Biandans (黃平洋賣便當)," featuring traditional Hakka home-made meals, sold out in just one hour on their first day in the market, notching up a strike in Huang's new career as a businessman after he was forced to leave the diamond in the wake of a split in the nation's baseball administration.

Customers formed long queues to try the biandan, not simply because of the content of the lunch box, but also to snap up free baseballs carrying Huang's autograph.

For those too late to get a biandan, Huang distributed cards entitling them to buy one the next day for only NT$39 apiece. The nostalgic biandans will go back to their ordinary price of NT$65 apiece once the promotion period ends in several days.

Huang, 41, earned his fame as the "man with the golden arm" during his career as the chief pitcher for the Weichuan Professional Baseball Team more than a decade ago.