Tsai Kuen-shiang's (蔡昆祥) lazy fly to center found its way into the glove of Agan centerfielder Huang Lung-yi (黃龍義) to give the home team a 5-3 victory and conclude regular season play in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL).
In one of the most eventful years in the CPBL's 14-year history, the year began with the merger of two rival leagues.
Then came the disastrous 3-10-1 start for the defending champions that had Brother Elephants fans scratching their heads.
Sinon Bulls slugger Chang Tai-shan (
Chang's record-setting season continued as he claimed the double-century mark (100 home runs and 100 stolen bases), the fastest to reach the 500 RBI plateau, the most homers in a single season, and the 20-20 mark (20 homers and 20 stolen bases in the same season).
Following their miserable start, the Elephants regained their composure, finishing the first half of the season in a second-place tie in the standings with the Chinatrust Whales.
They then won the second-half title in one of the league's most dramatic turnarounds.
Four-time defending base-stealing champion Huang Kang-lin (
But the season had its share of misfortunes as an automobile carrying four players in April ran into a tree that led to one player being hospitalized for over a month.
And off-field trouble struck in August when the Elephants' team bus got into a highway race with a truck, ending with four hot-tempered players breaking the leg of a truck driver.
The postseason will begin this weekend in Kaohsiung, where the Elephants will host the Bulls in Games 1 and 2 of the best-of-seven 2003 Taiwan Series.
It will be the highest rated championship series matchup ever, since no two teams have ever had a closer regular-season record.
Adding to the excitement, this year's batting champ Peng Cheng-ming (
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
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