After four long months of anticipation, the 2006 Chinese Professional Baseball League season will officially begin this afternoon with the Sinon Bulls taking on the Macoto Cobras at Taichung City Stadium.
Over 10,000 fans are expected to attend this afternoon's opener to witness the two-time defending champion Bulls play host to the Cobas, last season's runner-up, as the season gets underway.
Both clubs are coming off questionable pre-season outings with a combined record of 1-7-2, as most of their starters missed most of spring training as a result of their participation in the World Baseball Classic.
PHOTO COURTESY OF CPBL
Fans will be eager to see if the Bulls win another title this year, which would make it three consecutive championships.
"It'll be tough, but I think we will be fine," manager Liu Rong-hua.
The success of the Bulls' season will hinge on a drastically altered starting-pitcher rotation. Osvaldo Martinez, the winningest pitcher in league history with 108 victories to his credit, and 16-game winner Lenin Picota, were both waived by the Bulls during the off-season.
Filling in will be American righty Clint Weibl and Dominican fast-baller Alfredo Gonzalez, who will join Panamanian righty Jorge Cortez and Yang Jien-fu to complete the four-man starting roster.
Meanwhile, the best infield in the business, anchored by shortstop Cheng Jau-han, will join a speedy outfield that includes Yu Hsien-ming, Chang Jien-ming and Tseng Hua-wei, as well as utility man Chang Jia-hao, who can play all three outfield positions as well as fill in for Cheng at shortstop.
On offense, home run threat Chang "Prince of the Forest" Tai-shan should see a lot more pitches to hit as he will be well protected by second-year slugger Hsu Guo-long, who knocked in 51 runs for the defending champs in the 85 games he played to lead all rookies last season.
COBRAS
The Cobras will start their 2006 campaign without their lefty ace Lin Ying-jeh, who traded in his Macoto uniform for a spot on the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles in Japanese Professional Baseball. The Cobras will need to find the 12 wins and 150-plus strikeouts that Lin regularly racked up from newcomer Jose Paniagua of the Dominican Republic and up-and-coming local arms Tien Jia-an and Chang Chih-hong.
Second-year pitcher Lin En-yu, last season's Most Valuable Player, will have to replicate his amazing season with the help of No. 2 starter Hsu Chu-jien if the serpents wish to keep pace with the top-tier teams.
Things do not look too bright in the batter's box, as the Cobras start off the year without their top hitter, Wilton Veras (who left the team during the latter part of last season), and deceased longballer Mario Encarnacion.
The Cobras will be looking to cleanup man Hsieh Jia-shien, who led the league in home runs (23) and RBIs (74) last season, to pick up the slack.
Cobras manager Wu Fu-lien, replaces the legendary Kuo Tai-yuan, who left the team after taking it from the last-place spot in 2004 to the championship series last year.
Wu won two titles during his tenure with the former Taichung Agan of the Taiwan Major League.
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
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier