Chen Yuan-jia’s three-run homer ignited an eight-run sixth for Team Red as they rallied from three down to top Team White 10-6 in this year’s All-Star Game at the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium on Sunday.
A near-capacity crowd of more than 14,000, the second largest in league’s 19-year history, saw Team Red, consisting of the best from the Chinatrust Whales, Brother Elephants and dmedia T-Rex, jumped to a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the third on the strength of a two-run blast by Chen “Golden Warrior” Chih-yuan (Elephants), before falling behind 2-5 by the top of the sixth on a two-run shot by Liu Fu-hao (Lions) in the fifth and back-to-back sacrifice-flies by Kao Cheng-hua (Lions) and Huang “Easy” Long-yi in the top of the sixth.
Trailing by three, Team Red would answer in the bottom of the sixth with Chen Yuan-jia’s monstrous three-run swing to tie the game at 5-5, before fellow hitters strung together four hits and drew a pair of walks on top of an error by Team White third baseman Tilson Brito (Lions) to helped Team Red claim a 10-5 lead.
PHOTO: CHAN CHAO-YANG, TAIPEI TIMES
Even though Brito redeemed himself by hitting Team Red’s Shen Yu-jeh (Whales) deep in the following inning on a solo homer to deep-left to make it 10-6, Yeh Yong-jeh (Elephants) retired the final six Team White hitters in order in a perfect eighth and ninth.
Home Run Derby
Brito swung his way to victory in Saturday’s Home Run Derby by driving 27 balls out of the ballpark in the final round to beat defending champion Hsieh “the Ugly” Jia-shien.
Base-running Contest
Team Red won the base-running contest on Saturday for the first time in four years by 0.46 seconds.
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