Lin Chih-sheng’s three-run home run off Lin Keh-chien sparked a five-run third as Team White grabbed an early lead and held on to defeat Team Red 6-5 in this year’s All-Star Game at the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium on Sunday night.
The swing that earned the La New slugger the game-MVP honor was considered the icing on the cake given the fact that Lin Chih-sheng also took home this year’s top prize in the annual Home run Derby the night before to back up the 20 he had already taken out of the park to lead the league homer totals.
The crowd of nearly 18,000 that flocked to Taichung for the mid-summer classic got the game they had been longing for with the best and brightest from the southern teams (the La New Bears and the Uni-President Lions) holding off a tenacious rally by their northern counterparts (the Brother Elephants and the Sinon Bulls) to win it by a small margin.
After Team White took a 5-0 lead in the top of the third, Team Red immediately answered with a pair of runs of its own on Hsieh “the Ugly” Jia-shien’s (Bulls) two-run blast off Bears hurler Aaron Rakers, which made it 5-2.
Team Red would add another run in the sixth to fall within a deuce before Chung Cheng-yo (Bears) went deep in the seventh off Lee Hao-ren (Elephants) for a solo blast that kept the cushion at three in a 6-3 affair.
Chung’s homer proved to be the difference in the game as Team Red rallied with two more runs in the bottom of the seventh, making it 6-5, a lead the Team White bullpen would hold with a hitless eighth from the Bears’ Hsu Ming-jeh before Lin Yueh-ping (Lions) recorded the final three outs in the ninth to preserve the victory.
Starter Pan “Du Du” Wei-luen was credited with the win for tossing two shutout innings despite allowing three hits to the northerners to beat Lin Keh-chien as the Bulls’ rookie sensation was charged for all five of the runs in the decisive third, even though only one of the runs was earned.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB