Chen Chin-fong marked his place in local baseball history by going deep for the 100th time in his career with a blast to left off Brother Elephants reliever Luo Guo-hua in an 11-1 win for the Lamigo Monkeys at the Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium last night.
The much anticipated shot came only two games after the first Taiwan-born to play in the MLB took a ball out of the park to help his club beat the Uni-President Lions 3-2 on Saturday night. The 6,000-plus fans present last night were rewarded with the distinction of having been there when “it” happened.
With last night’s homer, a two-run shot that came after a teammate was beaned by the opposing pitcher in retaliation for an earlier home run in the game, Chen became the fastest player in league history to reach the century mark in total homers, needing only 453 games to accomplish the feat.
That was 25 games fewer than the previous record holder Luis Iglesias of the former Mercury Tigers.
“I’d like to thank the fans for their support. Without them I could not have done it,” Chen said after the game.
Chen now joins an elite club of 11 players who have surpassed the century mark homers, headed by the Lions’ Chang “OEO” Tai-shan, who, over 16 seasons, has hit 244.
Also starring for the Monkeys was slugger Lin Chih-sheng, who went deep twice to give him four for the season. Lin has led the league in total homers in the last two seasons with 31 and 21 respectively.
Earning the victory for the Monkeys was Lin Jing-ming (2-0), while Elephants starter Yeh Ding-ren took the loss (2-2).
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
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