Lamigo Monkeys outfielder Chung Cheng-yo narrowly edged past Uni-President Lions first baseman Kao Guo-ching by a 10-8 margin in the finals to win this year’s Home Run Derby at the Chengcing Lake Baseball Field in Greater Kaohsiung last night.
With the league’s current home run leader Kao’s eight blasts as the target to beat, the fourth-year slugger out of National Taiwan Sport University, a Kaohsiung native, managed to blast his way past the competition to take the coveted honor in the hot summer night.
“I didn’t think I would win with all the top players in the league here to slug it out, but I sort of got into a groove in the end and that was the difference,” Chung said after the competition.
Photo: Huang Chih-yuan, Taipei Times
He got hot just at the right time after going deep just once through the first five outs by powering nine of the next 14 tries over the fence to outslug Kao.
Along with a slick-looking trophy, Chung also pocketed NT$80,000 in prize money, as well as 15g of pure gold to make the home crowd proud.
Chung’s quest for the title began with four homers in the preliminary round that featured 12 of the league’s top long-ball hitters in this year’s contest. He was able to advance into the finals with seven blasts in the second round for a chance to take on Kao, whose six homers in the first two rounds earned him a chance to top the Monkeys’ Kuo Yen-wen in the semi-finals.
It was Kao who made the first move in the finals as he went deep eight times for a seemingly comfortable lead before Chung’s -second-half surge that propelled him past the Lions’ veteran in an emotional finish.
Defending champ Kuo Jung-yo of the Lions barely made it past the preliminaries this time as he went homerless in the first round before edging past the Brother Elephants’ Chen Guan-ren in a sudden-death situation. He never made it past the second round.
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