Managers from the champions of the Taiwanese, Australian, Japanese and South Korean professional leagues gathered at a press conference in Greater Taichung last night to promote this year’s Asia Series, which will commence at the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium tomorrow afternoon.
With Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) champs Uni-President Lions playing hosts to their counterparts from the Australian Baseball League’s Perth Heat, Nippon Professional Baseball’s (NPB) Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks and the Samsung Lions of Korea Professional Baseball for the first time in history, baseball fans around the nation will be treated to world-class diamond action when the four teams compete in the five-day event for bragging rights as Asia’s best baseball club.
“We are thrilled about having the chance to host an international event as visible and meaningful as this one and we hope to keep the title in Taiwan if we can,” Lions skipper Lu Wen-sheng said earlier last week.
His team had to wait until this past weekend for the NPB champions to be determined, as the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March forced the league to postpone the start of its season by nearly a month.
It will be a brand new experience for most of the clubs and their players this year, because the tournament was suspended after the withdrawal of former title sponsor Konami Corp following the 2008 series. The CPBL announced the resumption of the event late last year with Taiwan hosting after Japan previously had the honor of hosting it at the Tokyo Dome since the tournament’s inaugural year in 2005.
This will be Australia’s first time in the event, taking China’s place, as they decided not to participate after an All-Star team from the China Baseball League (CBL) from 2005 to 2007 and the 2008 CBL champions Tianjin Lions finished last in the Asia Series each year.
The four teams will play in a round robin from tomorrow to Sunday before the teams with the two best win-loss percentages face off in the title game scheduled for Tuesday.
Standing in the way of the Lions keeping the trophy in Taiwan will be the favorites from Japan, whose NPB teams have taken all four Asia Series championships. The Hawks will also have the advantage of having just played a seven-game Japan Series, meaning they are still in game shape, compared with the three other teams, even though one could just as well argue that fatigue from lack of rest could hurt the Hawks.
SSC Napoli’s Italian Serie A title hopes suffered a late setback on Sunday when they were held to a 2-2 draw at home against Genoa, setting up a thrilling season finale with closest rivals Inter just one point behind. The hosts remain top with 78 points, holding a slim lead over Inter, who won 2-0 at Torino earlier on Sunday, with two rounds remaining. To make matters worse for Napoli, midfielder Stanislav Lobotka, struggling with an ankle injury, was forced off just minutes after the match began. Scott McTominay delivered a perfect pass into the box where Romelu Lukaku got
Harry Kane opened the scoring ahead of lifting his first career silverware as Bayern Munich beat Borussia Moenchengladbach 2-0, with veteran Thomas Mueller playing his last home game for the club. Bayern officially won the title on May 4 when defending champions Bayer Leverkusen were held to a 2-2 draw at Freiburg, but were presented with the Bundesliga shield in front of their home fans at full-time. Dripping wet after being showered with beer by teammates, Kane said the title win was “an incredible feeling,” and hoped it would be “the first of many.” “It’s been lot of hard work, a lot of
Taiwanese e-sports veteran Lin “ET” Chia-hung yesterday successfully defended his King of Fighters XV title at this year’s Evolution Championship Series: Japan (EVO Japan), securing his second consecutive championship. Lin claimed victory with a 3-1 win over Japanese pro gamer “mok” in the grand final, repeating his earlier 3-1 win against the same opponent in the winners’ final. The 40-year-old earned a ￥1 million (US$6,897) cash prize at the two-day tournament, which drew 294 competitors. Mok, Lin’s toughest rival in the bracket, took home ￥400,000 as runner-up. Lin remains undefeated in match sets against mok in King of Fighters XV, holding a 10-0 record,
Batting great Virat Kohli yesterday announced his immediate retirement from Test cricket, just days before India name their squad for a tour to England. Kohli, who scored 9,230 runs in 123 matches at an average of 46.85, posted his decision on Instagram five days after India captain Rohit Sharma called time on his own Test career. Since making his debut in 2011, Kohli struck 30 hundreds and 31 fifties with a highest score of 254 not out, mainly batting at number four in the order. “It’s been 14 years since I first wore the baggy blue in Test cricket,” the
RSS