The Wei Chuan Dragons became the Chinese Professional Baseball League’s (CPBL) fifth team following a unanimous vote by the league’s executive council at a meeting yesterday afternoon.
The Dragons have selected Hsinchu, Kaohsiung, Chiayi County and Pingtung County as possible home bases, league commissioner John Wu (吳志揚) said, adding that the club must meet with officials in each locality and make a final decision as soon as possible.
The league’s teams agreed to change the rules for drafting players given the addition of another team, Wu said, adding that under the new rules, a team can draft one or two players from each team in the league, but cannot recruit players on teams’ 30-man roster or rookies drafted this year and next year.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
The league has only had four baseball teams since 2008, when the Chinatrust Whales and dmedia T-Rex disbanded.
The Dragons, started in 1989, were one of the four founding teams in the league before they disbanded in 1999. To regain their league membership, the team must comply with new league rules that require a five-year royalty of NT$360 million (US$11.58 million), a NT$120 million franchise fee and a NT$100 million contribution to a baseball development fund.
The Dragons are to play in the minor league for one year before competing in the major league.
The league also convened a meeting to select a national team manager for the World Baseball Softball Confederation Premier 12 tournament, which has games in Taichung and Taoyuan in November.
Winning the tournament would qualify the nation to compete at next year’s Tokyo Olympic Games.
Lamigo Monkeys manager Hung Yi-chung (洪一中) turned down an invitation to lead the national team, despite being recommended by three other league managers, Wu said.
Hung might have rejected the offer because he already served as the national team manager and wished to leave the opportunity open for other talented people, he added.
“Hung is still our top pick, but we will consult other qualified individuals, including current and former professional baseball team managers,” he said.
The Sports Administration’s regulations stipulate that the national team manager for a Premier 12 tournament must undergo a national selection process conducted by a selection and training committee, Wu said.
Yesterday’s meeting decided that the selection and training committee would consist of the four CPBL team managers, one CPBL representative and three representatives from the Chinese Taipei Baseball Association, he said.
The committee would start work as soon as possible, Wu added.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS