Taiwan’s baseball league is continuing as a trailblazer for sports resuming after the lockdown in the coronavirus pandemic.
An easing last weekend allows more fans at the ballparks, allows them to sit closer together and consume food and drinks while they’re supporting their teams in the Taiwanese CPBL.
Masks are optional, when seated.
Photo: Lin Cheng-fang
The Taiwan league resumed play in April in empty stadiums while elite sports globally were still in lockdown, and last month started allowing up to 1,000 fans to attend games under strict social distancing measures.
On Sunday, after the government again loosened its COVID-19 restrictions, fans were only required to wear surgical face masks when they weren’t in their seats, and the stadiums were allowed to be up to 50 percent full of fans.
The CPBL is continuing to observe limited social distancing by ordering a one-seat gap be maintained between fans.
The lifting of restrictions was welcomed at Tuesday’s game between the defending CPBL champion Rakutan Monkeys and the visiting Uni-Lions in Tainan.
CHEERING WITHOUT MASKS
Monkeys fan Martha Chen said she could now cheer as much as she wants without a mask. The Uni-Lions held off a ninth inning rally to beat the defending CPBL champions 7-6.
“From now on, we don’t have to wear a mask when we watch a baseball game at the stadium. This allows me to shout out loud as much as I want to cheer for my team,” the 31-year-old Chen, an air transport worker, said. “And my kid would not bother me with taking the mask off. Kids find it hard to wear a mask.”
Uni-Lions pitcher Logan Darnell said the easing of restrictions on fans made it feel “a lot more like a baseball game.”
“Everybody is excited that there’s less restrictions on the fans coming in. They make us feel a lot more normal than what is was beforehand,” Darnell said. “You had a certain amount of people that can come in, and everybody was spread out. And even before that, when there was nobody in the stands, that was just a different ... different feel. But now that everybody is back and the restrictions are kind of less, it’s going feel a lot more like a baseball game for sure.”
Taiwan, which has had 433 COVID-19 cases among a population of 23 million, limited the spread by imposing flight restrictions and through contact tracing of anyone who comes near a confirmed patient.
Elite sports leagues are gradually resumed in some countries, mostly without fans in stadiums or with very small crowds under strict physical distancing restrictions.
Many people noticed the flood of pro-China propaganda across a number of venues in recent weeks that looks like a coordinated assault on US Taiwan policy. It does look like an effort intended to influence the US before the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping (習近平) over the weekend. Jennifer Kavanagh’s piece in the New York Times in September appears to be the opening strike of the current campaign. She followed up last week in the Lowy Interpreter, blaming the US for causing the PRC to escalate in the Philippines and Taiwan, saying that as
This year’s Miss Universe in Thailand has been marred by ugly drama, with allegations of an insult to a beauty queen’s intellect, a walkout by pageant contestants and a tearful tantrum by the host. More than 120 women from across the world have gathered in Thailand, vying to be crowned Miss Universe in a contest considered one of the “big four” of global beauty pageants. But the runup has been dominated by the off-stage antics of the coiffed contestants and their Thai hosts, escalating into a feminist firestorm drawing the attention of Mexico’s president. On Tuesday, Mexican delegate Fatima Bosch staged a
Taiwan can often feel woefully behind on global trends, from fashion to food, and influences can sometimes feel like the last on the metaphorical bandwagon. In the West, suddenly every burger is being smashed and honey has become “hot” and we’re all drinking orange wine. But it took a good while for a smash burger in Taipei to come across my radar. For the uninitiated, a smash burger is, well, a normal burger patty but smashed flat. Originally, I didn’t understand. Surely the best part of a burger is the thick patty with all the juiciness of the beef, the
Would you eat lab-grown chocolate? I requested a sample from California Cultured, a Sacramento-based company. Its chocolate, not yet commercially available, is made with techniques that have previously been used to synthesize other bioactive products like certain plant-derived pharmaceuticals for commercial sale. A few days later, it arrives. The morsel, barely bigger than a coffee bean, is supposed to be the flavor equivalent of a 70 percent to 80 percent dark chocolate. I tear open its sealed packet and a chocolatey aroma escapes — so far, so good. I pop it in my mouth. Slightly waxy and distinctly bitter, it boasts those bright,
RSS