Retired Taiwanese baseball player Peng Cheng-min (彭政閔), better known by the nickname Chia Chia (恰恰), on Sunday threw the ceremonial first pitch at the New York Mets’ 17th annual Taiwan Heritage Day, making him the first former player from Taiwan’s professional league to take part in the longstanding ritual.
Wearing his iconic No. 23 CTBC Brothers yellow jersey, which was retired in October 2019 after he retired, Peng threw a high pitch to Mets catcher Darin Ruf at Citi Field in New York before the team played the Colorado Rockies.
Peng is known as Captain Taiwan for having been captain of Taiwan’s national baseball team at several major international tournaments, and he was also a renowned batter.
Photo: CNA
The 44-year-old assistant general manager of the CTBC Brothers in Taiwan’s CPBL is the team’s first former player to throw the ceremonial first pitch at a Taiwan Heritage Day, which is held each year by the Major League Baseball club.
“Throwing the first pitch for the Mets’ Taiwan Day will be a great memory for me,” as it was the closest he has come to playing in the major leagues, Peng said.
Peng added that he was happy to see many fans in the US cheering for him “as if I was also competing today, representing my country.”
Photo: CNA
He played for Taiwan at the Olympics in 2004 and 2008, and was team captain at the 2009 and 2013 World Baseball Classics.
During his 19-year professional career, Peng won a CPBL-record five batting titles.
He won the Mr Popularity award at every CPBL All-Star Game from 2005 to 2019.
Peng is also the CPBL all-time leader for runs scored (1,089), walks (953) and singles (1,514), with a 0.333 career batting average and 2,044 hits.
Before throwing the first pitch, a pre-recorded video featuring President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was broadcast on the stadium’s big screen.
Tsai thanked the US for donating 4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan last year, when the nation was short of vaccines before its first large outbreak.
“Through such generosity, we were able to overcome the pandemic and get back to our beloved baseball games,” Tsai said.
She also introduced Peng and the CPBL to Mets fans in the broadcast.
It was the third time that Tsai has appeared at a Mets’ Taiwan Heritage Day in a pre-recorded video.
This year also marked the second consecutive year that the Mets gave limited-edition Taiwan-themed replica jerseys to fans who bought the day’s game tickets on its Web site.
A total of 4,750 Taiwan-themed replica jerseys were provided with tickets this year, the Mets said.
The annual event has been held since 2005 with the support of Taiwan’s representative office in New York to promote Taiwan.
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