Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought.
“It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game.
Photo: Gene J. Puskar, AP
Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games.
“There is a saying in Taiwan that it takes 10 years to sharpen a sword,” he said.
Lai said he discovered the group of young players two years ago and the LLBWS again.
Photo: AP
Ace pitcher Lin Chin-tse (林晉擇), who can throw 80mph (129kph), carried a perfect game into the fifth inning, retiring the first 13 batters he faced.
He threw 58 pitches over five innings, allowing one hit and no walks while striking out four.
At the plate, Lin also drove in three runs with a triple during Taiwan’s five-run fifth inning.
Photo: AP
“I am very excited,” he said. “In the first inning I was nervous, but after that it was smooth.”
Reliever Chen Qi-sheng (陳啟盛) pitched the sixth to seal the shutout.
It was Taiwan’s 18th title overall, the most of any country beside the US.
Taiwan won five straight championships from 1977 to 1981 in the annual tournament, which features half its teams from the US and half from abroad.
Representing the Asia-Pacific region, Dong Yuan advanced by beating Aruba 1-0 in Saturday’s international final. Las Vegas, also on Saturday, won the US championship 8-2 over Fairfield, Connecticut.
Last year, Taiwan’s Guishan Elementary School from Taoyuan finished runners-up.
The most recent international champion before Sunday were Japan in 2017.
In Taipei, President William Lai (賴清德) congratulated the players for their outstanding performance.
In a post on social media, Lai said: “My warmest congratulations to Tung-Yuan Little League, our @LittleLeague World Series champions! Representing the Asia-Pacific, you’ve made the region proud & marked a new chapter in #Taiwan’s baseball story for the whole world to see — Three cheers for the team!⚾”
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
The National Development Council (NDC) yesterday unveiled details of new regulations that ease restrictions on foreigners working or living in Taiwan, as part of a bid to attract skilled workers from abroad. The regulations, which could go into effect in the first quarter of next year, stem from amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及僱用法) passed by lawmakers on Aug. 29. Students categorized as “overseas compatriots” would be allowed to stay and work in Taiwan in the two years after their graduation without obtaining additional permits, doing away with the evaluation process that is currently required,
IMPORTANT BACKER: China seeks to expel US influence from the Indo-Pacific region and supplant Washington as the global leader, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said China is preparing for war to seize Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in Washington on Friday, warning that Taiwan’s fall would trigger a regional “domino effect” endangering US security. In a speech titled “Maintaining the Peaceful and Stable Status Quo Across the Taiwan Strait is in Line with the Shared Interests of Taiwan and the United States,” Chiu said Taiwan’s strategic importance is “closely tied” to US interests. Geopolitically, Taiwan sits in a “core position” in the first island chain — an arc stretching from Japan, through Taiwan and the Philippines, to Borneo, which is shared by
RSS