Taiwanese professional baseball is to mark its third decade when this year’s season opens this weekend, when defending champions the Lamigo Monkeys are to host two games at their home ballpark in Taoyuan, while league officials make preparations to add another club next year.
President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday showed her support by receiving the Lamigo Monkeys at the Presidential Office in Taipei, saying that the sport in the nation is moving in the right direction and has the full backing of her administration.
“We have forged cooperation between the league and baseball’s governing body. All sides will work together to organize the strongest lineup for our national squad so Taiwan can qualify for the Olympics,” Tsai said, referring to qualifying later this year for next year’s Summer Games in Tokyo.
The Lamigo Monkeys are to launch the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) season by hosting the Uni-President Lions at 5pm tomorrow and Brothers Baseball Club at 5pm on Sunday at Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium.
After tomorrow’s opener, the Uni-President Lions are to return home to Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium to host the Fubon Guardians at 5pm on Sunday.
In the off-season, the biggest news was the revival of the Weichuan Dragons, which CPBL officials approved after significant negotiation and scrutiny of financial plans presented by Wei Chuan Foods Corp’s current owner, Ting Hsin Group.
Despite reservations and opposition by some fans and the public, Ting Hsin Group received the go-ahead to operate the new Weichuan Dragons franchise, who will have to play in the CPBL’s minor league this year before officially becoming the league’s fifth team next year.
Opposition primarily stemmed from a series of food scandals — mainly of tainted oil products — in 2013 and 2014 involving Wei Chuan Foods and Ting Hsin Group, which used ingredients of questionable quality and fraudulently labeled their products, leading to a boycott of the group’s products.
Wei Ying-chung, former chairman of Wei Chuan Foods and one of the four Wei brothers who own Ting Hsin Group, was sentenced to a two-year prison term, for which he received early parole.
He remained the top executive at Wei Chuan Foods, which holds the rights to the Weichuan Dragons, one of the four founding teams in the CPBL’s first season in 1990, when the team and company were owned by the Huang family until their purchase by the Wei brothers in 1998.
Critics have said that Wei Ying-chung is attempting to “whitewash” the scandal-hit Ting Hsin Group by funding the Weichuan Dragons’ revival to generate positive publicity.
Fans have been divided over the team’s return, with old supporters saying they cannot forget that it was the Wei brothers who decided to fold the team, despite being at the height of their popularity, as the Weichuan Dragons won the CPBL championship from 1997 to 1999.
However, other fans have welcomed the team’s return, saying that adding a fifth team would reinvigorate the CPBL and revitalize the nation’s baseball development.
As many people have fond memories of the team’s glory years, there have been calls for retired Weichuan Dragons stars to return as coaches and executives.
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