The CTBC Brothers have finally tasted victory in the Taiwan Series after an 11-year wait, winning the title last night by completing a four-game sweep of the Uni-President Lions at the Tainan Municipal Stadium.
The Brothers were crowned champions of Taiwanese professional baseball after a 5-0 win in Game 4 after being unable to get over the final hurdle in six of the past seven years.
It was a magical first year for CTBC manager Lin Wei-chu, a former standout with Japan’s Hanshin Tigers.
Photo: Lee Hui-chou, Taipei Times
He has brought a title to the starving Brothers fans — who have endured a string of second-place finishes — and also for CTBC owner Jeffrey Koo Jr, who attended the game and was hugged by his team’s coaches and players after victory was achieved.
However, the celebrations got started a little prematurely.
Brothers lefty Jose de Paula was on the mound with the two outs and two men on base in the bottom of the ninth when there was a foul tip.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
The Brothers fans leaped to their feet in mistaken celebration and yellow streamers flew, but the cleaners were forced into action before the final strike was completed.
That prompted a repeat of the celebrations.
The Lions had Hu Chih-wei starting on the mound.
Hu spent eight years in North America, returning to Taiwan last year, mainly in the minor leagues, but had spent some time with the Tampa Bay Rays in the MLB.
He compiled a 4-4 record with a 4.74 ERA in 12 games in the regular CPBL season this year.
CTBC started Dominican righthander Jose Valdez, a late-season signing who had only two starting assignments and two relief appearances last month, registering a 1-0 record with a 2.45 ERA.
In the opening frame, CTBC leadoff batter Wang Wei-cheng reached base and, one out later, a sacrifice bunt moved him to third base and he came home on a sacrifice fly for a 1-0 lead.
CTBC padded their lead in the fourth, with designated hitter Chou Ssu-chi getting on base on a walk.
Outfielder Tsan Tzu-hsien singled, before a sacrifice bunt pushed the duo into scoring position and two more hits brought them home for a 3-0 lead.
CTBC piled on two more runs in seventh frame on RBI hits by outfielder Tsan Tzu-hsien and second baseman Yueh Tung-hua to make the score 5-0.
It is the first time that Taiwan’s professional baseball championship series has finished in December, as league games were suspended from the middle of May to the middle of July amid a nationwide COVID-19 alert.
Play resumed behind closed doors, before ballparks were allowed to open at 25 percent capacity in August and 50 percent in October.
They were fully opened in the first week of last month.
Attendance at Taiwan Series games bolstered the CPBL, with post-season tickets priced higher than regular-season contests.
Outfield seats sold for nearly NT$1,000 each, while infield seats were nearly NT$2,000, with higher prices for VIP boxes.
All of the games were either sold out or near capacity, a sharp contrast to the empty stadiums earlier in the year.
Game 1 in Taichung had a crowd of about 20,000 and Game 2 at the same venue had 18,888.
Game 3 in Kaohsiung had more than 10,000 people and last night’s Game 4 was at full capacity, with 10,000 at the Tainan Municipal Stadium.
The NBA has once again found itself in a China-linked controversy after serial dealmaker Chamath Palihapitiya, a part owner of the Golden State Warriors, dismissed concerns over human rights abuses facing the Uighur minority in China. “Nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uighurs, OK?” the Sri Lankan-born investor said during an episode of the All-In podcast on Saturday, reacting to a comment from cohost Jason Calacanis about the administration of US President Joe Biden’s “very strong” stance on the issue. “I’m telling you a very hard, ugly truth, OK? Of all the things that I care about, yes, it is below
China’s freestyle skier Eileen Gu late on Tuesday announced her arrival in Beijing to her 1.3 million followers on Sina Weibo, as the 18-year-old prepares to take part in the Winter Olympic Games. The San Francisco native, who is also known in China by her Mandarin name Ailing and whose mother is from Beijing, is one of Team China’s best-known athletes. After starting her career competing for the US, she switched to represent China in 2019, winning a number of titles for the country over the past two years. As part of the Olympic bubble, Gu can skip the standard three-week quarantine and
NO FREE SPEECH: ‘There’s really not much protection that we believe is going to be afforded to athletes,’ Global Athlete director-general Rob Koehler said Athletes traveling to the Beijing Winter Olympics were on Tuesday warned about speaking up on human rights issues while in China for their own safety by speakers at a seminar hosted by Human Rights Watch. Rights groups have long criticized the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for awarding the Games to China, citing the treatment by the Chinese government of Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups, which the US has deemed “genocide.” China denies the allegations of human rights abuses. “There’s really not much protection that we believe is going to be afforded to athletes,” Global Athlete director-general Rob Koehler told the seminar. “Silence
Australian Open organizers yesterday said that the safety of Peng Shuai remains their “primary concern” even as security officials at the Grand Slam forced fans to remove T-shirts referring to the Chinese former doubles No. 1. Drew Pavlou of Brisbane posted a video on Twitter showing Max Mok, a pro-democracy campaigner from Hong Kong who announced his intention to contest the Melbourne marginal seat of Chisholm in this year’s federal election, and a fellow spectator speaking with a member of Tennis Australia security who confiscated a banner and asked them to remove their T-shirts, which featured a photo of Peng on
RSS