The Taipei Dome held its first closed-door baseball game on Tuesday, with four teams from Taiwan’s top amateur league facing off in a double-header, ahead of the long-awaited opening.
Players and coaches praised the stadium, which saw Taipei Highwealth play New Taipei Heran in the morning, followed by a game between Taiwan Cooperative Bank and Xports in the afternoon.
Taipei Highwealth coach Huang Chin-chih (黃欽智), a former Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) player, said the stadium felt comfortable and he heard positive comments from the players.
Photo courtesy of New Taipei Heran
It was impossible to have every detail right all at once, Huang said, adding that adjustments would be made based on opinions collected after the games.
New Taipei Heran pitcher Hung Hsin-chi (洪心騏) said the overall environment inside the dome was great and the dugout and the bullpen were comfortable.
Hung, who was brought into the game in the eighth inning with a runner on first base and struck out three while yielding one run on one hit, said that more clay should be placed behind the pitcher’s mound to stop pitchers from losing their footing when performing pickoffs.
Hung added that the color of the stadium’s roof and seats, which are gray and white, might make it difficult to track fly balls.
Taiwan Cooperative Bank pitcher Wu Sheng-feng (吳昇峰) said that seating in other stadiums tended to be darker to prevent players from losing sight of the ball.
Wu, who pitched for Taiwan WBSC Premier 12 in 2019 at the Tokyo Dome, also mentioned the lack of clay behind the mound.
While he did not play on Tuesday, Wu said that his teammates had told him the grass in the outfield was a bit too soft and might lead to outfielders twisting their ankles.
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