Baseball fans are expected to fill the Taipei Dome to near capacity for the first time, potentially setting a national baseball attendance record, when Japan’s Yomiuri Giants take on Taiwanese pro teams today and tomorrow in two exhibition games.
Tickets have been selling quickly, with the Taipei Dome opening up the infield and outfield stands for 36,000 seats, organizers said.
The Taipei City Government in a news release yesterday said that crowds of more than 30,000 are expected for both games and it asked spectators to take public transportation.
Photo: CNA
The visiting Yomiuri Giants arrived in Taiwan on Thursday and were welcomed by local fans waiting for them at the airport.
The former Japanese champions are to face Taiwanese CPBL clubs the CTBC Brothers and Rakuten Monkeys in two exhibition games over this weekend.
The Giants are headed by manager Shinnosuke Abe, a former all-star catcher who played for Team Japan in international tournaments.
Photo: CNA
“Taiwan is very friendly with Japan,” Abe said yesterday when overseeing players training inside the Taipei Dome.
“Many Japanese players after finishing their careers come to Taiwan for coaching jobs,” he said. “When doing so, they also help to promote Japanese culture in Taiwan. This is mutually beneficial for both sides, and I am happy to see this development.”
The two CPBL teams to play this weekend are both currently headed by former Japan baseball players, with Keiichi Hirano managing the Brothers and Kenji Furukubo serving as manager of the Monkeys.
Abe said he is well acquainted with Hirano, as they both played in the Nippon Professional Baseball league around the same time.
“This time I look forward to competing against him as opposing managers,” he said.
However, Abe said it is to be his first time facing Rakuten’s manager, since Furukubo was active in an earlier period.
All six CPBL teams currently have former Japanese players in key roles, with the Uni-President Lions hiring Tomotaka Tamaki as a fielder coach, Yosuke Takasu serving as a hitting coach for the Wei Chuan Dragons, the Fubon Guardians hiring Tetsuya Kakiuchi and Naoto Inada as hitting and fielding coaches respectively, and the TSG Hawks hiring Hisanori Yokota as a pitching coach.
This visit is to mark the 90-year anniversary of the Yomiuri Giants. The Japanese team’s officials said that they want to have more partnerships between the new Taipei Dome and Yomiuri’s home park, the Tokyo Dome.
The first game against the Brothers is scheduled for today at 5pm, while for the match against the Monkeys is to start tomorrow at the same time.
Taipei Dome held its first official game in December last year for the Asia Baseball Championship, but only infield seats were available at the time.
This weekend’s series could set a new attendance record if it can reach full capacity, breaking the nation’s highest baseball attendance record of 25,000 during the 2001 World Cup at Kaohsiung’s Chengching Lake Stadium.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS