The torpedo bat is likely to make its debut in Taiwan’s CPBL sooner than expected after the baseball league announced a way for certified bat providers to quickly get new types of bats into the hands of players.
Under a new league rule announced on Friday, once a bat brand is certified by the league, it could add new types of bats to its product list simply by submitting two samples of each type to the CPBL, the league said.
The new bats do not have to be individually tested, and the list can be updated once a year, it added.
Photo: CNA
That means that if any of the 20 certified bat producers present a torpedo bat sample to the league, it could enter service rather quickly.
Torpedo bats could make their CPBL debut as soon as Monday, the league said.
The move comes amid heightened interest among CPBL players in experimenting with the so-called torpedo bat, a design that has sparked considerable debate in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the US.
The New York Yankees put the torpedo bats in the spotlight when most of the team’s players used them to hit 15 home runs and score 36 runs in their season-opening three-game series against the Milwaukee Brewers.
The jury is still out on how much the bats really help. Yankees shortshop Anthony Volpe, who hit four home runs in the first five games of this year using the new equipment, still has four home runs 20 games into the season and is hitting .197.
Unlike standard bats, which distribute mass evenly throughout the barrel, torpedo bats concentrate their mass closer to the batter’s arms, specifically targeting the sweet spot, while fully complying with MLB regulations governing bat specifications.
Several CPBL players, including last year’s CPBL Taiwan Series MVP Tseng Song-en (曾頌恩) of the CTBC Brothers and last year’s WBSC Premier12 MVP Chen Chieh-hsien (陳傑憲) of the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions, have provided positive feedback after testing the unconventional bats.
The impact of the torpedo bats on game dynamics and player health remains uncertain.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by