Morning has broken for local baseball
Taiwanese professional baseball organization has unified into one league. The Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) and the Taiwan Major League (TML) had been divided for seven years. Baseball in Taiwan is the most popular sport and the Taiwan national baseball team got a silver medal at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. President Chen Shui-bian hopes those Taiwanese national baseball teams will get a gold medal near future. Chen said “Baseball made Taiwan famous on the international stage. It also connected overseas Taiwanese and became the most popular sport in this country. Baseball is recognized as the national sport in people's minds”. So, President Chen Shui-bian, CPBL Commissioner Harvey Tung, Chairman of the National Council of Physical Fitness and Sports Lin Deh-fu and TML chief Chen Sheng-tien decided to work to form one league.
Major League Baseball (MLB) and Japanese Professional Baseball have been playing in two-leagues; because there are many teams in each league. However, in Taiwanese baseball has just four teams in each leagues; it is not enough for the teams to compete in a league series. In a two leagues system, both leagues will not play until the victorious team reaches the playoffs, and within each league, the games rotate among four teams. Baseball fan can not enjoy watching the game because every team plays more than twenty times against the same team.
If two leagues merge into the one league, it is going to be exciting for both players and fans, because each teams has to play with the seven other Taiwan teams. Athens Olympic’s second elimination round will start October 31st in Sapporo Japan. According to Asia Baseball Federation rankings, Taiwan is 1st, Korea 2nd, and Japan 3rd. The Taiwan series just finished today. The Brother Elephants beat Sinon Bulls, and got a third consecutive title. The Yankees and Marlins are competing World Series right now, Roger Clements will retire end of this season, and he will going to join the US Olympic team. There are so many interesting elements in Olympic next year. I hope Taiwan’s one league decision will lead to a good result in the Olympic.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/archives/2003/01/14/0000191019
