How baseball became a hit again in Taiwan

As superstar players from around the world step up to the plate this weekend for the start of the 117th Major League Baseball (MLB) season in the United States, a far smaller league is already in full swing in Taiwan, an island falling back in love with the nearest thing it has to a national sport.

A sold-out crowd of 12,500 fans crammed into the Xinzhuang Baseball Stadium in New Taipei City last Saturday to watch the opening game in the 28th season of the four-team Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL), which pitted the island’s most popular team, the Chinatrust Brothers, against its newest, the Fubon Guardians. Wet, chilly conditions did little to dampen the enthusiasm of the fans who remained in full voice throughout the 8-5 Guardians victory. And nearly 10,000 fans turned up the following night in Taichung to watch the home team Brothers fall 13-4 to the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions of Tainan City.

“Baseball is a very magical sport in Taiwan,” said Sarah Chen, a long-time Brothers supporter whose enthusiasm wasn’t dented by her team’s defeat. “I will keep supporting the Brothers because they have a long history and the team is like family to me.”

First introduced to Taiwan more than 100 years ago by Japanese occupiers, baseball has become so ingrained in the island’s culture that it is even depicted on the NT$500 (HK$128) note. It has played a key part in projecting a shared sense of identity for the self-governed island, which Beijing views as a wayward province to be brought under its control by force if necessary. Indeed, the sport’s popularity has sometimes appeared to ebb and flow along with the island’s political ambitions; its current upswing coincides with the rise in popularity of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, whose leader Tsai Ing-wen became president last year.

In previous decades, baseball has given Taiwan the opportunity to shine on the world stage despite its international isolation, giving much needed boosts to its soft power and image abroad. To the delight of Taiwanese across the world, the island’s youth teams won the US-based Little League World Series 17 times from 1969-1996, while Taiwan defeated Japan en route to a silver medal at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.

Meanwhile, Taiwanese baseball players – and in particular pitchers – have distinguished themselves in foreign leagues. Kuo Tai-yuan won more than 100 games in Japan for the Seibu Lions in the 1980s and 1990s. In the US, Wang Chien-ming was a key rotation member for the New York Yankees, winning a World Series in 2009, and Chen Wei-yin inked a US$80 million contract with the Miami Marlins last year.