About a month ago I saw an article about how a mainland Baseball team was going to go to Taiwan to play in a tournament. That tournament sponsored by the Baseball Federation of Asia starts this weekend. The team is in Taiwan now. Here are the articles discussing this.I think this is cool.
I like baseball and these sort of competitions are good for Taiwan mainland relations. Baseball is not too popular in mainland China yet. But it's a fun game. People there just don't know it. It will grow in popularity is my guess. Baseball is very popular in Taiwan. There are two professional baseball leagues in Taiwan. One, the older one, is called the Chinese Professional Baseball league. Here's a link to a site about it in Chinese big-5 code, and here's another in big-5. Here's one that tells a little about the league's history (in English). The page I link to is part of a larger web site, but it is out of date.And Here is another in English that is part of one fellow's home page and seems a bit out of date as well. This link is up to date and has info on both leagues.
It would be great to see the mainland government finally decide to let China become a normal country so that all of China could participate in the Chinese Professional League. But, the league has been having some trouble with gambling/game-fixing scandals though. A new league called the Taiwan has been started as well. President Lee Teng-Hui threw out the first ball on opening day.
It would be great to see some baseball get going in mainland China. They have a large population (to say the least) and you know some world class players would emerge. The LA Dodgers now have a pitcher from S. Korea and Japan, Chan Ho Park and Hideo Nomo, respectively. Both of them are top notch. The owner of the Dodgers, Peter O'Malley (soon to be ex-owner as it seems Rupert Murdoch is about to buy the team) stated in an interview with the magazine Baseball America that they have a training camp in mainland China and he felt that within a few years an impact player would come out of China to play in the major leagues.
I think the future of pro baseball will be international. The guy who is going to most likely buy the Dodgers is from Australia. He has been trying to get in on some satellite broadcasting companies in Asia I've heard. He even joked while he was in Japan that after he bought the Dodgers they could play some games in Japan. This was called a joke, but I think it has some teeth to it. Murdoch owns newspapers and broadcasting networks. He owns Fox and Fox now has bought the rights to baseball games. Baseball is popular in Asia, but not in all countries. The countries it is popular in, such as Taiwan, Japan and South Korea seem to be the countries that are a bit more affluent than other areas. When I go to Dodger games I see Japanese tourists there all the time. I saw an entire section decked out in Dodger hats and jackets (with Nomo's name on the back). These guys are booking tours in Japan just to go to LA to see a Dodger game or two and see Nomo pitch. When he pitches it is broadcast back to Japan, as are Chan Ho Park's games to Korea. Murdoch probably knows the potential money to be made in broadcasting games to Asia.
So it is cool to see a team from the mainland playing in this Asian baseball tournament in Taiwan. Taiwan and the mainland are to play tomorrow (the 28th) I believe.
From the site above www.ice.ntnu.edu.tw/~u81112/baseball/Main/index.htm here are the pages in traditional Chinese big-5 code about news for each team.
From the Chinese Professional League
Dragons Lions Tigers Elephants Eagles Bulls Whales
From the Taiwanese Professional league
Suns King Kongs Braves Thunderbolts
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