President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Vice President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) received the 2023 Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) champion Wei Chuan Dragons on Thursday. Tsai says Taiwan looks forward to recruiting the best team as Taiwan will be hosting this year’s Premier 12 in November.
The last time the Wei Chuan Dragons won the Taiwan Series championship in the CPBL was in 1999. Due to the lack of interest from the then owner, Ting Hsin International Group, the team was disbanded shortly after their victory. However, the team rejoined the CPBL in 2019. Lai expressed his appreciation for the team’s resilience as a longterm baseball fan himself, seeing the team making such a major comeback.
CPBL Commissioner and Legislator Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) expressed his gratitude for the Tsai administration’s investment in advancing Taiwan’s baseball culture. He looks forward to seeing Taiwan’s baseball culture flourish.
Taiwan is currently ranked world number five in men’s baseball and world number two in women’s baseball by the World Baseball Softball Confederation.