Baseball in Taiwan: The CPBL

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 10 min read

The history of baseball in Taiwan and the Chinese Professional Baseball League, from the Japanese colonial era and the Little League years to the 1990 founding, the scandals and the Taiwanese players who reached the majors.

Baseball holds a special place in Taiwan's sporting life. The game arrived more than a century ago, became part of school life long before professional leagues existed, and gave the island a string of international achievements out of proportion to its size. The professional league that grew out of that tradition, the Chinese Professional Baseball League, usually shortened to the CPBL, began play in 1990 and has been through growth, scandal, rivalry and recovery since.

For a reader who follows the major leagues, the CPBL is a useful third point alongside Japan and South Korea. It is smaller than Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball and, like the Korean league, shaped by the habits of fans who sing, chant and play drums through the game. It is also the league that sends some of its players to the majors, though in smaller numbers than its neighbors.

This article covers the history, the structure of the league as it stands in general terms, the Taiwanese players who have appeared in the major leagues according to the historical record through the 2025 season, and how a fan abroad can follow the league. Details that change from year to year, such as team names, ownership and broadcast arrangements, are better checked against the league's own site, and the article says so where it matters.

How baseball reached the island

Baseball came to Taiwan while the island was under Japanese rule, which lasted from 1895 to 1945. The Japanese had adopted the game in the late nineteenth century, and as part of the colonial school system it spread to Taiwanese students, who played it in schools and at the local level. By the early twentieth century, school and regional competitions were part of the island's athletic life.

The best-known pre-war story is a high school team from Chiayi, in southern Taiwan, which reached the final of Japan's national high school tournament at Koshien Stadium in 1931 and finished as runner-up. The team's mix of Japanese, Taiwanese and Indigenous players has been retold in books and in a film, and it remains a source of pride. Whatever the details of the telling, it established an early idea that baseball on the island could compete with the best.

The Japanese heritage left a lasting mark on the island's baseball, from the school structure that carried the game to later contact with the Japanese professional leagues. For how that neighboring tradition developed, see the history of baseball in Japan and Nippon Professional Baseball.

The youth years: Little League and the national team

After 1945 the island's baseball culture moved in new directions. American influence grew, and Taiwan's youth teams became famous internationally in the 1960s and 1970s through the Little League World Series. Taiwanese teams won the tournament repeatedly in those decades, and the victories were treated as national events at home. The Little League organization, whose own site is the best source for tournament history, describes how the competition grew into a global one: Little League.

Those youth successes created a generation of players and a nationwide appetite for the game, but Taiwan had no professional league until 1990. Players continued on amateur and company teams or went abroad, and the national team played in international events as an amateur side.

The national team competes in international tournaments under the name Chinese Taipei, the name used for Taiwan in most global sport. It won the silver medal at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, when baseball was a medal sport for the first time, and its senior team won the Premier12 tournament in 2024 by beating Japan in the final. These results show the depth of the amateur and professional pools, and they are the proof that a small island can compete.

Founding the CPBL

By the late 1980s, the amateur game was thriving, corporate sponsors were interested in a more commercial format and the success of the youth teams had built a public. The league was organized in 1989 and the first season was played in 1990. The founding clubs were corporate teams, in keeping with the way professional baseball developed in Japan and Korea, and included the Brother Elephants, the Uni-President Lions and a small number of others.

The model was familiar: teams owned by large companies, named for their parent firms, and playing a schedule in front of fans who identified with a brand as much as a city. That arrangement gave the league financial stability and a ready supply of sponsors, but it also meant that clubs changed their names, owners and even their identities when a company sold its team.

The Brother Elephants lineage, for example, passed to new ownership and carries a different corporate name today (the CTBC Brothers), while the Uni-President Lions remain among the league's best-known teams. The exact number of clubs has varied over the decades, from a handful at the start to a somewhat larger group in recent seasons, so any list of current teams should be checked with the league.

Scandals, a rival league and recovery

The league's early growth was followed by a difficult stretch. Match-fixing scandals came to light in the late 1990s and again around 2008 and 2009, and they led to arrests, bans and a serious loss of public trust. Fans stayed away from ballparks, some clubs left the league and attendance fell from its early highs. The scandals are documented, and the league's later efforts to restore confidence were built around stricter oversight of players and tighter controls on gambling contacts.

During the late 1990s and early 2000s the CPBL also had a competitor. A second professional circuit, the Taiwan Major League, played from 1997 until 2003, when the two leagues merged. The rivalry divided players and fans and strained the finances of both leagues, and the merger brought the competition to an end. In the years that followed, the CPBL rebuilt its fan base slowly, with newer clubs and more attention to the fan experience, such as organized cheering sections, and a gradual recovery of attendance.

The recovery was not instantaneous, and the details of the league's finances are not in the historical record or in this article. What can be said is that the league survived the scandals and the rivalry, that it kept playing, and that its current form is considerably more stable than it was in the lows of the late 2000s.

How the league plays

The CPBL plays a schedule of roughly 120 games, which is shorter than the major leagues' 162, and its champion is crowned in a postseason series known as the Taiwan Series. The format of the regular season and the playoffs has changed over the years, so the details are best taken from the league's own site. The rules of play are similar to those of other professional leagues, with a nine-inning game, a designated hitter and a roster of Taiwanese players supplemented by foreign players, who are limited in number.

Foreign players, often called imports, are typically former major-league or minor-league players, many of them from the United States, Latin America and Japan, who sign for a season to play in a league where they can get more playing time. The limit on how many can be active at once is set by the league and has changed, so check current rules. Many Taiwanese stars, in turn, spend time in Japan and Korea or sign with American clubs.

The atmosphere is a major part of the draw. Fans in the outfield stands chant, wave flags and keep time with drums and trumpets, following a script of songs for every player, in the way that is familiar from Japan and Korea. Cheerleading groups are a regular part of the show at many ballparks. Games are played mainly in the evening, and the climate means that heat and humidity are factors in the summer. Rain delays and postponements are a frequent part of the schedule. The experience of watching a game in the stands is, for many visitors, the most memorable thing about the league.

Taiwanese players in the major leagues

Eighteen players born in Taiwan have appeared in the major leagues, according to the historical record through the 2025 season. The earliest, Chin-Feng Chen, debuted in 2002, and the list has grown steadily since, with some prominent names and a long tail of brief appearances.

Chien-Ming Wang is the most successful of them. A right-handed sinkerball pitcher for the Yankees, he won 19 games in 2006 (19-6, 3.63 earned run average in 218 innings) and 19 again in 2007 (19-7, 3.70 in 199 1/3 innings). His 68-34 record across a career interrupted by injuries gives him the best winning percentage of the group. Wei-Yin Chen was a durable starter, with 59 wins and 846 strikeouts in 1,064 2/3 innings, and Hung-Chih Kuo was a left-hander used mainly in relief.

Two points stand out. First, the Taiwanese representation in the majors is smaller than that of Japan or South Korea, a gap that mirrors the smaller size of the Taiwanese league. Second, several of the best-known Taiwanese major leaguers, including Chien-Ming Wang and Chin-hui Tsao, were signed by American clubs as young players instead of building careers in the CPBL first, which means American clubs and the CPBL compete for the island's best prospects.

How the CPBL compares with its neighbors

The three East Asian leagues share a corporate model and a fan culture, and they differ in scale. Nippon Professional Baseball is the oldest and largest, with a deep history and a record of sending stars to the majors, as described in the Japan article. The Korean Baseball Organization is larger than the CPBL and has a fan culture of its own. The CPBL is the smallest of the three, with fewer clubs and a shorter schedule.

Elsewhere in the world, other leagues follow different models. The Latin American game, including the winter leagues that feed the American system, is covered in the Caribbean Series and winter ball, and the combination of academies and a pipeline to the majors in baseball in the Dominican Republic. The Mexican summer league, with its own history and its role in the region, is the subject of the Mexican League and Mexican baseball. Together they show how many ways baseball has been organized outside the United States, and the international section of this site tracks results from several of them.

What the numbers cannot tell you

The historical record covers the major leagues and the Negro Leagues, so it carries nothing from the CPBL itself. The only Taiwan-related figures in this article are the major-league lines of the 18 Taiwan-born players, and they say little about how good the domestic league is. A pitcher's earned run average in Taipei, Taichung or Tainan cannot be set directly beside an earned run average in the American League, because the hitters, the ballparks, the baseballs and the seasons differ.

The usual way to compare leagues is to look at players who have moved between them and see how their numbers changed, a method that works only when enough players move, and the sample from Taiwan is small. A reader should treat any claim that the CPBL is equal to Triple-A, or to the best of Japan's teams, as a rough impression and not a measurement. The sensible way to judge the league is on its own terms: the quality of the games, the skill of the best players and the passion of the crowds.

Following the league from abroad

Taiwan's time zone is eight hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time, so evening games in Taiwan fall in the morning or early hours for a viewer in North America. The league has used streaming platforms and international broadcasts in different seasons, and the arrangements change, so check the league's site and the broadcasters' announcements instead of relying on a fixed list. Box scores and standings are available online, and the conventions are the same as elsewhere, as explained in how to read a baseball box score.

For a casual follower, a good way in is to track the Taiwanese players who have moved between the CPBL, Japan, Korea and the majors, and to watch the national team in international tournaments. The next time Chinese Taipei appears in a tournament, the roster will include players from the CPBL and from abroad, and the style on the field will often reflect the long tradition described above.

Common questions

When did the CPBL start? The league was organized in 1989 and began play in 1990.

Is the CPBL a major league? It is a professional league at a high level, and it is smaller than Nippon Professional Baseball. The term major league in the American sense refers to MLB, and other leagues are described by their own names.

How many Taiwan-born players have reached the majors? Eighteen, according to the historical record through the 2025 season.

Who was the first Taiwanese player in the database? Chin-Feng Chen, who debuted in 2002.

How long is the season? Roughly 120 games in recent seasons, though the schedule can change, so check the league's site.

Where to go next

For other leagues with similar fan cultures, read about the Korean Baseball Organization and Japan's NPB. The international page covers results from leagues and tournaments around the world, and the world baseball topic page collects news.