TAIPEI, Taiwan | The Weichuan Dragons will enjoy the home field advantage against the Rakuten Monkeys when the best-of-seven Taiwan Series begins on Saturday. The Series will open at Tianmu Baseball Stadium, which marks the return of the fall classic to Tianmu for the first time since 2003 when the Brother Elephants (now CTBC Brothers) defeated Sinon Bulls to win the title and complete their second threepeat in franchise history.
Manager Chun-Chang Yeh was a 27-year-old lead catcher with the Dragons, and hitting coach Tai-Shan Chang was a 23-year-old shining slugging star when the Dragons won the championship title of CPBL for the third straight year in 1999. A little over one month from the threepeat, the Dragons’ announcement to withdrawal from CPBL became one of the most stunning news in the history of Taiwan baseball.
After
two decades of absence, while Yeh became one of the most renowned managers in
Taiwan, and Chang retired as the career record holder of various batting categories
such as games, hits, and RBIs, the Dragons came back in 2020 as an expansion
minor league team (while inheriting all records of the old Dragons club). They
made it to the Taiwan Series just three years after their return to the major
league level of CPBL.
“It’s
an amazing feeling to be back to the Taiwan Series, as a Dragon, and after
twenty-some years,” said Yeh with emotions when the Dragons clinched the berth
to the Taiwan Series as the winningest club of the 2023 season. “The old
Dragons, with our threepeat, was an extraordinary memory for me.”
Yeh, Chang, and current Dragons pitching coach Mike Garcia all started their CPBL career in 1996, and their minor league coach Chiung-Lung Huang was a lifetime Dragon, joining the team in their inaugural season in 1990.
Yeh led the now-defunct EDA Rhinos to win the Taiwan Series title in 2016 and will be the first manager to have the opportunity to guide two different teams to Taiwan Series titles.
The Monkeys, who won six titles in eight years during the Lamigo era, are still looking for the first title for Rakuten since the Japanese e-marking giant acquired the ownership of the club in 2020. The Monkeys missed post-season in both 2020 and 2021, and were swept by the CTBC Brothers in 2022 as the Brothers successfully repeated their title.
Rakuten, who neither won the first nor the second half, were benefiting from the new post-season rules from CPBL and advanced to the playoff series as a third-place team. They defeated the first half-season winner Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions with the standings of 3 games to 1 during the playoff series en route to their second Taiwan Series appearance in a row.
In the 33-year history of the Chinese Professional Baseball League, Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions lead the league with the most titles at 10, while the Brother Elephants/CTBC Brothers franchise sit at second place with nine titles. The Dragons are seeking their fifth title while the Monkeys are trying to deliver the first title during the Rakuten Era.
