Taichung Journal: September 2020

On May 8, Taiwan's professional baseball league became the first in the world to play before spectators, admitting up to 1,000 fans to each of its two scheduled games that Friday evening. That evening the China Trust Banking Corp (CTBC) Brothers hosted the Rakuten Monkeys at Taichung's Intercontinental Baseball Stadium. They played again a month later, but the game on Thursday, June 11 was called because of rain in the middle of the third inning with the Monkeys leading 4-0. The game was continued and completed on July 8 with the Monkeys winning 6-5. I was in the stands along with another thousand fans of a total 3,000 permitted by then. The Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) had played a total of 33 games before empty stands since beginning its season on April 12.

The week before I erroneously went to see a game that wasn't being played. I was looking at the original schedule that was still posted on the internet. On the twenty minute bike ride from home to the stadium, it started to rain. I waited it out under the highway #74 underpass near the West Han River Road. amd left as soon as the storm passed. I thought the game would be played after all and was very excited to see live baseball after what had been going on since February with the covid-19 pandemic.

On July 1, I decided to see a game but when I got to the stadium, there was nobody there. The parking lot was empty and the ticket windows were shuttered. I proceeded to sit down at some outdoor snack tables and ate the two hot dogs on buns with sour kraut and mustard I had prepared before I rode home. I made the best of it and had a good time anyway. When I got home my wife helped me locate the revamped schedule and I set my sights on the game scheduled for the following week.

When I got to the ballpark on July 8, there were plenty of people around. I locked my bike up on the sidewalk, put on my Brothers cap, and walked to the ticket booth. They handed me two tickets stapled together and charged me 350 NT- $12 but I didn't know why, nor did I pay attention to the seat number: section B, row 19 seat 30; I was going to sit where I liked.

It was not easy getting into the stadium because of the precautions being taken to prevent the spread of the corona-virus. First, I went to a station where I was asked to write my phone number on the ticket stub, then to a station where a young lady checked that I had a mask and took my temperature with a heat gun. When I got to the steps before entering, another station with two young men asked to see my ID and tickets; they wanted to be able to do contact tracing in case they found out someone carried the virus into the ballpark. I didn't bring my ID so he looked at the phone number I wrote and called getting no answer. I told him it was my wife's number and he asked me for my own which I hadn't memorized and had to look for, When I finally found it and gave it to him he called me on his cellphone and made sure he saw my phone responded with a blinking light before letting me up the stairs,

I took a seat seven rows up from the field just left of home plate and made myself comfortable. There was at least one empty seat between fans but only half were wearing masks during the game. I kept mine on for a while but took it off to eat and drink the three cans of Red Horse beer I had brought along with two more hot dogs on buns with sour kraut. Later, a securit guard came around and made sure everyone was wearing their masks and socially distanced.

The la-la team is amazing. They stand on each dugout and dance during the inning when the home team is up. They don't wait for between innings, and the sym-phony doesn't stop playing, either. The players don't seem to mind, just as they don't in Japan or Korea. In the USA, I don't know how the players and fans would react. Would they blow their tops or like it? The cute women might be a distraction but I didn't mind so long as they weren't in my line of sight.

On July 23 (the morning of the 24th in Taiwan) I caught the opening night of the 2020 MLB season in an empty Dodger stadium on FOX Sports cable channel at ten o'clock in the morning Taiwan Time; seven o'clock in the evening in L.A. They beat the Giants 6-1. There are to play a 60 game season with an extended playoff including the first two teams and wild cards in each division for what could be 800 games including World Series. Relief pitchers must pitch to three batters. There’s a 40 man roster. The piped in crowd noise and hundreds of cardboard figures affixed to the seats behind home plate were hilarious. To hear Joc Pederson clearly yell “Fuck” in the silence as he ran to first after popping the ball up was precious. Despite it all, I could see how important Mookie Betts will be to ignite the Dodger rallies as he got his first hit, made it to third on outs, and scored diving into home plate on a ground ball by Turner. Bellinger got in a run-down on the third base line that enabled two runners to move up into scoring position who then scored on a hit by Hernandez opening up a 1-1 tie. It was great seeing them play again; a much higher caliber that any baseball from Asia.

Sunday morning, August, 30, I went with Shieh-Chi, my wife's niece, to the baseball field near Yi-Zhong Street to watch her boyfriend play shortstop on their National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (Dao-Ke Da) against Ming-Shing College team from Hsinchu. His team lost 7-0 in a sudden death in the bottom of the sixth; I guess a seven run deficit ended the game after a certain number of innings, perhaps five for an official game. There were many errors, called and uncalled, and a number of passed balls, wild pitches, and misplayed balls and opportunities. There were a total of eleven struck out (with two walked) on her boyfriend’s team while their pitcher walked four and struck out six. Dao-Ke had one hit; Min-Shing had six including four in a four-run second inning. I didn’t get the players’ names other than Son Zhen-Ning’s, but got most of their numbers and field positions, though Dao-Ke made it hard with fifteen players used.