BASEBALL/Asia Winter Baseball League set to begin on Saturday

Taipei, Nov. 24 (CNA) The 2023 Asia Winter Baseball League, a short-term baseball league hosted in Taiwan, will kick off on Saturday featuring six teams from Taiwan and Japan vying for the title.

The three Taiwanese teams are the Taiwan Steel Group (TSG) Hawks, Team Taiwan for the U-23 Baseball World Cup, and another consisting of players from the Chinese Professional Baseball League's (CPBL) five teams.

The three Japanese sides are the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) Red and Blue teams, and one team from the Japan Amateur Baseball Association (JABA).

Each team will play 17 games in the winter league and there will be a total of 56 games taking place at three venues in Taichung, Yunlin County and Tainan from Nov. 25-Dec. 17.

At a press conference on Friday, Hong I-chung (洪一中), manager of the Hawks, an expansion team of the CPBL that will play in the majors in the 2024 season, said the winter league will be important for young players, especially because high school players are now allowed to participate in the CPBL draft.

Taiwan will have more opportunities to compete with South Korea and Japan in baseball if professional teams in Taiwan take training opportunities for minor teams more seriously, Hong said.

First held in 2012, the winter league was held annually during the offseason around November and December before 2020 with the exception of 2014, and there was a three-year hiatus from 2020-2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.