Merger into Single Taiwan League?

The key point the article makes is that it wouldn't be a merger, but that both leagues would dissolve and form a new league. Part of the problem in the past was that neither side was willing to make any major concessions for a merger to work. So maybe they could agree to this. Many people still refuse to watch or go to games since the awful gambling scandals of the mid to late 90's. This would help a lot.

The main problem with the new proposal is that while TML (the younger, less popular league) is rumoured to be going under and is very willing to be dissolved, the CPBL (older, more popular) has seen a growth in attendence in the past two seasons and is hopeful that fans are coming back again. They would much rather sit and wait for the TML to dissolve by itself (which many believe will happen, merger or not), than going with the merger.

A new development yesterday:
It now looks more and more likely that the merger will happen! The owner of Naluwan Corp. (who owns TML), attended the CPBL club's meeting. The latest proposal is 4 teams from CPBL with 2 teams from TML to form the new Chinese Major Leagues (CML). I can't say I like the new name, but this will be a significant event in Taiwanese baseball history, and it's for the better.

In another article from the Taipei Times dated October 26th and written by Jules Quartly, the new league would consist of three teams from the CPBL and two teams from the TML and one new team formed from players of both leagues.

The Daily Yomiuri reported today that it's gonna happen. Again, this appeared only in the paper and not on their infuriating website.

In the Taiwan News dated Nov. 27, 2002, the CPBL and TML have agreed to merge into one new league comprising all four CPBL teams and two of the four teams from the TML. Following the CPBL format, the teams would be independantly owned rather than the league owned style of the TML. [Complete article].

Although the agreement has been signed between the CPBL franchises and Naluwan Corp., the critical point is for Naluwan Corp. to sell one of the two clubs by the end of January. According to the agreement, should the fifth franchise not be established by the end of this month, the new season will start with four origianl clubs from CPBL.

By the way, the reorganized league is still called CPBL, which stands for the Chinese Professional Baseball League.

I read one article last week that said that the name would be possibly CPBML - Chinese Professional Baseball Major League.

One question: Baseball is Yakyu, Yagu, and Beisbol in Japanese, Korean, and Spanish respectively, but what is "Baseball" in Mandarin Chinese?

Bun Chuo (Stick/Bat Ball).

Those aren't the official English adoptation (vocalization?) for the two characters, does someone have that information?

The reorganized league is officially (still) called "The Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL)," instead of the self-guessing names by the reporters such as CML (Chinese Major League, by CNA), CPBML (Chinese Professional Basbell Major League). The Chinese title will be changed with the addition of the word "big" (or "major") but the English name will remain the same as it is.

Baseball in English are the combination of the words "base" and "ball"; in Japanese it is called Yakyu as the combination of "Field (ya)" and "Ball (kyu)"; in Mandarin Chinese it is called "Bang Chiou" as "Bat (bahng)" and "Ball (chiou)". So in English it is seen and defined as a game with bases and balls, in Japan it is defined as a game on the field with balls, in Chinese in it seen as a game with bats and balls.

The February 28, 2003 Taipei Times [Link] has an article on the hopes for the new baseball season in Taiwan. The CPBL and TML merged this year. Opening day is March 1.

I've got a good idea, how about Taiwan, Japan, and Korea have 3 leagues and play a series against each other every year, or all teams play each other. Forget MLB, it would be a great league and bring out more people to cheer their favorite teams to beat other countries, like European soccer league.

In the 1990s, KBO, CPBL, NPB, and Australian teams would play the SuperMajor series in Japan in odd number years. In the even number years, MLB would send their team to Japan like it did in 2002.

Look at World Cup post in the Links forum and see my idea- Kiyoshi