CPBL Delays Start of Taiwan’s Top Flight Baseball

Taiwan’s CPBL baseball league has had its opening day pushed back to April 11th on the back of fears surrounding the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak in what is the second such delay to the start of the 240-game season.

Initially set for tomorrow, March 14th, then pushed back two weeks to March 28th, the latest announcement on March 12th by the CPBL commissioner came as no surprise to baseball fans around Taiwan, although it was officially attributed to a meeting with officials from the Ministry of Health and Welfare earlier in the day.

Remaining Spring Training games will now be played behind closed doors according to sources, with no extra games to be added to the current schedule ahead of April 11th.

Further updates on any more possible delays in the start of play for what is the Chinese Professional Baseball League’s 31st season are expected in late March, just ahead of the April 2nd to 5th long weekend in Taiwan when many people traditionally return to hometowns or take the opportunity to travel.

Domestically Taiwan has seen 49 confirmed cases of COVID-19 according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) with one death from over 16,000 individuals tested.

Mark Buckton

Mark is a journalism vet of 20 years with most of those years spent in Tokyo, Japan, as a columnist for The Japan Times and numerous other publications. His work has appeared on CNN, in the BBC, NPR, and in several dozen other media forms and publications across five continents.