Baseball, Taiwan Style:

Beauties of baseball

One defining aspect of Taiwan’s baseball culture is its cheerleaders. In 2013, the Lamigo Monkeys team (predecessor to today’s Rakuten Monkeys) adopted South Korea’s style of cheerleader-­led fan support, rapidly altering the atmosphere at Taiwan’s stadiums. Today all the clubs in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) have their own cheerleaders.

However, unlike in Korea and Japan, where cheerleaders are seen as playing purely a supporting role, in the CPBL they have become the stars of a significant entertainment industry in themselves. There is cheerleader-themed merchandise using their names or images, while they also host livestreams and ticketed fan events as well as do commercial endorsements and appear in advertisements. Taiwan’s cheerleaders, some of whom have an even higher public profile than the players, draw far more attention and fan support than their counterparts in Korea or Japan.

Baseball cheerleading in Taiwan has grown into a sizable entertainment industry. Cheerleaders have their own merchandise and livestreams, hold meet-and-greets, endorse products, and appear in advertisements. (photo by Kent Chuang)

So many things to do!

Though one could say that every country has its own fan support culture, in Taiwan, the defining word when seeing a game is “busy.”

Not only do all six CPBL teams have their own team support songs and “chance songs” (sung to build momentum when the team gets a good scoring opportunity), as well as accompanying gestures, players have their own individual support songs, slogans, and gestures, so supporting teams is a far more complex activity than in other lands. Meanwhile, the energetic cheerleaders lead fans in singing and dancing from cheering platforms on the first- and third-base sides of the ballpark, and stadiums even have “standing support areas” where fans who like to stand up as they watch the games can sing and dance to their hearts’ content.

Support culture has flourished to the point where even Taiwan’s U-12 Baseball World Cup team has its own cheerleaders, which is probably something unique to Taiwan.

Cheerleaders, following the rhythm of the game, lead the crowd in singing and dancing from the cheering platforms. Watching baseball in Taiwan certainly keeps fans “busy”! (photo by Kent Chuang)

Not just baseball games

Professional baseball is a commercial activity, so from the teams’ point of view, the higher the attendance is, the better. Not only do CPBL teams play games with teams from other countries, every team collaborates with well-known intellectual property holders such as Sanrio and characters like Esther Bunny, the Powerpuff Girls, or those from Attack on Titan or Demon Slayer to have “theme days” at the ballpark. The organizations also invite A-listers like athletes, entertainers, and internet celebrities to throw out the first pitch and/or perform before the game starts in order to draw people who would not otherwise go to a baseball game into the stadium.

Although it is true that the motivation for such activities is commercial, the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions, who are based in Tainan, also hold temple-­themed days virtually every year and once even held a day to celebrate the Siraya Indigenous people. The Rakuten Monkeys, based in Taoyuan, have come out with an event focused on Hakka culture. And the TSG Hawks, whose home stadium is in Kao­hsiung, often combine games with imagery of that harbor city, such as a “Made in Kaohsiung” day. Such events showcase defining local characteristics and strengthen the teams’ sense of local identity.

Teams often do co-branding with various types of intellectual property franchises (especially characters), or pair games with concerts, using cross-industry partnerships to reach beyond their existing fan bases and attract more people to the ballpark.

The Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions, based in historic Tainan, have had temple-themed days for many years now. They really bring out the local color. (courtesy of Uni-President 7- Eleven Lions)

The All-Star Game

Besides multifarious themed days, another CPBL attraction is the annual All-Star Game. It must be admitted that fan voting for the players regularly sparks debate, as the CTBC Brothers’ large fan base helps their squad dominate the polls. Nonetheless, in recent years, the format of the All-Star event at the Taipei Dome has given retired stars—including those who never had the chance to play there during their careers—an opportunity to take the field, fulfilling dreams for players and fans alike.

The annual All-Star Game brings together stars of the past and present. Retired players can also take part in the games, held in recent years at the Taipei Dome, where they perhaps never set foot in their careers. These are happy moments for both fans and players. (courtesy of CPBL)

Taiwan–Japan friendship

The friendship between Taiwan and Japan, evident in so many spheres, is also obvious in baseball. Besides the great achievement of Taiwanese fans at the World Baseball Classic, who so jammed into the Tokyo Dome that it seemed like a home field, there is also attachment because there are 13 Taiwanese baseball players on professional teams in Japan. Among them, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters have the most with three: Gu Lin Ruei-yang, Sun Yi-lei, and Lyle Lin. Other Taiwanese players in Japan include Sung Chia-hao of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, Lin An-ko of the Saitama Seibu Lions, and Hsu Jo-hsi of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. These men who have represented Taiwan in inter­national competitions have become a magnet drawing Taiwanese fans to baseball games in Japan.

During the 2026 World Baseball Classic, Taiwanese fans took advantage of Japan’s proximity to Taiwan to crowd into the Tokyo Dome. This can be considered an alternative form of “Taiwan–Japan friendship.” (courtesy of CPBL)

The rituals of baseball

In 2024 at the Premier12 baseball tournament, Taiwan team captain Chen Chieh-hsien made a framing gesture over his chest—a gesture widely interpreted as highlighting the forced absence of the word “Taiwan” from the team jerseys. And at this year’s WBC, the Samurai Japan national team celebrated with a hand motion mimicking the whisking of matcha. In ballparks, players and fans alike use body language to create their own distinctive rituals.

For example, teams around the world have a celebratory move that they make when one of their players gets on base. In the CPBL, when a Uni-President Lions player hits a home run, after returning to the dugout he invariably performs an upbeat improvised dance. When a batter on the Brothers gets on base, he will direct an “up, down, left, right” gesture at the dugout and his teammates must respond by pretending to fall in the direction he signals.

As for the fans, the most famous ritual was probably the one done by Monkeys’ fan Liu Jiayi, a Taoist priest by profession, who performs sacred hand gestures as the games progress. And players make hand signals too: Brothers player Cheng Hao-chun and Hawks player Steven Moya, both fans of the Japanese manga and anime Naruto, have used gestures inspired by the series to communicate on the field.

Out on the field, players sometimes communicate with fans using body language. The photo shows the triangle gesture—meaning “all in” (determination to give it their all)—much used by the Taiwan team at the Premier12 tournament in 2024. (courtesy of Chinese Taipei Baseball Association)

Speeding up the game

Baseball can be considered a sport of extremes in terms of pace. Sometimes the teams battle for hours with barely a run scored; at other times, runners reach base, steal bases, and score in a flash. Still, outsiders often think that watching baseball is “long, tiring, and hard to follow.”

To be sure, baseball is one of the few sports with no overall time limit, and the games can last a good long time—as long as four or five hours. However, following the lead of US Major League Baseball, in 2024 the CPBL introduced a pitch clock and stipulated that a pitcher must begin his delivery within 20 seconds with the bases empty, and within 25 seconds with a runner or runners on base. In 2026 this became 18 seconds with the bases empty and 23 seconds with runners on base. The pace of the games has already significantly improved. 

Following the lead of American Major League Baseball, in 2024 the CPBL introduced a pitch clock, significantly reducing the length of games.