A little help from a friend:
In order to give the youngsters from Hongye a chance, Tsai wrote a letter to Hu, saying that he was willing to sponsor the team. Hu wrote back saying that aboriginal children were tough. If they made it to Taipei they could get by on two meals a day, and they needn't book into a hotel--they could sleep in the magazine office.
Just before the final islandwide competition, the Prince bus arrived in Hongye and took the children to the competition in Taipei. Meeting with victory after victory, they were crowned champions. Becoming a focus of media attention, this bunch of barefooted tykes went on to beat the Little League World Champions from Japan 7-0. From this point on, Little League baseball in Taiwan took off. While people call Hsieh Kuo-cheng, who was director of the Baseball Association at the time, the father of Taiwanese little league baseball, Hongye is its birthplace.
At the opening ceremonies of the first season of professional baseball in 1990, Yu Hong-kai, one of the old Hongye players, came with his three sons to lead the teams on their march around the field, giving testimony to the legacy of baseball on Taiwan.
And now the Hongye Little League Memorial has been established.
In the intervening 24 years, many championship trophies, plaques, pennants and other valuable memorabilia have been lost. The exhibited object sat the memorial, such as the uniforms, gloves and bats of that year's players, have been donated by Chiou Te-sheng, who still lives in Hongye. It's just unfortunate there are so few items on display. The photos in the museum were mostly taken by various publications.
Hongye's former champions have gathered together once again to celebrate the opening of the Little League Memorial.