2026-10-28
(Courtesy of Taiwan Panorama October 2026)
Cathy Teng /photo byLin Min-hsuan /tr. byPhil Newell

Taiwan's baseball story started with the game's introduction from Japan more than a century ago. This sport has since become much more than an on-field competition between teams of nine players: It is a source of collective memories spanning many generations.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, Taiwan’s baseball teams have performed brilliantly at one international competition after another. In 2019 Taiwan swept the title in three events in one year: the U-12 Baseball World Cup, the U-18 Baseball World Cup, and the Asian Baseball Championship. In 2024 the Chinese Taipei team won the World Baseball and Softball Confederation (WBSC) Premier12 tournament, held in Tokyo. And though Taiwan’s national team did not make it to the knockout round at the 2026 World Baseball Classic, the crowds of Taiwanese who traveled to Japan to turn away games into home games showed the world the profound passion Taiwanese have for baseball.

A home base for the national team

May 7, 2026 saw an important milestone for the development of baseball in Taiwan when President Lai Ching-te attended the official inauguration ceremony for the Chinese Taipei Baseball Training Complex at the Asia-Pacific International Baseball Stadiums and Training Centers (the ASPAC Complex) in Tainan City. The facility was originally launched in 2019 during Lai’s tenure as mayor of Tainan, but has today also become the training base for the national baseball team. Its formal designation caused Jeffrey Koo, Jr., honorary chairman of the Chinese Taipei Baseball Association (CTBA), to declare: “The national team finally has a home!”

CTBA secretary general Richard Lin says that baseball is Taiwan’s national sport, and Taiwan almost never misses taking part in international competitions. However, for 30-plus years before 2026, the national team drifted among various local stadiums without a permanent training center.

But now things have changed. The ASPAC Complex provides comprehensive fixed practice facilities for all three levels of youth baseball (U-12 Little League, U-15 Junior League, and U-18 Senior League) as well as national teams of all categories. It allows national-team athletes to devote more time and energy to training and preparation, while also laying a solid foundation for the continued development of Taiwanese baseball.

A century of baseball in one city

Wang Hsiao-wen, director-general of the Tainan City Bureau of Sports, explains the deep connection between the city and baseball. In the 1970s, the Tainan Giants Little League team sparked a baseball craze across Taiwan, with fans staying up all night to follow the games. The teams that won the 1971 and 1973 Little League World Series in Williamsport in the US were composed mainly of players from Tainan elementary schools.

The Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium, opened in 1931, served as home to generations of players for nearly a century. Today, the ASPAC Complex has become the main focus of baseball activity, and the locally based Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions have relocated to play their home games there. The Lions’ historic first game at the Main Stadium, played on March 29, 2026, attracted 23,500 fans—a sellout—setting a record for attendance at an outdoor Chinese Professional Baseball League game.

From the glory of Little League baseball teams in days gone by to the new training facility built with the support of three consecutive mayors, Tainan has injected new energy into the city’s deep-rooted baseball culture.

Bringing the world to Taiwan

The training center has a total of seven fields, including main and secondary fields for adult baseball, main and secondary fields for U-12 baseball, two infield practice fields, and an indoor/outdoor pitching and batting practice facility.

But for the CTBA, the significance of the complex is not merely to provide Taiwan’s players with a better training environment. “We not only want to go out into the world, we also want to bring the world to us,” says Richard Lin.

Bringing the world to Taiwan starts with hosting international tournaments. Taiwan has won the long-term rights to host the U-12 Baseball World Cup, with the tournament to be played at the ASPAC Complex starting in 2019 and continuing with multiple iterations through 2027.

Young players from various countries will come to Taiwanese stadiums, not only making them part of their childhood memories but also turning the training facility into a meeting place for different countries’ baseball cultures. “We hope to continue to advance into the future to become an Asian Williamsport,” Lin states.

International interactions occur not only during tournaments. Wang Hsiao-wen says that since the ASPAC Complex’s designation as the national team training base, Korea’s Lotte Giants and NC Dinos have already come to Taiwan for spring training. Tainan’s mild climate and first-rate baseball facilities, combined with the welcome and support that foreign teams receive from the city, have made Tainan an option for overseas teams’ off-season training. Meanwhile, the free baseball clinics held in Taiwan by foreign professional teams, where young local players learn how to play defense and how to hit, have become a heartwarming sight at the complex.

Baseball has become a common language for international exchanges. Besides the games themselves, the sport has raised the international profile of Taiwan’s cities, with each baseball-related activity being an element in sports diplomacy.

Taking Taiwan further through baseball

In Richard Lin’s eyes, the next step for the ASPAC Complex is not only to host more international competitions, but also to bring to Taiwan international training courses for coaches, umpires, and official scorers, as well as player training camps. He wants the venue to go beyond being simply the training base for the national team, to become a platform for the training of international-level professional baseball talent, and for interactions among them.

Meanwhile, to Wang Hsiao-wen, there is no reason why the complex can’t become a symbol of Tainan’s brand image. “When we talk about baseball, when we think of Taiwan baseball, then we think of Tainan.” He anticipates that in the future even more people will come to Tainan for baseball and enjoy the training facility, as baseball serves as another way to link the city to the world.

Rooted in Tainan, the ASPAC Complex not only moves Taiwanese baseball up a “base,” it can serve as a center for exchanges between Taiwan and the world.