While sports have shut down all around the world due to the spread of COVID-19, some areas of the world have been deemed safe for the return of competition. Among those is Taiwan, where baseball returned this week in the Chinese Professional Baseball League, the five-team league based out of the island.
Despite the league’s reputation for being conservative, the first week of games brought with it a rarity for Taiwanese baseball: a benches-clearing brawl. In the fourth inning of the game between the Rakuten Monkeys and the Fubon Guardians, Guardians pitcher Henry Sosa plunked Monkeys infielder Kuo Yen-Wen, after pitching inside to him throughout the at-bat.
That brought out the benches and set off a minor scuffle:
2020 4/19 CPBL #FubonGuardians vs #RakutenMonkeys #ForTheFans #CPBL pic.twitter.com/x9ZusXE2p5
— ELEVEN SPORTS TAIWAN (@ElevenSportsTW) April 19, 2020
One of the commentators on the Eleven Sports Taiwan feed, which streams Monkeys games in the United States with English commentary, laid out how rare the situation truly was in a league that doesn’t often see tempers flare:
For our international viewers, you need to understand that this never really happens in the CPBL. It’s usually a very conservative league. They don’t even argue balls and strikes or outs very often. For this to happen right now, can I say it’s quite exciting?
There have been better brawls, but given how starved for sports most fans are, even a minor brouhaha like this one hits the right spot.
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