Chinese Professional Baseball League

With the popularity rise in the first few years, the Jungo Bears and China Times Eagles joined in 1993. The Koos Group Whales joined in 1997. The league consisted of seven teams in the 1997 season which is the maximum in CPBL history.

The Black Eagles Incident in 1997 resulted in a major popularity decline. The China Times Eagles became defunct after the 1997 season. The Wei Chuan Dragons and Mercuries Tigers also became defunct after the 1999 season, prior to which the Dragons had won all championships from 1997 to 1999.

In 1997, the newly founded Taiwan Major League began to compete with the CPBL. The two leagues were often competing with each other, but eventually, the TML merged with the CPBL.

In May 2019, commissioner John Wu announced that CPBL has agreed Ting Hsin International Group to join the league by reactivating a former team, Wei Chuan Dragons. The Dragons participated in the minor league in 2020, and returned to the major league in 2021.[4]

After Tsai Chi-chang became commissioner in 2021, he proposed that Kaohsiung serve as the location for a new team since it was the only major city in Taiwan without a CPBL team at the time.[5] In February 2022, Tsai announced that the sixth team would either be formed by Chunghwa Telecom or Taiwan Steel Group. It was later announced that the expansion team would be by Taiwan Steel Group. The proposed team name is TSG Hawks, and their home field would be Chengcing Lake Stadium in Kaohsiung.[6]

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the opening day of the 31st CPBL season on March 14 was delayed. It was originally brought earlier compared to previous seasons to accommodate the final qualifying tournament of 2021 Tokyo Olympics.[7]

On 1 April, the CPBL announced that the season would begin from 11 April as the Rakuten Monkeys hosted the Chinatrust Brothers with the games being playing behind closed doors.[8] This received international coverage because other major baseball leagues such as the MLB in North America, the NPB in Japan, and the KBO in South Korea, which were still severely impacted by the virus outbreak were unable to confirm the dates of their respective season openings.[9] The annual CPBL All-Star Game was cancelled for the first time to accommodate to the compact schedule.[10]

A typical monthly salary for a foreign player is in between 25,000 and 50,000 USD, these positions are normally filled by AA, AAA, or Japanese minor leaguers. The number of foreign players allowed on a team's roster is limited to four. Of the four players only three are allowed to be activated on the major league roster, the remaining foreign player can practice and prepare with the team or play in the minors. A foreign player, once sent to the minor league team, must wait a week before being allowed to be recalled to the major league.

Foreign players, from regions other than Japan and South Korea, are given Chinese epithets to increase familiarity with Taiwanese fans. These epithets, usually two to three characters in length, are generally loose transliterations of the players' names and are generally chosen as terms meant to convey strength or might. One example is Jeff Andra, whose epithet is Feiyong (飛勇) — meaning, literally, a flying brave man. Recently however, most foreign players are just simply given a direct Chinese transcription. Some players (mostly foreign players) have now adopted the custom in the rest of the world by placing their surnames on the back of their jerseys using the Latin alphabet. Some teams now have adopted Latin alphabet jerseys, a trend that has picked up in recent years. The Fubon Guardians only have uniforms with such, and the other teams are adopting such jerseys on occasion.

• China Times Eagles (時報鷹) (1993–1997)
• Chinatrust Whales (中信鯨) (1997–2008)
• Macoto Cobras / dmedia T-REX (米迪亞暴龍) (2003–2008)
• Mercuries Tigers (三商虎) (1990–1999)

The CPBL Minor League took shape in late 2003 as a result of cooperation with Chinese Taipei Baseball Association. Alternative service draftees, players deemed eligible to complete their national service obligation in the field of baseball, were sent to the CPBL member organizations to fill their roster. There are currently 6 minor league teams, each plays about 80 games annually. Similar to the NPB's minor leagues, the minor league teams are each owned by CPBL member clubs as reserve teams rather than independent organizations.

A home run derby has been held since 1992. It is usually held the day before the all-star game.

• Brother Elephants and CTBC Brothers: Yellow
• China Times Eagles: White and black
• EDA Rhinos: Purple
• First Financial Agan, La New Bears, Lamigo Monkeys and Rakuten Monkeys: Light blue at the beginning, then changed to teal, now black and white.
• Fubon Guardians: Aquamarine
• Jungo Bears, Sinon Bears and Sinon Bulls: Light green
• Koos Group Whales and Chinatrust Whales: Green and white at the beginning, then changed to blue, then all white.
• Macoto Gida, Macoto Cobras and dmedia T-REX: Red at the beginning, then changed to orange and black, then red and black.
• Mercuries Tigers: Blue
• Uni-President Lions and Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions: Green at the beginning, then changed to orange and green, and all orange now.
• Wei Chuan Dragons: Red

• Chianan Luka: Green
• Kaoping Fala: Yellow
• Taichung Agan: Blue
• Taipei Gida: Red

The first scandal was the "August 3 Incident", when a group of weapon-carrying local gang members rushed into a Taichung hotel and threatened five Brother Elephants players, including star pitcher Chen Yi-hsin, in order for them to cooperate with the gang and fix games for their gambling business on the evening of August 3, 1996. CPBL reported the incident to the police immediately and the gang members were soon arrested, but rumors about game fixing swirled in Taiwan.

The rumors came true in January 1997, just before the season started. With solid evidence, police arrested several CPBL players suspected of being in illegal gambling. During the process, many players, mostly from the China Times Eagles, were found to be involved in the game-fixing and were promptly expelled by CPBL. In June 1997, only two Taiwanese players on the roster of the China Times Eagles were not involved in any sort of scandal, and the rest of the league had to lend their players to the Eagles so that they could finish out the season.

The China Times Eagles were eventually disbanded the next season as a result, and attendance declined sharply, from its peak of 6,000 in 1994 to merely 1,500 in 1998. However, the fiasco did not end there. In August 1997, several Mercuries Tigers players were threatened by gambling gangs under similar circumstances as the August 3 Incident. In April 1999, the Wei Chuan Dragons' then manager Hsu Sheng-ming (徐生明) was attacked near his residence in Taipei. The Mercuries Tigers and the Wei Chuan Dragons were also badly affected by the financial loss brought on by the scandal and were disbanded after the 1999 season. The scandal was later nicknamed "The Black Eagles Incident", a reference to the Black Sox Scandal, and also because the China Times Eagles were the most involved in the scandal.

In July 2005, another gambling-related scandal surfaced when the local Next Magazine published a story with photographs of Chinatrust Whales' Australian pitcher Brad Purcell at a Taipei lounge bar along with several local gang members. This article also pointed out several games which may have been fixed between May and June 2005, and listed nearly ten players involved, mostly from foreign countries.

Local prosecutor Hsu Wei-yueh (徐維嶽) took up the case and arrested La New Bears catcher Chen Chao-ying (陳昭穎) and the Macoto Cobras coach Tsai Sheng-fong (蔡生豐) on July 27, both of whom were immediately expelled from the league. However, on August 22, Hsu released the two, stating that "they had made full confessions". Brad Purcell himself had been released earlier by the Chinatrust Whales (and expelled from the league) and fled Taiwan before any trial could start.

Hsu later summoned a total of fifteen players, including the Sinon Bulls American pitcher Jeff Andra, La New Bears Puerto Rican infielder Victor Rodriguez, and Chinatrust Whales Dominican pitcher Emiliano Giron, and claimed that they were involved in gambling. None of the players admitted to being involved in game-fixing but Hsu ruled that the imprisoned players needed bail of NT $100,000 to be released. CPBL immediately expelled the players who were arrested. Only the Brother Elephants and the Uni-President Lions were unaffected by this scandal.

The circumstances of this scandal remain unclear, with the lack of evidence and confessions, and the fact that Hsu Wei-Yueh himself was later arrested for his involvement in bribery scandals, which led to his trial and sentence in 2005.

On October 8, 2008, Banqiao district attorney's office called the owner of dmedia T-REX Shih Chien-hsin, the team's GM, spokesperson, one coach, and three players to the office for allegedly being involved in game-fixing. The three players, Chen Yuen-chia (陳元甲), Chen Ke-fan (陳克帆), and Cory Bailey, were later released after posting bail. In accordance with CPBL policy, the three were immediately expelled and they were banned from playing professionally in the league. Due to the involvement of management/operation personnel in the scandal, the team was expelled from CPBL on October 23, 2008.

The Chinatrust Whales also announced their disbandment on November 11, after playing twelve years in the CPBL. Since then, the league has been reduced to 4 teams until 2021.

The day after the final game of the 2009 Taiwan Series authorities raided the Brother Elephants' dormitory in Taipei and ordered several players to report to the prosecutors' office for questioning regarding game-fixing allegations. In the following weeks, multiple players from the Brother Elephants, Sinon Bulls, and La New Bears were questioned, and some of them were arrested and eventually charged. Furthermore, Elephants manager Shin Nakagomi was also charged and later pled guilty in exchange for being released and allowed to return to Japan. Some of the convicted players were given prison sentences ranging from one to four years.

The name "Chinese Professional Baseball League" has attracted controversy. Owing to the ambiguous political status of Taiwan and the Nagoya Resolution, the Republic of China was forced to use the name of "Chinese Taipei" under pressure from the People's Republic of China under the One China policy. Many have called to for the name of CPBL be changed, with suggestions including the replacement of “Chinese” with “Taiwan” or “Formosa” the most popular, while some proposed using “Chunghwa”.[11][12]