Launched 20 years ago, the CPBL has been plagued by scandal after shocking scandal over the past half decade. Taipei district prosecutors are now looking into the latest. A bookmaker and half a dozen players and former players have been detained with the approval of a district court judge for fear they may collude with other suspects or destroy incriminating evidence. One suspect is Elephant pitcher Tsao Chin-hui, Taiwan's first player to go on the Los Angeles Dodger mound and win the game. The New York Times reported on the scandal with “Say It Ain't So Tsao!” as a headline patterned after that of the 1919 game-rigging that called on White Sox pitcher “Shoeless” Joseph Jefferson Jackson to “Say It Ain't So Joe!”

The bookmaker, Tsai Cheng-yi nicknamed “Windshield Wiper,” is believed to work for the mob that raked in at least NT$1 billion (US$30 million) a season by fixing games. Police investigators said Tsao, the ace pitcher of the Elephants, managed to lose a game when the Windshield Wiper appeared in the baseball park. Tsao, who came back from the United States a little more than a year ago to join the Elephants, has denied any wrongdoing, though he admitted he dined with the bookmaker.

One former player in detention is Kevin Huang, a Boston Red Sox pitching prospect who hurled for the La New Bears last year after he had failed to make it to the Major Leagues in the United States. The scandal infuriated Premier Wu Den-yih, who considers baseball to be Taiwan's national game just like his predecessor. He ordered a thorough investigation into the scandal involving the Elephants, of whom first lady Christine Ma is an avowed fan. Wu wants game-fixing by the mob stamped out.

That's impossible, unless bookmaking were made legal with strenuous government control. It took years for the Major Leagues to get rid of the mob manipulation. Japan still has trouble, though scandals have become much less of late. Taiwan's Legislative Yuan isn't ready to legalize bookmaking, of course. Remember a referendum was called in the Pescadores to legalize gambling not long ago? Residents of the offshore island county rejected the legalized gambling.

According to a public opinion survey published by the Apple Daily yesterday, a 62.34 percent majority of respondents support the survival of professional baseball in Taiwan, while a 27.50 percent minority want the CPBL to be disbanded. Random sampling was adopted to collect answers from 640 fans. Apparently, fans hope to continue to watch professionals play on the diamond.

What can the authorities do to satisfy six out of every ten baseball fans who are fed up with false or make-believe play? Very little. First and foremost, players have to be made all but immune to the carrot-and-stick manipulation by the mob. To do so requires a massive increase in pay for them, which currently is less than one twentieth that for Japanese professional players. Wang Chien-ming, the New York Yankees pitcher, easily makes more than NT$100 million (US$3 million) a year, nearly 100 times that of any star Elephant or Bear hurler.

Police have to protect players the best they can, too. We doubt our law-enforcement officers can do that. Moreover, a gangster can destroy the fingers of a pitcher and get away with a sentence of months for “bodily injury.” The mob has no dearth of “executioners.” Pitchers threatened probably have no option but to submit. All this shows our CPBL, even given a new lease on life, may still be plagued by scandals. Fans are compelled to live with perennial scandals. Can President Ma Ying-jeou, the Mister Clean, tolerate the corruption in our national sport, with which his wife is in love?

Another option open to us is to make professional baseball history. We can dedicate our time and money to the promotion of amateur baseball, which we did in the 1970s. A schoolchildren's baseball team, the Golden Dragons of Taichung, won the Little League world championships in Williamsport, Pa., on August 24, 1968. That touched off a baseball boom in Taiwan, making Little League games the most popular spectator sport on the island. Taiwan boys have since won 22 pennants at Williamsport and many Junior League world championships at Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Taiwan's baseballers won silver medals in the Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992. There were no professional players on our Chinese Taipei team.

　　We believe Taiwan can repeat the feats if we do really put our mind to it. Fans will be satisfied. All that the authorities have to do is to help take care of those players at the end of their amateur career. It won't be too difficult, for there are a large number of private enterprises, many of them multinationals that can afford sinecure jobs for the retired amateur players, who after all can do some work which is needed to be done, for they are still quite young.