“We will not allow the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) to disappear or Brother Elephants to be disbanded,” said Sports Affairs Council Minister Tai hsia-ling at an inter-ministerial meeting aimed at figuring out ways and means to keep the CPBL afloat.

General Manager Hung Rei-ho of Brother Elephants, one of Taiwan's four professions baseball teams, is considering disbanding the team after 14 of the Elephants' players and coaches were accused of colluding with gambling syndicates to throw games in the recently concluded CPBL regular season.

After three hours of discussions at the meeting, the representatives of the Sports Affairs Council, National Police Administration, Ministry of Justice and the CPBL's four teams reached consensus on the means towards reforming Taiwan's professional baseball league.

Most importantly, they agreed, there is need for a process by which the district prosecutors' offices in the teams' home cities could “adopt” a team and provide legal counseling for its players and management.

The four CPBL teams are based in Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung.

In addition, the meeting participants agreed that the management of the baseball teams should be required to take better care of the players and be better informed of their individual situations. Police units should establish links with the teams to better monitor possible game rigging schemes and to protect players from being harassed or threatened by gambling rings, it was also agreed.

Banciao prosecutors on Oct. 26 launched an investigation into allegations of game fixing during the CPBL's 2009 season, dealing another harsh blow to the professional league's already tainted image.

So far, 32 people, including 14 Elephants players and coaches and 18 alleged members of gambling rings, have been listed as defendants, with six of them being detained for their roles in the latest game-fixing case.

The CPBL almost imploded at the height of its popularity in 1996 and 1997 because of a massive gambling scandal in which players were accosted by gangsters and forced in some cases to throw games, resulting in the disbanding of three teams between 1997 and 1999 and charges being brought against a number of players and officials.

In December 2004, a total of 22 players were convicted of fraud for game fixing related to the charges, but their sentences, ranging from seven to 22 months, were suspended. The players, however, were blacklisted from the league in any capacity.

Another gambling scandal that implicated a number of foreign players erupted in 2005, dealing another blow to the league just as it seemed to be regaining its credibility with fans.

The problem was compounded in 2008 when the management of one of the CPBL's franchises, the Dmedia T-Rex, was alleged to be colluding with local gangsters to fix games.

The team was immediately expelled, and when the Chinatrust Whales pulled out a month later, the league was left with just four teams.

Meanwhile, Tsao Chin-hui, the Brothers Elephants pitcher who was among the defendants in the latest case, issued a statement earlier Tuesday, denying his involvement in the scheme.

Tsao, the first Taiwan pitcher to ever play in the Major League in the United States, apologized to his fans for what he described as “making friends with the wrong person.”

Tsao, a very popular player, was referring to Huang Chun-chung, a former La New Bears pitcher who allegedly served as a middleman between the players in question and a gambling syndicate.

Huang reportedly invited Tsao several times to parties hosted by Tsai Cheng-yi, the man allegedly behind the gambling syndicate.

In the latest development in the investigation into the case, Nakagomi Shin, the deposed Brothers Elephants manager who was arrested by airport police while trying to leave Taiwan Monday, was released by prosecutors on bail of NT$80,000.