In 2020, Taiwan’s CPBL (Chinese Professional Baseball League) was the first to play regular season ball anywhere in the entire world. They’ll also soon become the first to welcome fans in as spectators. And as it turns out, there’s a strong American connection to one of the CPBL’s leading media figures, Richard Wang (RWang_WBSC on Twitter.,
Wang, who announced games in the CPBL, describes himself as a “die-hard Red Sox fan (and #1 Red Sox fan in Taiwan now).” His nickname is literally Boston, and he lived in the greater Boston area for nine years (Boston, Brookline, Malden, Melrose and Belmont).
Both his email address and cellular phone number name homage to the city.
“After I returned to Taiwan in 2000, I registered my mobile phone number to end with “617508”, both are area codes of greater Boston area,” the WBSC Baseball Asia Correspondent and FOX Sports MLB Broadcaster/Commentator (TWN) told us by e-mail.
His first Beantown apartment was on 1179 Boylston Street; right next to Fenway Park.
“On the nights when the ballgame is on, I would turn off the lights in my living room of my split apartment and “invite” the lightings from Fenway Park into my living room,” Wang added.
“While listening to Joe Castiglione and Jerry Trupiano on WEEI 850 (it also helped me to improve my listening comprehension).. and I still remember Dale Arnold, Eddie Andelman (The A-Team), John Dennis and Gerry Callahan (Dennis and Callahan Show).”
As Wang pointed out, he was strongly influenced by some of the more famous Red Sox announcers.
He also covered Major League Baseball between 1998-2000 for a baseball magazine in Taiwan.
“I used the penname “Boston” to write articles and it has become my nickname since,” he continued. “Everyone in the Taiwanese baseball industry calls me “Boston.”
Wang’s email address references the 1918 World Series champion Red Sox, a topic that’s both close to our hearts, as the Chicago Cubs were their opponents, and relevant to today’s pandemic. As almost all of the sporting world is on pause right now, amid the coronavirus pandemic, it’s astounding to think that a World Series was actually played during 1918, in the midst of the terror and destruction brought on by the Spanish Flu.
During the centennial of this series, we both reviewed a book and did a podcast on this very topic.
“I do remember this part of the history! And that was the time when Babe Ruth is still with us!” he responded when we brought up the topic. We also got his thoughts on whether or not he believes we’ll see the Red Sox, and the rest of MLB play this season at all.
“With the circumstance we are in right now, it would be difficult to think that ahead,” he answered.
“If MLB is to start the season it would be a shortened one, and the World Series, if there is one, wouldn’t be like anything we’ve had before.”
“I believe that if MLB is going to start its season, they must overcome the issues with logistics and limit the travel as much as they can. When I was asked this question by Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe, I proposed to have six 5-team division in only six cities/venues in order to limit travel.”
“I recently read the proposal of having three 10-team division while playing in each team’s homefield and I think it is extremely risky to do so.”
If MLB is going to have a 2020 season, then Wang believes they “must limit the travel as much as they can.”
“We are a small country of only 14,000 square miles,” he said. “The maximum travel is from New Taipei City (Guardians) to Tainan (Lions), a 180 miles and it takes about 3 and 1/2 hours to drive.”
If we’re to actually have big time pro and/or college sports in America in 2020, a lot has to happen first, and all that’s been going wrong on that front needs to start going right, and soon. There was some great news today though on the vaccine front, with Pfizer believing they’re on the path to progress.
If their vaccine candidate is proven to be safe and effective, it would be produced in Michigan, and that could be a game-changer for American sports leagues come late 2020/early 2021.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly contributes to WGN TV, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Now and SB Nation.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for Chicago Tribune.com, on Twitter and his cat on Instagram.