《TAIPEI TIMES》 President honors baseball champs CTBC Brothers

By Jason Pan / Staff reporter

President Tsai Ing-wen （蔡英文） yesterday received Taiwan’s CPBL pro league champions the CTBC Brothers at a reception where she endorsed a new plan for the national team.

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Vice President William Lai （賴清德） and other officials were at the Presidential Office Building to welcome the CTBC Brothers, who were led by club owner Jeffrey Koo Jr （辜仲諒） and team manager Lin Wei-chu （林威助）. They were joined by the team’s six cheerleaders.

CTBC’s star catcher, Francisco Pena, a former Major League player from the Dominican Republic, told reporters that he was very honored to be received by Taiwan’s president.

“It is very special that Taiwan has a woman president,” he said. “It means that girls growing up in this country can aspire to become the president... I also have a daughter, maybe she can be encouraged, and also aspire to be a future president.”

“My family back home will be very proud of me,” he added.

It was the second time the team had visited the office, as they have won the CPBL champsionship two years in a row, Tsai said in a speech.

She also congratulated six of the team’s players for their stellar performance during the World Baseball Classic （WBC） Pool A games in Taichung.

Tsai thanked CPBL commissioner Tsai Chi-chang （蔡其昌）, who is deputy speaker of the Legislative Yuan, for providing support during the WBC, and praised him for initiating a plan to upgrade the national team’s resources and improve their training regime.

Lai said that Koo, who is also the president of the Baseball Federation of Asia, did well to win the bid for Taiwan to host the Pool A games in Taichung, which were mainly sponsored by his family’s conglomerate CTBC Financial.

“During games, we are all brothers who rally for our players. When facing other countries ... we all support Taiwan,” Lai said.

Koo and team officials gifted Tsai and Lai with No. 100 CTBC Brothers jerseys to denote a full score of 100.

Lai said jokingly that it was somewhat awkward, because he is a well-known supporter of the Tainan-based Uni-President Lions, as he represented the city as a legislator and served two terms as the city’s mayor.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES