Baseball: Getting Ready for the Asia Series
With efforts of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL), the Asia Series is back once again and is scheduled to be held from Nov. 25 onward. Since this year saw the realignment of the China Baseball League (CBL), no teams from the CBL will participate in this year’s event.
Therefore, the executive committee of the Asia Series decided to invite the Australian Baseball League (ABL) and thus formed the stage for the fight for number one title among the four champions of Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia.
The Perth Heats from Australia is the 2010~2011 season champion of the ABL. Since the ABL is held from every November to the following year’s January, the Perth Heats is in fact the league champion from last year’s season. Nevertheless, this team composes of many athletes from the Minor League of the US.
The Korea Professional Baseball (KPB) is represented by Samsung Lions and is the third time the team has entered the Asia Series. The Samsung Lions entered the Asia Series in 2005 and 2006, and won the runners-up in 2005.
The champion team of the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) won the title of the previous four Asia Series (formerly known as Konami Cup). This year, the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks of the Pacific League won the “Number One” title of the NPB, which will then represent the NPB to participate in the Asia Series.
The Fukuoka Softbank Hawks currently boasts the strongest team formation ever to be seen in the NPB.
