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How Taiwan cheated to create the most dominant little league team in little league world series history
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Content
Statistically speaking winning the little league world series is one of the hardest things to do.
In sports the republic of china won this tournament.
Without giving up a single hit one year literally banned every single international team just because they were too good.
They went over a decade without losing a single game and over a three decade.
Span outscored their opponents 661-82 they also caused multiple riots during world series games government spies and activists who beat each other with baseball bats in the bleachers multiple police helicopters to be deployed and multiple quote terrorists to be arrested this all occurred during little league games and was the result of a cheating system designed by the government solely to use little league as a propaganda tool to overthrow the communist regime when asked what it was like, to play on the republic of china.
One of their players.
Said quote it was like hell.
Another player, says their coach threatened to kill them if they lost a few years.
Later.
This coach was sentenced to prison for cheating in little league.
A player was paralyzed due to overtraining and a few decades later over.
Half the team was dead from alcohol abuse.
These 12 year olds were the most famous athletes in their home country, but in america they were accused of being adult.
Midgets hired by their dictator were booed and abused by american fans until they were caught in an act of cheating so egregious they were forced to stop playing little league baseball.
All together.
The most famous little league team from the republic of china was the first little league team from the republic of china and also by far the most tragic in 1968.
A team from hong yang elementary school won the country's national youth baseball tournament and were invited to play an exhibition game against a team from japan, which typically isn't really a big deal until the government got involved, which led to a coach being arrested, a new state-sponsored cheating system, most likely ruined the lives of most of the kids on the team, while simultaneously making them the most famous people on the island.
After world war ii, taiwan was given to the republic of china, who was in the middle of getting destroyed by the communist party in a civil war.
The communists took over the mainland and the previous government of china now only controlled taiwan by the mid-60s.
Basically, the entire world recognized that the communist party was the ruling government, but the former government who fled to taiwan still called themselves.
The republic of china claimed to be the real china and planned on invading the mainland and retaking the land they lost and somehow someway dominating little league baseball became a massive part of this plan.
The game between hyung yang elementary school and the little league team from japan was supposed to be a friendly exhibition, but the republic of china saw this as an opportunity to show that they were superior to japan, who used to control taiwan.
So the government sent the kids from taiwan to a remote military base to train for an entire month.
Coaches lined up players and fired fastballs at their chest, so they wouldn't be scared of the ball.
One player says the coach threatened to kill them if they lost in a taiwanese newspaper reported.
Their training schedule was so serious.
Two of the coaches children died because he didn't have time to take them to the hospital.
Hong yang beat japan three out of four games.
These three games were all won by the same pitcher, who threw an insane 20 innings.
In four days.
The games were nationally televised.
Over 30 thousand fans came to watch the final game and since the press lied and said they beat the little league world series champions.
The players instantly became national heroes.
Sadly, it was discovered that nine of them used fake identities.
Most of the players didn't even live where the school was located and the ones that did usually didn't even go to class.
Six of them were overraged, and one eleven-year-old on the team was already married.
A year later, their principal coach and administrator were sentenced to a two-year suspended sentence for forging the kids identities, but the government covered this up completely and the public never found out.
Two years later, the coach died in a car accident.
The players played baseball full time at 12 and never got an education.
One player ended up paralyzed due to over training and tragically half the team died before the age of 50 due to alcohol abuse.
Nonetheless, this team made youth baseball the most popular sport in the country, prompting the republic of china to create their first official little league team and had them cheat even more.
Their first team dominated their way directly to the little league world series.
The players were noticeably smaller than the rest of the teams.
The perception was that they were a group of aborigines from a village in the mountains that learn baseball with sticks and stones.
According to one player, they didn't even wear shoes during competitions and when they left taiwan, the villagers sacrificed a pig in their honor, so they seemed like massive underdogs.
In reality, they were perhaps the most unfair team ever assembled.
35 000 people came to watch them win the championship in 1969, which was a little league world series record, but in taiwan they had played in front of a crowd of fifty thousand when they got home.
They were over.
Thirty thousand just to see them get off the plane and over half a million people came to their parade.
These twelve-year-olds were literally the most famous people on the island.
It's important to understand around this time the u.s stopped giving aid to taiwan.
They were expelled from the united nations in the olympics.
They were banned from using the name republic of china and didn't really win any medals.
Anyway.
The little league world series was basically the only international platform the republic of china was allowed to participate in.
So the government made it one of their top priorities, and this is when things got ugly.
The republic of china organized a program that hired full-time coaches required players to live in dorms and practice all year round.
They were not expected to go to class players, would wake up at 6 00 a.m, train over nine hours a day which included having pitchers throw 300 pitches a day in training according to little league.
All of this is illegal, but they would be caught for much worse in 1971, the only runs taiwan allowed.
The entire tournament came from a three-run homer by future major leaguer, lloyd mclendon, who had the most insane stat line in little league history.
He was intentionally walked 10 times in his other at-bats.
He was 5 for 5 with 5 home runs.
Taiwan had a player just as dominant in the finals he outdueled mclendon, throwing a little league record 22 strikeouts in nine innings.
He became a celebrity in taiwan for this performance.
Today he works in a factory, refuses to talk to the media and denies ever playing in the little league world series when taiwan beat mclendon's team.
A taiwanese newspaper referred to him.
As quote gorilla mcsomething.
Other newspapers wrote that the win proved that they were the most outstanding nation and race that the chinese republic and chinese race must be revived and that they were now the giants of the world and better than those quote communist ping-pong players and using little league as blatant propaganda.
Like this upset a ton of people every year.
The government would organize travel for thousands of chinese americans to come to the world series.
They were given flags and signs that supported the republic of china.
This was essentially advertising for the government, who did not want their name replaced by names like taiwan or chinese taipei, because to them they were still the rightful leaders of china.
However, many taiwanese people did not like the government and wanted taiwanese independence.
They showed up to protest this pissed off the government who hired spies and chinatown gang members from new york city to intimidate these activists in 1971.
The championship was delayed when they ran onto the field to rip down a banner that said: go team taiwan, causing a fight and local police to send a helicopter to secure the stadium that same year, activists hired a plane to fly a banner over the field that read long live taiwan independence the next year, the republic of china, rented every single commercial aircraft in the area to prevent this from happening again.
They also sent their marines who ended up fighting activists with baseball bats during the game.
Beyond the left field fence, some activists were beaten taken to the hospital or even arrested and deemed as terrorists around this time.
These 12 year olds were so good.
They were legitimately hated in america for the next two decades.
They were booed, harassed and constantly accused of cheating.
Taiwan won the little league world series in 1971, giving up only three runs on one home run.
They won in 1972 after giving up only one run the entire tournament in 1973 they broke five offensive records, outscored their opponents 57-2-0 and in the most mind-boggling stat in little league world series history.
They won the tournament without giving up a single hit in williamsport they marched everywhere.
They went two by two didn't go to the pool or play ping pong with the other teams and all of a sudden.
Their players were now bigger than their coaches.
When they took the field in 1973, they were booed.
One opposing coach said that he coached children, while the taiwanese kids were robots.
Another coach said that if the kids from taiwan are 12 year olds, then I'm 3 years old and it was a legitimate rumor and belief that taiwan hired midgets to represent them in the little league world series.
These rumors and domination led little league to investigate taiwan in 1974, but the investigator didn't even know chinese and found nothing saying.
Taiwan was just dedicated the next year.
They returned won the world series, while giving up only one run.
Their second run allowed in three years.
During that stretch, they were so unfair.
They had more world series.
Titles than runs allowed.
Little league knew taiwan was cheating but couldn't punish them because they had no proof.
So in 1975 they banned every single international team from competing, claiming the international teams were taking the tournament too seriously, but taiwan was the only international team that had won a world series that decade, so it seems this was just a roundabout way to get rid of taiwan, which caused taiwan to implement.
Perhaps the most horrific policy in little league history.
Taiwan knew little league was on to them, so when they were reinstated in 1976, they banned three of their best players, saying they were too old to play.
Taiwan took these three players to a hospital to be examined by a doctor who determined by the size of their private parts, were too mature to be 12.
All three players were 12 years old and eligible, but taiwan was so worried.
These players size would make people suspicious they banned them, and this embarrassment led taiwan to implement forms of cheating, never seen in little league history, which caused scandal after scandal, and this is when things began to unravel starting in 1977, taiwan won the world series four times in a row by a combined score of a hundred and twelve two seven, they finally lost in 1982 in an upset.
So shocking espn made a documentary about it.
This was their first little league world series loss in 12 years and ended a 31 game win streak where they outscored their opponents.
317-18, it seemed like taiwan's dynasty might be over.
In 1979, taiwan was forced to stop calling themselves the republic of china during little league games, which dampened the propaganda power of little league in the eyes of the government and after losing in 82, then missing the world series all together.
The next three years it seems like they may have stopped funding cheating all together.
This was not the case.
They returned in 86 instantly, setting two records by beating canada 26 to nothing and won their 12th world series.
The next year they only gave up one run the entire tournament winning the championship 21-2-1 in 1990 they won the world series by a combined score of 43-1 and in 91 they won again by a combined score of 31-3, but two years later they were caught using players outside their district.
However, this cheating was nothing compared to what was about to be discovered after a one-year suspension.
They returned in 95 and seemed to cheat even worse over a two-year stretch.
They went 10-0 outscored opponents, 109-15 set 25 little league records in two years and won their final two world series, because in 1997 they were caught cheating again, but this time it was serious and there were dozens of infractions.
The first one was that their players were essentially professional athletes.
Unlike other countries, taiwan's teams were forced to play all year round, most, if not all were forced to live in dorms, where they were not expected to do schoolwork, but according to one player practiced over nine hours a day.
This was possible for taiwan because their teams were made up of players that all went to the same school, which was legal according to little league, but not the way.
Taiwan did it.
Teams in the little league world series are supposed to be made up of the best players from certain local areas.
When teams get caught cheating, it's usually because it's discovered their players were chosen from areas outside of their boundaries.
Taiwan took this to another level.
Many of these schools essentially acted like college football programs.
They received money to fund their programs, paid full-time coaches and recruited players from across the country to create super teams.
In one extreme example, a player played for eight different schools in nine years.
School and government officials also manipulated zoning to ensure the best players were all on the same team.
Let's say there was a district in taiwan that had a population of a hundred thousand people according to little league.
This area should have at least six teams.
Taiwan would have just one team, then officials would create five fake teams with fake players to make it seem like they were picking from a population of fifteen thousand, when in reality they were picking from a population six times larger and it gets even worse.
Taiwan was split into four districts.
Four tournaments were played to find the best teams in each district.
These teams would then play in the national tournament to decide which team would represent the country.
The teams that won the district tournament likely had already been stacked with illegal players from outside the district, but taiwan still required them to kick off four or five of their worst players, so they could replace them with better players whose teams had already been eliminated.
This likely occurred after the national championship as well.
Nine players on the national champions team would go to williamsport five of their worst.
Players would be sent home and replaced by the other five best players in taiwan who had already been eliminated.
In theory by the time a team won the national championship, their original team could have been entirely replaced by better players, and sometimes even this wasn't enough.
In 1969, after five of the national championship, players were replaced.
Taiwan worried they still weren't strong enough.
They took this team selected 14 of the best players in taiwan.
Split them into two entirely.
New teams then had them play each other took the winning team's five worst players and replaced them with the losing team's five best players, meaning that the 1969 championship team, everyone thought was an underdog from a small village- was actually a national all-star team who picked from a population of 14 million people.
After winning, the world series players were often showered with money from fans everywhere they went.
Parents accused coaches of taking the money from players to keep for themselves and some parents of players who were replaced press charges against officials from keeping their kids from going to williamsport and missing out on this extra money.
All of these cheating methods are outlined in the book playing in isolation, which I highly recommend.
Taiwan's dominance lasted three decades.
So it's hard to know if they used every single one of these methods every single year, but according to one taiwanese baseball official, not a single taiwanese team went to williamsport without cheating, but after decades of investigations and speculation, taiwan seemed to realize the damage they were doing to little league and their players.
And after another investigation in 1997, they voluntarily pulled out of little league competition in 2002.
They rejoined, and now they play by the rules in 20 years, they've made it back to williamsport eight times they finished second in 2009, but haven't won a world series they're still very good at baseball, but unless they start cheating again, they'll never be as good as when they were the most overpowered and illegal little league team in history.
