Taipei Dome
September 2025
On a whim while planning our trip to Taiwan, I looked into whether the domestic baseball league would be in season while we would be in the country. We like to attend MLB or minor league games wherever we travel in the US (see Detroit), but had never done so overseas.
Turns out the only CPBL game that would work for our schedule was the September 6 matchup between the TSG Hawks and Wei Chuan Dragons at the Taipei Dome (set #3). Figuring out how to buy tickets for this game was difficult. According to a Facebook post on a Taiwan traveler’s group, tickets are sold via Chinese-language kiosks in FamilyMart convenience stores.
This seemed intimidating to say the least, so I was relieved to find that the travel website Klook was selling tickets to the game we needed, albeit at a hefty markup. At last, a “convenience fee” that actually provides convenience!
A few things about this process hinted that we would not be attending a normal baseball game. Neither the Dragons (from Hsinchu) nor the Hawks (from Kaohsiung) actually play in Taipei. The Taipei Dome games were the only baseball tickets offered by Klook. And everything I could find about this series referenced the retirement of Lin Chih-sheng, the 43-year-old Dragons designated hitter who holds just about every CPBL batting record.
Okay, so this will be something different.
On gameday we picked up our paper tickets from the Klook desk at the stadium (an ordeal in itself). Immediately after entering, we were each given a red t-shirt commemorating Lin’s career (“REDEFINING GREATNESS WITH EVERY SWING”) and a light-up wand. More clues that something was different.
We found our seats and noticed that our lights, with their 31CONIC logos, would flash and change color in sync with every other wand in the stadium. The “home” Dragons were introduced, and every player was wearing #31 in honor of Lin Chih-sheng, whose indigenous Amis name is Ngayaw Ake.
Baseball is the same whether it is played in an overgrown lot in rural Texas, in Yankee Stadium, or in Tokyo. Every team has 27 outs. Every batter gets four balls or three strikes. The basics of baseball serve as the blank canvas on which the differences between two places are painted:
Taiwanese baseball has cheerleaders.
Taiwanese baseball has yell leaders who scream to start chants between every at-bat.
Taiwanese baseball has a brass band that stands on the dugout and plays fight songs.
Taiwanese baseball has an assortment of meats that are cooked to order, including whole octopus tentacles.
Taiwanese baseball has smoke shows and pyrotechnics.
When Taiwan’s greatest-ever baseball player retires, the field transforms into a raucous concert by popstar and Queen of Mandopop A-Mei, another important voice for Taiwan’s indigenous people alongside honoree Ngayaw Ake.
When Taiwan’s greatest-ever baseball player retires, he is serenaded by A-Mei as he is lifted to the ceiling in an almost religious ceremony as his 40,000 adoring fans in the sold-out Taipei Dome grow misty-eyed.
This was one of the greatest travel experiences of our lives.
For more, see this article, and/or watch Jomboy’s take here.
Recipes: Reggie’s Portra, Classic Cuban Negative
Taiwan Photosets:
Taipei Days
Taipei Museums
Taipei Nights
Jiufen/Shifen
Taichung
Sun Moon Lake
Food
Baseball
