When it comes to professional sports, basketball is king in Taiwan. But much like America, baseball used to be the end all be all.
While it doesn't compare to the NBA, the MLB is pretty popular here, especially those teams with Taiwanese players. The World Baseball Classic and other international competitions are when Taiwanese are the most fanatic and those who never watch baseball will tune in to watch. 50% is to support Taiwan, 50% is to see the Asian countries they hate, lose.
The professional league here is dying out. It is down to only four teams. It was very popular but over the years it was brought down by rampant game fixing for gambling, best players going abroad, and lack of young players coming up.
Youth baseball was something to be extremely proud of here. In fact the 500 dollar bill commemorates back when Taiwan owned the little league world series, pretty much winning the whole decade of the 70s and having 17 total championships. However if you bother to actually look up where those teams were from, you will see they were from the countryside and cities that at the time were the countryside. Now with most of the population living in the big cities, there is no space for baseball fields and the love of basketball has taken over.
The picture is of a baseball field along the riverside. On weekends there are recreational softball teams, but this is the first time i'd actually seen anybody play baseball. I don't know exactly who they were though. they had nice uniforms and all seemed to be college age. The best bet would be a college team, but in taiwan there really isn't anything like organized sports teams that represent your school, i.e. a Taiwanese NCAA.
So I will just make up my own story that they were ghosts from a long gone time where baseball ruled Taiwan. Considering how much Taiwanese believe that there are ghosts everywhere and how much money they spend to avoid ghosts, i think a ghost baseball team makes sense. Oh get ready for my pun...
