Taipei Times
Date: Apr 26, 2020
By: AP, New Taipei City

When Wang Wei-chen had a base hit for the CTBC Brothers, no one booed or cheered from the stands at the Sinjhuang Baseball Stadium in New Taipei City, no one hurled insults at the umpires, and no one yelled the Chinese-language line of encouragement “add oil” to either team.

The 12,150 blue plastic seats on Friday night were devoid of fans for the game between the CTBC Brothers and the Fubon Guardians, down from the average crowd of 6,000 at local professional baseball games. No fans have come to any local games since play started on April 11.

The five-team CPBL is barring spectators over concerns of spreading COVID-19 in a crowded space, but the league decided it was safe to let in players, coaches, cheerleaders, costumed mascots, mask-wearing batboys and the media, as the nation has relatively few cases of the coronavirus.

“We’d like to have fans coming into the stadium to cheer us on, yet due to the outbreak, they can’t,” said Wang, an infielder for the Brothers. “We are still lucky, since we have not stopped our season and people can still see us in this way.”    [FULL  STORY]