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Charming Wei Chuan Dragons Stadium: Is The Stadium Worth Visiting?
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If you’re a baseball fan and visiting Taipei during the CPBL season (Chinese Professional Baseball League), you have a couple of choices gto choose from in Taipei. There’s the Fubon Guardians, which I wrote about earlier, and there’s the Wei Chuan Dragons.
The Wei Chuan Dragons
The Dragons have an interesting history. They were a founding team, one of the original teams that started the CPBL. They had great success in the 90’s, winning the league in 1990, 1997, 1998, 1999. After the 1999 season it was announced the Wei Chuan Food Corporation, which owned the team, was disbanding it. It seems unprecedented and cruel to the fans, to disband a team after a season ending in a championship but that’s exactly what happened.
Fast forward 20 years: The team gets re-established in 2019 and plays as a minor league team in 2020 before rejoining the CPBL for the 2021 season. In 2023 the Dragons won the championship. They were back to their winning ways.
The Stadium
Out of all three baseball stadiums that I watched a game at, the Taipei Tianmu Baseball Stadium was by far the best. It has a large open concourse area with everything decked out in Wei Chaun Dragons signage and displays. The team store is located right next to the ticket booth and was popping when I went to it. People were definitely buying a bunch Wei Chuan Dragons apparel, hats, and other merchandise.
Tickets were easy to purchase, I just walked right up to the ticket booth on gameday and got a ticket down the first base line for (500 NTD, $15.56 USD).
Once you walk into the stadium, there’s another concourse area with a bunch of food tents. There’s also additional food stalls inside the stadium. There’s a variety of food and snacks in general at this stadium to munch on while enjoying a Wei Chuan Dragons game.
I opted for some sweet potato balls (80 NTD, $2.49 USD) and a cup of fries with honey mustard sauce drizzled over them (135 NTD, $4.20 USD) . Of course if you wanted to, you could bring in outside food and drinks as well with no issues which also provides further food and drink options!
Walking around the stadium reminded me of a tiny Major League Baseball stadium. There’s a lot of banners, flags, lights hanging, and player portraits as well as portraits of the Wei Chuan Dragons cheerleaders hanging on the stadium pillars. It’s fun little atmosphere and definitely stood out amongst the stadiums that I visted while in Taiwan.
It’s a well cared for field and looks fantastic. With the stadium only seating about 10,500 people, it’s quite initmate as well. As with every game in the CPBL, a Wei Chuan Dragons game is a boisterous affair. Despite the rainy weather during the game I went to the cheers, songs, chants, were very much present.
Even though there were a lot of fans that had retreated to the inside of the stadium as the weather worsened, the crowd still watching the gam outside was very loud and enthusiastic. It really does make a big difference to the atmosphere and the game a lot more fun and entertaining.
Is Taipei Tianmu Baseball Stadium Worth Visiting?
If you’re a baseball fan and only have time to watch one game and one team while in Taipei then a Wei Chuan Dragons at Taipei Tianmu Baseball Stadium is the team and stadium to visit. No offense to the Fubon Guardians, but the Taipei Tianmu Baseball Stadium is certainly superior and offers a much better gameday experience. There’s more food options, the team store is larger, and the team (the year I went) was better. It’s an overall fun experience and is definitely worth catching a game at!
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Watching A Fubon Guardians Game In Taipei Is Both Memorable Experience
The Fubon Guardians
Baseball is an incredibly popular sport in Taiwan. The Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) is the six-team professional baseball league in Taiwan. Established in 1989, the league kicked off its inaugural season in 1990.
Through the years the league has both expanded and contracted , with four defunct teams and one team – the Wei Chuan Dragons that folded and was brought back (in 2020). The stadiums are tiny in comparison to those in the US and Japan but that makes the experience even more intimate and the fan experience even more fun. You can really get a feel for the passion that fans have for Taiwan baseball.
Throughout my time in Taiwan I was able to see games in three of the six ballparks with the Tainan City Unilions playing in every game I saw (coincidentally). So, in a way, and by sheer coincidence, I became a Unilion fan.
Fubon Guardians History
The Fubon Guardians play their home games in the Xinzhuang District in Taipei. The team has gone through several name changes as ownership has changed four times since the team’s initial inception in 1993. The team has from the Jungo Bears to Sinon, Bulls to EDA Rhinos, to the current Fubon Guardians.
Playing in Taipei, the Guardians are one of two teams in Taiwan’s capital. Taipei is the only city that currently has two teams. The Guardians play their home games at Xinzhuang Baseball Stadium which can seat up to 12,500 people. The stadium is in the middle of a large sports park.
The Game Experience
Tickets are easy to come by and you can easily walk right up to a ticket booth the day of the game and purchase a Fubon Guardians ticket. They have a variety of seating options to choose from and seats are very affordable. I got a seat along the first base line at field level for only 500 NTD ($15.58 USD).
You can bring in outside food and drinks and I just walked right in with a backpack with no one checking it or anything. I could certainly tell I wasn’t going to a baseball game in the US.
Of course, being in Taiwan the concessions were are a little different than what you might find in the US. There’s Taiwanese fried chicken, boba tea, sushi, a Family Mart (a popular convenience store chain in Asia), and many other stalls selling Taiwanese centric food and snacks.
There’s also familiar fast food places like McDonald’s and Dominos here too. I grabbed some fried chicken, a bag of seaweed flavored chips and a tea and soaked it all in.
Even though the stadium was small and not overly packed, it was very lively. The fans and enthusiasm was awesome. There’s essentially what amounts to a “hype man” that leads the crowds with singing, chants, and various arm movements, the ENTIRE game. This doesn’t fall onto deaf ears with the crowd very much engaged and following the “hype man’s” lead. Everyone is chanting, singing, and mimicking the “hype man” so it does get pretty loud. The crowd also goes wild with every ball in play. A hard hit ball, a double play, a fly out, there’s a lot of oohs and ahhs and genuine excitement for routine baseball plays.
There’s also Guardian cheerleaders, yes, cheerleaders at a baseball game, that are on top of the dugouts dancing. It just adds to the entertainment value and atmosphere of the game and really fits right into everything that’s going on.
I’ve been to a baseball game in Japan and this was a very similar atmosphere albeit in a smaller size. It’s so much different than watching a game in the US. The fans are there having a great time, are really engaged in every pitch, and are super passionate for their teams which they aren’t afraid to show! It’s a really fun time and is great way to wind down after a long day of doing touristy things.
