Taipei Gida () was a Taiwanese

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Mod ...

team that existed from 1997 to 2002. It was one of the four

Taiwan Major League The Taiwan Major League Professional Baseball (TML; ) was a professional baseball league in Taiwan that operated from 1996 to 2003. It was established by TV tycoon Chiu Fu-sheng after a row over the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) b ...

(TML) teams and was based in

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. Its historical sponsors included local

Sampo Corporation Sampo Corporation () is a major manufacturing company in Taiwan. It manufactures household electrical items, including televisions, air-conditioners, and washing machines. The company has collaborated with Taiwanese company, TCL. It also manufac ...

and Macoto Bank, so the team was called "Taipei Sampo Gida" (台北聲寶太陽) or "Taipei Macoto Gida" (台北誠泰太陽). The team's history could be traced back to 1991 when Sampo Corporation's then chairman Chen Sheng-tian (陳盛沺) started to sponsor

Chinese Culture University The Chinese Culture University (CCU; ) is a private Taiwanese university located in Yangmingshan in Shilin District, Taipei, Taiwan. CCU was established in 1962 and is one of the largest universities in Taiwan with an enrollment of about 32,000 ...

's baseball team. After these student players graduated, Chen formed the amateur baseball team Sampo Giants to host them; he tried to enter the

Chinese Professional Baseball League The Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL; ) is the top-tier professional baseball league in Taiwan. The league was established in 1989 and played the first season in 1990. CPBL eventually absorbed the competing Taiwan Major League in 20 ...

starting 1992. Strangely, Chen's applications were repeatedly rejected, so he decided to cooperate with

TVBS TVBS Media Inc. (), formerly Liann Yee Production Co., Ltd. (), is a Taiwanese commercial television broadcasting company. It was originally established as a joint venture between TVB in Hong Kong and Era Group in Taiwan, but TVB took over Er ...

's then-chairman

Chiu Fu-sheng Chiu Fu-sheng (; born 19 July 1947) is a Taiwanese film producer and real estate developer. Born in Pingtung County in 1947, Chiu is of Hakka descent. He attended the Political Warfare Cadres Academy. Chiu began his career in media as an adverti ...

to form TML and turned Sampo Giants into Taipei Gida. However, Chen finally ceased to support this team by the end of 2000 after long-time losing. Macoto Bank took it up later. The team's historical performance was not bad, winning the championship twice during TML's 6-season short history. This team is also the only TML team that never annually ranked last in the league. After TML's merger with the

in early 2003, the team was absorbed by

First Financial Holdings Agan First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...

and later

La New Bears LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figur ...

Regular season records

*TML Championships: twice, 1998 and 2000

Notable former players

Sam Horn Samuel Lee Horn (born November 2, 1963) is an American former professional baseball player who spent parts of eight seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) and was an anchor for New England Sports Network, the flagship station of Boston sports team ...

Takehiro Ishii Takehiro Ishii (石井丈裕, born October 25, 1964) is a Japanese former professional baseball pitcher. He played for the Japan national baseball team in 1988, and in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) for the Seibu Lions and the Nippon-Ham Fig ...

Lenin Picota Lenin Alberto Picota (born July 23, 1966 in Panama) is a former professional baseball pitcher. He played two seasons in the Korea Baseball Organization for the Hanwha Eagles in 2002–2003. During his career, Picota has gone by multiple names, h ...

Keith Dishart Keith may refer to: People and fictional characters * Keith (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters * Keith (surname) * Keith (singer), American singer James Keefer (born 1949) * Baron Keith, a line of Scottish barons ...

External links

* {{CPBL Defunct baseball teams in Taiwan Baseball teams established in 1997 Baseball teams disestablished in 2002 Sport in Taipei Companies based in Taipei 1997 establishments in Taiwan 2002 disestablishments in Taiwan