Taipei, Feb. 18 (CNA) The defending champion Brother Elephants will meet the Sinon Bulls in Kaohsiung on March 19 to open this year's professional baseball season, Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) announced Friday.
The Elephants will meet the Bulls on opening day in a rematch of the 2010 Taiwan Series -- won by Brother in a four-game sweep -- to kick off a 240-game regular season that will conclude on Sept. 25 and be followed by the Taiwan Series starting Oct. 14.
A long period is left between the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs to accommodate games played to make up for the many rainouts that hit the league during the summer.
The central city of Taichung will host the most number of games, with 40 at the Taichung Baseball Stadium and 22 at the Intercontinental Baseball Stadium. Another 40 games will be played in the northern city of Taoyuan.
The league was forced to move games away from the greater Taipei area because Taipei City will host the IBAF Little League Championship in the first half of the year, according to the league.
A four-team professional league established in 1990, the CPBL consists of the Elephants, the Bulls, the Lamigo Monkeys, which was formerly known as the La New Bears, and the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions.
The league's All-Star Games will be played July 23 and 24. Twelve exhibition games are scheduled from March 5-15. (By Chris Wang) enditem/ls