Chin-Mao Chen

Chin-Mao Chen (陳金茂)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 10", Weight 172 lb.

• School Fu Jen Catholic University
• High School Chung-Hua High School

• Born October 7, 1963 in Hualien County Taiwan

BR register page

Biographical Information

Chin-Mao Chen played 11 seasons in the Chinese Professional Baseball League.

Chen played for Taiwan in the 1987 World Port Tournament. He was 3 for 11 with four walks, a triple, five runs and five RBI in the 1988 Baseball World Cup, backing up Tzung-Chiu Lin at DH. He also was with Taiwan for the 1988 Olympics. When the Chinese Professional Baseball League formed in 1990, Chen joined the Wei Chuan Dragons. He hit .295/.366/.432 to place 10th in the new circuit in average. Chen became the first player to steal home in CPBL history, and he did it on July 28. He led with seven sacrifice flies. He fell to .269/.316/.408 in 1991 (though he did hit the first grand slam in team history against Ming-Shan Kang), then batted .248/.299/.438 with a career-high 17 home runs in 88 games in 1992, finishing 5th in the CPBL in long balls. He was the first player to hit a homer in 4 consecutive games.

In 1993, the Hualien native hit .271/.310/.420 for the Dragons, then .264/.323/.433 in 1994. He improved to .320/.361/.559 in 1995 and would have been fifth in average had he qualified. In 1996, the 32-year-old put up a .312/.372/.448 line. Moving from catcher to first base in 1997, he hit .296/.337/.466. Chen batted .328/.419/.479 in 1998 and fielded .999 in 1998. He won the Gold Glove at first base, finished fifth in the league in OBP and fourth in average (behind Jay Kirkpatrick, Ty Gainey and Chiung-Lung Huang). He did not take Best Ten honors as those went to slugger Wen-Bin Chen. Chen faded fast in 1999, to .206/.264/.278. In the 1999 Taiwan Series, Chen hit a walk-off single against Carlos Mirabal of the Chinatrust Whales in Game 5 and helped the Dragons win their third consecutive title. When the Dragons folded, he joined the Sinon Bulls in 2000. The old-timer batted .264/.348/.351 in his final season. He later became a youth baseball coach.

Chen wore six different numbers in his 11 seasons, only one of them for more than two years. This is a CPBL record. The numbers were 22, 00, 88, 55, 77 and 99.

Overall, Chen hit .283/.342/.436 818 hits, 164 doubles and 90 homers in 11 seasons in CPBL.

Sources

• CPBL Player Page
• Chinese Wiki Baseball