Min-Hsiung Liao

Min-Hsiung Liao (廖敏雄)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 11", Weight 187 lb.

• School Chinese Cultural University
• High School Meiho High School

• Born October 18, 1968 in Hengchun, Pingtung Taiwan

BR Register page

Biographical Information

Min-Hsiung Liao won a home run title and came close to two others in his four full seasons in the Chinese Professional Baseball League.

Liao played for Taiwan in the 1986 World Junior Championship, 1989 Asian Championship, 1989 Intercontinental Cup and 1990 Asian Games. In the 1990 Baseball World Cup, he was 2 for 11 with a double, backing up Wei-Chen Chen in center field and Kuei-Chang Tseng in right. He hit .375/.429/.719 with 3 homers and 7 RBI in nine games in the 1992 Olympics while playing error-free ball in center. He tied Victor Mesa, Shinichi Sato, Antonio Pacheco and Orestes Kindelan for third in the Barcelona games in homers, trailing Omar Linares and Koji Tokunaga by one. In the Gold Medal game, he was 1 for 3 against Giorge Diaz from the 9th spot in the batting order as Taiwan was routed 11-1 by Cuba to settle for a Silver.

When the China Times Eagles formed in 1993, Liao joined the team. He had a great season that year, hitting .291/.361/.515. He led the CPBL with 60 RBI (in 90 games) and his 18 home runs were two behind leader Leo Garcia. He was third in slugging. Liao also fielded .985 and had 15 outfield assists, winning him a CPBL Gold Glove. He made the Best Nine as one of the top three flyhawks in the loop, alongside Chu-Ming Lee and Kuei-Chang Tseng.

In 1994, Liao produced at a .297/.354/.560 rate with 24 home runs, 65 runs and 70 RBI in 90 games. He stole 15 bases in 19 tries, had 12 assists and fielded .995, making only one error. He was 4th in RBI (5 behind George Hinshaw), second in runs (5 behind Epy Guerrero Jr.), 2nd in homers (1 behind Sil Campusano), 5th in steals (18 behind I-Tseng Lin) and 6th in slugging (.019 behind Hinshaw). He again won a Gold Glove and joined Chu-Ming Lee and Hinshaw as the Best Ten picks in the outfield.

The Hengchun native hit .289/.374/.538 in 1995 and went deep 22 times with 66 RBI in 98 games. He was third in the CPBL in slugging (.21 behind Chin-Mao Chen), placed fourth in RBI (6 behind Luis de los Santos and Hinshaw) and tied Hinshaw for the home run crown. He failed to crack the Best Ten this time as Hinshaw, Cheng-Hsien Chen and Cesar Hernandez were selected as the flyhawks. As his defense fell off (.974 fielding, 6 assists), he also failed to win a Gold Glove for the first time.

Everything went wrong for Liao in 1996 as he managed just a .225/.307/.418 batting line. He was recovering in 1997 with a .320/.393/.523 season with 40 RBI in 47 games when a game-fixing scandal broke that ended up destroying the entire Eagles team. Liao was banned for life from the CPBL as were some teammates. Liao managed the Chinese national team in the 2003 Baseball World Cup and the China Baseball League's Shanghai Golden Eagles in 2004. In September 2009, he returned to his alma mater, Chinese Cultural University, as hitting coach. He was the manager for them from 2016 to 2023.

Overall, Liao had hit .283/.356/.514 in his 5-year CPBL career with 84 homers and 279 RBI in 416 games. He had fielded .985 with 38 assists in 345 games as well.

Sources

• CPBL Player Page
• Defunct IBAF site
• Chinese Wiki Baseball