Founded 1997 | ||
Taipei Gida (台北太陽) was a Taiwanese professional baseball team that existed from 1997 to 2002. It was one of the four Taiwan Major League (TML) teams and was based in Taipei, Taiwan. Its historical sponsors included local Sampo Corporation 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).
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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'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 starting 1992. Strangely, Chen's applications were repeatedly rejected, so he decided to cooperate with TVBS's then-chairman Chiu Fu-sheng (邱復生) 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 Chinese Professional Baseball League in early 2003, the team was absorbed by First Financial Holdings Agan and later La New Bears.