CPBL | Hero Valley, and the Confetti (Guanqian Road, Taipei)

The victory parade turned off 襄陽路 into 館前路 at about half past three on the afternoon of 26 November 2024, and the confetti came down. Somebody had already named this stretch 英雄谷 — hero valley — for the day: four blocks of office towers between the National Taiwan Museum and Taipei Main Station, narrow enough to hold noise, tall enough to throw paper from.

Two days earlier Taiwan had beaten Japan 4:0 in Tokyo to win the Premier12 and, with it, the first world title in the history of Taiwanese senior baseball. The squad had landed at 桃園 the night before to a terminal full of people. The parade started at the 凱達格蘭大道 junction with 公園路 at 15:20, ran through 襄陽路 and this canyon, turned along 忠孝西路 and up 重慶南路, and reached the Presidential Office around 15:50, where the president and vice-president were waiting to receive them. Volunteers handed out small TEAM TAIWAN flags from eight tents along the route. Cheer squads from all six CPBL clubs performed 台灣尚勇, the song the tournament had adopted.

It was organised in about forty-eight hours, which is why it worked. Nobody had planned for the team to win.

館前路 is an ordinary commercial street on any other day — banks, bookshops, lunch queues, a five-minute walk from Taipei Main Station's M6 exit. Stand at the museum end and look north up the canyon; that is the shot every broadcaster used.

📸 Cover: Photo by Kiyoteru Awaji, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons — 館前路 seen from in front of the National Taiwan Museum, 2019.