CPBL | Two Games and Then Nothing (Hsinchu Municipal Baseball Stadium)

新竹市立棒球場 reopened on 22 July 2022 after a rebuild costing around NT$1.2 billion, most of it central government infrastructure money. The president, the league commissioner and the mayor all came to the opening. 味全龍 hosted 富邦悍將 in the first game of the season's second half, and the city had its ballpark back after three years of construction.

It lasted two days. Across 22 and 23 July at least three players were hurt on the field, one of them an outfielder who tore the labrum in his left shoulder diving for a fly ball and needed surgery and roughly eight months out. The league moved the remaining Hsinchu fixtures elsewhere. The ballpark has not staged a professional game since.

Four years of investigation followed. In July 2026 the Control Yuan published its findings and formally censured both the city government and the Ministry of Sports over five serious administrative failures: the ground was opened for professional baseball before the construction contract had passed final inspection; the design-build contractor failed the contract's performance standards, leaving a field that would not drain within thirty minutes and topsoil still full of gravel and lumps of concrete; and the soil covering the underground car park exceeded what the structure was rated to carry, which meant digging it out again. The firm hired to supervise was found to have been, in effect, reviewing its own work.

The stadium stands on 西大路 with its lights up and its gates shut, and the excavation has kept going. 味全龍 ended its agreement with the city in March 2026.

📸 Cover: Photo by T Gordon Cheng, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons — the closed ballpark from the 民富街 corner, December 2023.