Monkeys Hit 3 Home Runs in a Row
On September 22, the Lamigo Monkeys became the eighth CPBL team in the league’s history to hit three home runs in three consecutive at-bats.
The Monkeys came into the bottom of the seventh trailing the Brothers 4-1. Facing the Brothers’ Casey Harman, the Monkeys 7-8-9 hitters managed to surprise everyone and tied up the game with three home runs in a row.
It was pretty much batting practice for the Monkeys’ hitters in that inning. 廖健富 (Liao Chien-Fu) zeroed in on a full-count pitch down the middle and sent it over the centre field wall. Both 林承飛 (Lin Cheng-Fei) and 余德龍 (Yu Te-Lung) did the same and capitalised on the meatball thrown by Harman.
#Lamigo Monkeys launch back-to-back-to-back home runs. It's the 8th times in the #CPBL history where a team hit 3 consecutive home runs. pic.twitter.com/VyL57REfba
— CPBL STATS (@GOCPBL) September 23, 2019
The Monkeys defeated the Brothers 6-4 and snapped the Brothers’ three-game win streak. The Brothers are currently in the first place in the second-half season, if they secured the second-half season title, then it is going to be a Monkeys-Brothers showdown at the Taiwan Series.
Back-to-Back-to-Back Home Runs in CPBL History
- 1993/06/05 – Wei Chuan Dragons’ 羅世幸 (Lo Shih-Hsing), 艾勃 (Milton Harper), 呂明賜 (Lu Ming-Tzu) against Chinatimes Eagles.
- 1993/12/09 – Wei Chuan Dragons’ 艾勃 (Milton Harper), 羅世幸 (Lo Shih-Hsing), 陳大順 (Chen Ta-Shun) against Brother Elephants. There is no footage of that unfortunately.
- 2003/15/06 – Brother Elephants’ 李志傑 (Li Chih-Chieh), 王金勇 (Wang Chin-Yung), 郭一峰 (Kuo Yi-Feng) against Chinatrust Whales.
- 2003/17/09 – Macoto GIDA 吳承翰 (Wu Cheng-Han), 丘昌榮 (Chiu Chang-Jung), 謝佳賢 (Hsieh Chia-Hsien) against Sinon Bulls.
- 2016/17/04 – EDA Rhinos’ 陽冠威 (Yang Kuan-Wei), 胡金龍 (Hu Chin-Lung), 高孝儀 (Kao Hsiao-Yi) against Uni-Lions.
- 2017/16/04 – Chinatrust Brothers’ 張志豪 (Chang Chih-Hao), 周思齊 (Chou Ssu-Chi), 林智勝 (Lin Chih-Sheng) against Lamigo Monkeys.
- 2017/29/09 – Chinatrust Brothers’ 詹子賢 (Chan Tzu-Hsien), 陳子豪 (Chen Tzu-Hao), 許基宏 (Hsu Chi-Hung) against Uni-Lions.
What is Milton Harper’s story? He had a couple of good seasons in 1991 and 1993 in the early years of the CPBL, but baseball reference says he died on October 16, 1993 at the age of 31. Any idea what happened to him?
P.S. Love the fireworks and the Brothers’ yellow flags.
This is actually one of my upcoming blog post during the offseason. I have been going through some old newspaper articles from that time.
Long story short, it’s an unsolved murder mystery. Could be local gang-related (game-fixing), drug related or murdered by his teammates. Someone tossed him off a building. Police rules it as suicide but a lot things didn’t add up.
There is definitely a story here. Someone named Andrew D. Morris wrote a book about Taiwanese baseball in English in 2011 which touches on Milt Harper’s mysterious death: https://books.google.com/books?id=69axMpVlSSYC&pg=PA137&lpg=PA137&dq=%22Milt+Harper%22+baseball+suicide+1993#v=onepage&q=%22Milt%20Harper%22%20baseball%20suicide%201993&f=false
The book mentions that Harper had traces of amphetamines in his system, but in 1993 it was still common for American players to take “greenies” — amphetamines purchased in Mexico and smuggled into the U.S. — in order to maximize performance. Harper played in all 90 CPBL games his team played in the 1993 season, and the greenies may have helped him do it.
Nice find, I wasn’t aware of this book. I’m going to see if I can get a copy for it.
In hindsight, you can starting to see all the early signs which lead up to the major game-fixing scandals in the mid-’90s. This death of Milton is probably just a tip of an iceberg.
– Jump location, Milton jumped from his teammates’ apartment.
– Jump distance, supposedly it will not cleared the powerline.
– Trace of amphetamines in his system which you already mentioned.
– Altercation with other foreign players a few hours prior to his death.
– Broken glass table at the roof top.
– He told his brother that he was scared a few days before his death. (mobs?)
– His Brother arrived in Taiwan immediately seek for police protection.
Very interesting story indeed. Some of it might seems a little far fetched, but that’s the baseball environment in the early days of the CPBL. The league, still at its infancy stage, had no clue how to handle this sort of stuff. Instead of dealing it with total transparency, a lot of times, they choose to bury it.