Good evening. This is Dead Legends. We’re the kind of guys who love a good chirp.

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Gets me me every time.

Let’s dive in.

Today's story is about a state-sponsored cheating program that created the most dominant Little League dynasty of all-time.

Historically, Taiwan has absolutely crushed everyone in the Little League World Series.

Over a three-decade span, they outscored their opponents 661 - 82.

How is this even possible, you ask?

Simple, they just cheated.

But why?

After WWII there was a civil war in China; the communist party took over the mainland and the old government, “The Republic of China,” only retained control over Taiwan.

The Republic of China vowed to invade the mainland and regain the territory that was once theirs, but they needed support from the outside world.

And that's where Little League came into the picture.

In 1968, a team from Hongye Elementary School won the National Youth Baseball tournament, and they were invited to play an exhibition game in Japan.

The government saw the little league team as a tool of propaganda, so they deployed all methods to make sure they would beat Japan in the exhibition game.

They sent the kids to a remote military base to train for an entire month before the game.

Apparently, the Taiwanese coaches used to throw balls directly at players’ chests so they wouldn’t be afraid in the game.

Gotta toughen up somehow.

It’s reported that the training schedule was so intense that two of the coaches kids died because he “didn’t have time to take them to the hospital.”

The republic of China beat Japan 3 out of 4 games, and one of their pitchers threw 20 innings in 4 days.

The game was nationally televised and over 30K fans came to watch the final game in person.

Later, it was discovered that almost all of the players for Republic of China were using fake identities; one of them was even married.

The principal, coach, and admin were suspended, but the government covered up the scandal from the public.

In ‘69, they won their first Little League World Series, and when the kids returned home, they were the most famous people in their country.

They took another championship in '70, and things started getting even crazier.

Around this time, the U.S. stopped giving aid to the Republic of China, and they were banned from the UN.

Not to mention, they were prohibited from using the name “Republic of China” in the Olympics.

So little league baseball was pretty much the only international platform that they had, which caused the government to get even more involved.

They set up a program where kids would train all year and were not required to go to class.

The players never got an education and played baseball full-time at 12 years old.

They even had the pitchers throwing up to 300 pitches per day.

In the most extreme case, a player was paralyzed from over training.

Not even close.

The Republic of China continued to dominate Little League year after year, claiming that their winning proved they were a superior race and world power.

Every year the government organized travel for thousands of people to attend the Little League World Series and to promote the Republic of China with signs, flags, etc.

They won the World Series in ‘73, without giving up a SINGLE hit.

They were investigated by Little League in ’74, but the investigation did not produce any proof of cheating.

Potentially because the investigator didn't even speak Chinese.

Knowing that Taiwan was cheating, but having no proof, Little League decided to ban all international teams from the '75 tournament.

Eventually they were reinstated, and won the LLWS five times in a row from ’77 - ’81.

In ’82, they were finally beat by Kirkland, Washington in an upset so massive that ESPN made a documentary about it.

They hit a slide after losing to Kirkland, and it seemed like the cheating had stopped.

Then they returned in ’86, beating the brakes off of Canada and winning their 12th World Series.

Taiwan continued to win year after year, but then in ’93 they were caught using players outside their district.

After a one-year suspension, they came back in ’95 and outscored their opponents 109-15 over the span of two years.

In ’97, they were caught cheating AGAIN, and this time ALL of the crazy details about their program came out.

The kids from Taiwan were essentially professional athletes, working out for up to nine hours a day and living in dorms full-time.

Plus, they were essentially a super team sourced from all over the country.

School and government officials even went as far as to manipulate zoning in order to get all of the best players on one team.

After '97, Taiwan did not appear in another Little League World Series until 2009, when they lost to Chula Vista.

Even though they haven't won the tourney in 26 years, they still have far more championships than any other country.

EXCLUSIVE SANDLOT DEAL

This is the coolest thing I've seen in a while.

Dugout Mugs partnered with the writer and director of the Sandlot, David Mickey Evans, to make a one-of-a-kind bat mug with the entire squad engraved on it.

In addition to the mug, you also get:

• Exclusive never-before-told stories from David about the film.

• A photo of the sandlot crew - autographed by David

And Dead Legends subscribers get a $50 discount - no code needed.

STRANGE NAMES

If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.

Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.

If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.

Today's winner is:

That's a cowboy-ass name, Cactus.

Unfortunately, there's not a damn thing online about this guy, and his career was pretty much non-existent.

From the looks of it, he played two seasons, made $3,900, and hung 'em up.

THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

If you like this story, check out some of our past favorites:

• The Signs: Deaf ballplayers and baseball’s secret language

• The Wild Thing: Ricky Vaughn’s real-life inspiration

• The Plaza Flood: Royal’s centerfielder saves the day

That's it for today. Tomorrow we're back at it like a bad habit. See ya!

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