The La New Bears (La New 熊), formerly First Financial Holdings Agan(第一金控金剛, abbreviated 第一金剛), are a professional baseball team in the Chinese Professional Baseball League in Taiwan. Owned and administered by the Kaohsiung-based shoe-producing La New Corporation, this team qualified for the playoffs in 2006 for the first time in team history, and by virtue of finishing with the best record for the whole season, have gained an automatic berth in the Taiwan Series. The Bears play their home games at Chengching Lake Baseball Field.
History
First Financial Holdings Agan (2003)
Also credited as First Securities Agan, the Agan was owned and administered by the First Financial Holding Corporation, a government-funded financial holding services whose then chairman Chen Chien-lung (陳建隆) was a keen political supporter of President Chen Shui-bian and immediately said yes when President Chen invited him to take over the remaining one of the 2 TML's absorbed teams right after the merger of TML into CPBL in January 2003; Macoto Bank already decided to run the Macoto Gida earlier so Chen Chien-lung's promises officially settled down the merger. The bulk of Agan's player came from Taipei Gida and Kaohsiung-Pingtung Fala (for unexplained reasons, not the Taichung Agan which carried the same mascot) and its home was Chengching Lake Baseball Field.
Without an originally strong roster plus the Corporation's being inexperienced and unprofessional in running sports clubs, the Agan had been performing poorly since the season started, and after Chen Chien-lung's sudden resignation due to alleged insider trading in August 2003 the First Financial Holding Corporation no longer showed willingness in running the team. After the 2003 season ended this team was sold to La New Corporation, a shoe company, and later became La New Bears. During the 2003 season this club set many records for poor play:
Fewest wins in a whole season (20)
Most losses in a whole season (71)
Fewest wins in a half season (9)
Most losses in a half season (37)
Poorest winning percentage in a whole season (.220)
Poorest winning percentage in a half season (.196)
In this team's first historical game held in the Chengching Lake Baseball Field on March 4, 2004, this team defeated the Brother Elephants in the 10th inning after end time. This victory broke the jinx of its predecessor First Financial Holdings Agan, which never defeated the Brother Elephants during its single-year history. To celebrate this victory the La New Corporation held a one-week special sale in which all its shoes were 20% off, and earned an estimated NT$ 0.1 billion profit during this single week.
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