Milwaukee Brewers: Don August and the gangsters

Former Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Don August had quite an interesting career, but his time pitching in the Chinese Professional Baseball League may have made the biggest impression – for obvious reasons.

Don August may have only spent four years in the majors with the Milwaukee Brewers, but he had a memorable baseball career. He pitched on the 1984 Olympic baseball team, winning a silver medal. His career took him to Mexico, Taiwan, Italy, while he pitched all over North America in the minors. During his long professional career, August had many interesting experiences, some of which he has begun sharing on his Twitter account.

On Tuesday, August began his stories with a bang, talking about the time he was approached by gangsters while pitching in Taiwan in 1996. The long thread is well worth the read.

It is a wild trip down memory lane, from August refusing to throw games to fearing for his life before he was set free. One can certainly imagine that this was not the experience that August thought he would have in Taiwan, especially in his second season pitching in the CPBL.

Fortunately, August escaped unharmed, but others may not have been so lucky. Milton Harper, who played for the Wei Chaun Dragons in 1993, was killed when he allegedly fell off a roof in Taiwan. However, there has been plenty of speculation that he was thrown off the building by a local gang, a fate that August had feared.

At that point, gangsters and fixing games were a way of life in the CPBL. A year later, in 1997, the game fixing scandal broke, nearly ruining the CPBL. That scandal even reached high school baseball, when 21 players, a coach, and a dozen gangsters were convicted that year. The CPBL saw many of its top players banned, and the China Times Eagles being disbanded.

The CPBL has only really begun to recover over the past few years. Talented players like Jung Po Wang have made waves, with his even being considered as a possible major league talent before heading to Japan. It might be a matter of time before the CPBL becomes another pipeline of major league talent.

The dark days in the Chinese Professional Baseball League may be forgotten. But for former Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Don August, the memories remain.