The Kano baseball team officially the Kagi Nourin baseball team (嘉義農林棒球隊), was a Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

ese baseball team established in 1928 during the Imperial Japanese period

Taiwan under Japanese rule

Between 1895 and 1945, Taiwan was a dependency of the Empire of Japan. The expansion into Taiwan was a part of Imperial Japan's general policy of southward expansion during the late 19th century....

. The high school baseball team in Chiayi qualified to represent the island at Koshien, Japan’s long-running nationwide high school baseball tournament,in Japan in 1931.
Performing beyond all expectations, the underdog team miraculously went on to the championship game before finally losing to a powerful Japanese squad. The Kano side claimed second place in Japan's celebrated national high school tournament, Koshien, where a total of 631 high schools teams from throughout Japan’s empire competed.
The amazing success of a team from a colonized land making to the finals was totally unexpected, and it ultimately earned the Taiwanese baseball players greater respect from their Japanese counterparts.
The Kano experience also encouraged more people in Taiwan to play baseball, eventually making it the "national sport" in Taiwan.

External links

• Taiwan Culture Portal: Champions of all under heaven:” the Tri-ethnic Kano Baseball Team
• Taiwan Culture Portal: Taiwan’s First Sport in its Second Century: Baseball in Taiwanese Culture