“I left baseball because of the scandals, and that’s not something that I can change,” Chen said at his restaurant, La Fung, or the Guest. “But I can change myself, set goals for myself. I have a wife and kids to take care of. I need to maintain a positive attitude.”

The Arrests

The case that was their undoing was discovered almost by accident.

A prosecutor in Taipei, Wang Cheng-hao, received an anonymous tip after the 2008 season that hundreds of thousands of dollars were being wagered on baseball games, and the Windshield Wiper was winning most of the time.

Gambling is not a crime, but fixing games is.

Wang and investigators looked at the Windshield Wiper’s bank and phone records and discovered a network of middlemen that ultimately led them to the players.

The Windshield Wiper, who was from southern Taiwan and in his late 30s at the time, was one of the biggest gamblers in the country.

He was subtler than most gangsters. Instead of laundering money through businesses that served as fronts, he had dummy accounts set up in his friends’ names. He had no gambling convictions.

He was a baseball fan, though, and he liked to hang around ballparks, where he sat near the dugout and chatted up players, some of whom joined him for dinner. He also befriended former players living in southern Taiwan, whom he paid to recruit active players.