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Taiwan names 37 players as Olympic baseball qualifiers

The Chinese Taipei Baseball Association yesterday released a list of 37 players for the Olympic baseball qualifiers to be held here next month.

The qualifier is Taiwan's last chance to compete in the Olympics, as the nation failed to progress through the Asian Baseball Championship last year.

The list released yesterday includes 18 pitchers, four catchers, eight infielders and seven outfielders. Some of the players are familiar to baseball fans, including Tsao Chin-huei (曹錦輝), Keng Po-shuen (耿伯軒), Lin Chih-sheng (林智勝), Hsieh Jia-shien (謝佳賢), Chen Chin-feng (陳金峰) and Lin En-yu (林恩宇).

The majority of the players were drafted from the Chinese Professional Baseball League, while others play in the US Major Leagues, the Minor Leagues or the Nippon Professional Baseball League.

Wang Chien-ming (王建民), Hu Ching-lung (胡金龍) and Chen Yung-chi (陳鏞基) will not be available to compete in the qualifiers, as they failed to secure permission from their respective professional baseball teams in the US.

Chinese Taipei Baseball Team manager Hung Yi-chung (洪一中) said the team previously chose just 30 players for the qualifiers. After intensive training in Puerto Rico last month, however, the team decided to add seven more players because of their excellent physical condition.

Hung said that while Tsao is included on the list, talks are still underway with the Kansas City Royals about drafting him for the qualifiers. A few other players are in a similar situation.

"We hope we can get all the overseas Taiwanese pro-ball players together no later than the 20th of this month," he said.

Hung said Taiwan had high hopes for the qualifiers, where eight countries will compete for three spots.

Taiwan is scheduled to play against Spain, Mexico, Germany, Australia, South Africa and South Korea.
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