Clapping rhythmically and shouting encouragement, thousands of Taiwanese fans rise to their feet in Taichung’s Intercontinental Stadium as Taiwan’s beloved Olympic baseball team charges onto a sun-dappled field. Cheerleaders — their bare midriffs tattooed with the Chinese characters for “home run” — encourage the crowd from near the Olympians’ dugout.
Welcome to Taiwan’s bid to turn the corner on international invisibility.
For a country deprived of membership in all but a handful of world organizations and treated as a pariah in capitals around the globe, Olympic baseball is a rare ticket to big-time legitimacy.
PHOTO: AP
When the squad arrives in Beijing on Sunday, it will be competing head to head with national teams from the US, Japan, Cuba and four other countries. All deny Taiwan diplomatic recognition, reflecting China’s insistence that the island is an integral part of its territory.
China has even stripped the island of the ability to compete in the Olympics under its official name of “Republic of China,” saddling it instead with “Chinese Taipei” — a moniker that doesn’t connote nationhood.
Now, Taiwanese baseball fans say, it’s time to get their own back — if only temporarily.
“The Olympics give us international exposure when we need it most,” said 37-year-old doctoral student Cheng Jen-wen, an enthusiastic backer of the Taiwanese team. “It helps to bolster our national identity.”
Many of the Taiwanese players agree.
“The Olympics are a very big opportunity for us,” said 19-year-old Kuo Yen-wen, who plays second base in a Florida-based rookie league as a prospect for Major League Baseball’s Cincinnati Reds. “It’s a wonderful chance to represent our country.”
Outfielder Lo Kuo-hui, 23, who plays for a Single-A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners, says the importance of baseball in Taiwan means added pressure for them in Beijing.
Smiling hopefully as a teammate hits a batting practice pitch well over the left-field wall, he says he’s not concerned.
“Sometimes pressure is a good thing,” he said. “It can help you to play better.”
That would certainly be a boon for Taiwan, which finished fifth at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. It was a big disappointment, particularly after a silver medal in Barcelona in 1992.
Roger Cheng, who directed a film on Taiwanese baseball for the US-based Discovery Channel, said this year’s 24-member team remains the heart of Taiwan’s Olympic squad, even though its athletes in taekwondo and archery stand a better chance of winning medals.
Cheng says baseball has been Taiwan’s leading sport since at least 1969, when a Taiwanese squad won the Little League World Series.
That came some 60 years after colonial master Japan first introduced baseball here, mainly as a recreational activity for its resident administrators. Taiwanese themselves took up the sport in the 1920s.
Cheng said that this year’s challenge for Taiwan at the Olympics is to use superior speed and fielding to carry the pitching.
Taiwan’s current baseball hero is New York Yankees pitcher Wang Chien-ming, but he — like all major leaguers — won’t be playing in the Olympics. Instead, the strongest teams — including Cuba, the US and Japan — are well-stocked with minor leaguers from Triple-A and Double-A, just short of major league standards. Taiwan mainly makes do with players a notch or two below that.
Kuo, the Reds prospect, says he’s not concerned by the apparent gap in talent.
“Sure, Japan and the US are good teams,” he said. “But I think our chances are really just as good as anybody else’s.”
MEDVEDEV AWAITS: The world No. 1 Spainiard said that he is ‘finding the right shots’ as he pushed his record so far this year to 16 victories and no losses Carlos Alcaraz on Thursday extended his unbeaten season and got revenge over Cameron Norrie to reach the semi-finals at Indian Wells for a fifth straight year. The world No. 1 from Spain emerged from a see-saw battle with 29th-ranked Norrie with a 6-3, 6-4 victory. In the semis tomorrow, he faces Russian Daniil Medvedev, who pushed his own ATP winning streak to eight matches with a 6-1, 7-5 victory over defending champion Jack Draper. World No. 2 Jannik Sinner powered past Learner Tien 6-1, 6-2 to line up a semi-final with fourth-ranked Alexander Zverev, a 6-2, 6-3 winner over Arthur Fils. Alcaraz, 22, became
Thanks to Italy beating Mexico on Wednesday, the US get another chance in the World Baseball Classic (WBC). What looked like a potentially disastrous early exit for US manager Mark DeRosa and his team turned out to be nothing more than substantial worry and significant embarrassment for about 24 hours. It remains to be seen whether the US really want to win badly enough for the reprieve to matter, as if it is just a switch they can flick, but there is little reason for their fans to be optimistic. The team’s attitude and behavior have been all over the place when
Ollie Watkins’ second-half header on Thursday gave Aston Villa a 1-0 win over Lille OSC in the first leg of their UEFA Europa League round-of-16 tie. Just past the hour mark, Ezri Konsa sent a deep pass that Emi Buendia headed to Watkins in the home team’s box. The England forward noticed goalkeeper Berke Ozer was off his line before sending a looping header over him and into the net. Minutes later, Watkins wasted a chance to double the advantage when he failed to score in a one-on-one with the ’keeper. Nottingham Forest were stunned 1-0 by Danish club Midtjylland, with substitute Cho
Brice Turang and Pete Crow-Armstrong’s consecutive RBI singles proved to be the difference in the US’ 5-3 win over Canada in a World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarterfinal on Friday night in Houston. The US faces the Dominican Republic, which crushed South Korea 10-0 in seven innings in its quarter-final, in a semifinal Sunday in Miami for a spot in Tuesday’s championship. The Dominican team has won all five games in this WBC by a combined margin of 51-10. It appeared the US squad was headed toward a cozy victory when it built a 5-0 lead by the sixth inning. A first-inning RBI groundout
RSS