It was a good fight, but South Korea was too strong yesterday and knocked Taiwan off its perch with a 4-3 victory to become Asia's No. 1 baseball nation.
Taiwan had held the honor after coming in third to Cuba and the US last November when it hosted the Baseball World Cup, but South Korea had home-park advantage in Busan last night and added more gold to its Asian Games coffers.
Sajik Baseball Stadium -- home of the Lotte Giants -- was surprisingly only half full, though there was a vocal contingent of Taiwanese fans lodged behind the TV cameras who made their presence known throughout the game.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Taiwan Coach Yang Shien-ming (
"Before we came we knew that they [South Korea] would be put-ting out the strongest team they could, but actually we had a good chance of beating them," Yang said.
"I was surprised at the strength of [winning pitcher] Lim Chang-yong. He's pretty good stuff and an excellent pitcher who did well against us."
PHOTO: AP
Lim responded by saying, "Taiwan was very strong. I knew they were good because we have played them before but I think they surprised us a little. They were even better than we thought."
The game began with a duel between Taiwan's ace Tsai Chung-nan (
It was achieved with some controversy, however, as Hong's hit to left field looked to have been returned to the catcher in time to prevent the Korean runner from getting home. But the plate umpire called it safe and South Korea went one up in the bottom of the second.
Taiwan briefly silenced the home crowd in the third, however, replying with two runs from a fielding mistake to right field and a drive to center that saw home Hong I-chung (
In the fourth, Hong hit deep into right field and was then sent home by Kim Jong-kook's line drive down the left. The Korean cheerleading team went into overdrive and Tsai was mistakenly pulled from the lineup and replaced on the mound by lefty Kuo Hong-chih (郭泓志).
Kuo immediately fell apart and ended up walking the Korean batter to give up a third run. Coach Yang immediately took him out and the ball was handed to Lin Yueh-ping (
But the nightmare fourth inning was still not over and a dropped flyball and a catcher's mistake handed South Korea its fourth run to lead 4-2 going into the fifth.
Both sides cancelled each other out in the following innings and there was no score until the eighth, when Korean lefty Song Jin-woo took over from winning pitcher Lim Chang-yong and Wang Chuan-chia (
Song took his revenge on first baseman Tsai Feng-an (
"Peace, Korea" rang out round the stadium, but Taiwan dismissed South Korea easily in the bottom of the eighth to set up a final inning finale.
Third baseman Chang Chia-hao (
With two outs and no innings left, Taiwan's hopes rested on the broad shoulders of Chen Chih-yuan. Strike two came down and the crowd was starting to celebrate. With the next ball, a drive to the right was easily intercepted and Taiwan bowed out No. 2 in Asia.
South Korea went on a victory lap of the outfield to celebrate its gold before the awards ceremony, at which Japan was given the bronze medal after beating China in the third-place playoff.
The baseball silver medal was the second of the day for Taiwan after a brave -- but ultimately unsuccessful -- attempt from Chuang Chih-yuan (
The Kaohsiung native had cause for optimism of taking the greatest prize after whitewashing China's Kong Linghui 4-0 in the semifinal, showing quickness and aggression.
But the world's best player, Wang Liqin, avenged the drubbing by reversing the scores and pounced on every error, scoring winners seemingly at will to give the 21-year-old a 4-0 lesson in total table tennis.
It was the second time this year Wang had beaten Chuang, who said he regretted losing out once again to the same player.
In tennis, meanwhile, Lu Yen-hsun (盧彥勳) won his singles and is on course to take on Thailand's tour de force Paradorn Srichaphan.
Janet Lee (
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