Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday announced the signing of 17-year-old Taiwanese outfielder, Ko Ching-hsien (柯敬賢), with a contract worth a total of US$750,000 (NT $24.27 million).
At a press event in Taipei on Monday, Ko was presented with a No. 91 Dodgers jersey in the presence of Dodgers’ director of Pacific Rim scouting Jon Deeble and scout Allen Lin to celebrate the signing.
Ko, who is of Indigenous Amis and South African descent, had been on Lin’s radar since he was 14 years old.
Photo: CNA
Deeble said he was made aware of the young left-handed hitter by Lin, and that time has proven Lin’s intuition to be correct, especially after Ko’s stellar performance at the 2023 WBSC U-18 Baseball World Cup last year.
At that tournament he hit .550 with a double, a home run and four RBIs, and had a .690 on-base percentage, helped by seven walks and two hit-by-pitches in 29 plate appearances.
His performance helped Taiwan win the silver medal at the competition and earned him a spot on Taiwan’s roster for the BFA U-18 Asian Baseball Championship this year.
Asked whether Ko will be allowed to play for his country at that tournament, Deeble said it was an honor to play for one’s country, and that the Dodgers will allow Ko to do so as long as he is healthy.
Ko said at the news conference that it had always been a dream of his to play for the Dodgers and that his goal would be to make the major league roster in four years after spending time in the minor leagues.
He received a surprise welcome from Dodgers manager Dave Roberts and pitchers Clayton Kershaw and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in a pre-recorded video.
Ko said the video came as a shock, and that at one point he thought his idol Shohei Ohtani might even appear.
He also revealed that his new jersey number was in honor of his late father, who had always been his rock and support system on his baseball journey prior to his passing in 2022.
The “91” represents the first two numbers of Sept. 13 (9/13), the date his father passed away, Ko said.
Though his father could not see his son sign with the Dodgers, Ko felt he was still able to keep his promise to his father that he would pursue a career in baseball and never give up.
Ko’s signing came after another young Taiwanese baseball star at the 2023 U-18 World Cup, left-handed pitcher Lin Wei-en (林維恩), was signed by the Oakland Athletics earlier this month for US$1.35 million.
Ko and Lin both went to Taoyuan Municipal Pingjen Senior High School and are cousins, and Ko on Monday hoped that they will both do well in the U.S.
A runner who stopped during a marathon in China to pose doing the splits and another who hoarded energy gels have been banned for two years, the local athletics association said yesterday. The incidents happened during Sunday’s marathon in Sichuan Province’s Chengdu and were widely shared online. Videos showed a female runner stopping suddenly and dropping to the ground in the splits position, holding up her arms in a heart shape as she apparently posed for a photograph. She “committed obstructive fouls during the race, affecting the safe participation of other runners,” the Sichuan Athletics Association said in a statement, which identified
Liverpool star Mohamed Salah on Tuesday said that he would leave the English club at the end of the Premier League season, marking an earlier-than-planned departure for one of the club’s greatest-ever scorers and soccer’s biggest names. The 33-year-old Egypt forward, who has scored 255 goals in 435 appearances for Liverpool, “reached an agreement” to quit the team a year before his contract was due to expire, the Premier League champions said. Salah’s form has dipped in his ninth year at Anfield, to such an extent that he was dropped for a stretch of games late last year — leading to the
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli yesterday vowed to “keep raising the bar” after winning the Japanese Grand Prix to become the youngest driver in Formula One history to lead the championship standings. The 19-year-old Italian took advantage of a mid-race safety car to jump into the lead after a dreadful start from pole position, crossing the line ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Antonelli’s Suzuka victory came two weeks after the first grand prix win of his career in China, and sent him top of the championship standings after three races, nine points ahead of team-mate George Russell. Mercedes are struggling to
There were some big games to be played yesterday in the NBA, with the Atlanta Hawks to play the Detroit Pistons in a matchup pitting a Hawks team who are rolling against a Pistons team trying to lock up the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed. The Oklahoma City Thunder were to play the Boston Celtics, a showdown featuring the two most recent champions, while the Houston Rockets faced the Minnesota Timberwolves, a game that could factor mightily into Western Conference seeding. Elsewhere, the Washington Wizards were to play the Utah Jazz, with the Wizards on a 16-game slide visiting against a team
RSS