Former US Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher Wang Chien-ming (王建民) is to serve as the pitching coach in the bull pen for the national team competing in the World Baseball Softball Confederation Premier 12 competition, team manager Hong I-chung (洪一中) said yesterday
Winning the tournament would qualify the team for competition in next year’s Tokyo Olympic Games.
The decision was made by a committee in charge of drafting coaches and players for the national team, which convened for the second time yesterday.
Photo: Huang Chih-yuan, Taipei Times
In addition to Wang, five of the seven coaches for the national team would be from the Lamigo Monkeys: Hong, infield coach Tsai Yu-hsiang (蔡昱詳), batting coach Tseng Hao-chu (曾豪駒), pitching coach Wu Chun-liang (吳俊良) and chief coach Kuo Chien-lin (郭建霖).
Uni-President Lions manager Huang Kan-lin(黃甘霖) would serve as the outfield coach, Hong said.
“As we are operating on a tight schedule, it does not leave much time for coaches to adjust to one another. So we have decided that a majority of coaches would be from the same team,” Hong said.
Huang led players of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) to compete in an exchange game with Japanese professional baseball players last year.
Wang, who is the pitching coach for the Fubon Guardians, would be in charge of inquiring if any Taiwanese player playing in overseas professional baseball leagues would be open to return and compete in the Premier 12 tournament.
“We hope that Wang can take some time to travel abroad next month and in August, and check out players himself,” Hong said. “Most of us can watch televised broadcasts of Japanese professional baseball games, but many of the Taiwanese baseball players are competing in the minor leagues, making it difficult to get updates on the players’ situation. Wang knows the MLB and can help us in this regard.”
Wang made his MLB debut with the New York Yankees on April 30, 2005. He was one of the best starting pitchers for the Yankees in 2006 and 2007, winning 19 games in both seasons and leading the American League in that category in 2006.
Asked if Taiwanese slugger Wang Po-jung (王柏融), an outfielder for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, would join the national team, Hong said that the player told him that he wanted to, but whether he could do so would depend on whether his team would allow him to do so.
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