The Asian Baseball Championship and qualifying tournament for the 2000 Sydney Olympics is finally over, and the Chinese Taipei team came home with only a bronze medal, to the great dismay of its fans. But the fans at home, despite their disappointment at Chinese Taipei's showing, did not criticize the hard work of the coaches or the players.
Why did the team only place third in the tournament? Why is it that professional leagues in other countries raise the standards of their national baseball teams, while our professional leagues in Taiwan have failed to improve the quality of the Chinese Taipei team?
Why is it that Taiwan -- which like other countries has produced players with enough talent to take on the US major league -- is still incapable of capturing the championship? The heads of Taiwan's two baseball leagues and the commission that oversees them are primarily responsible for this state of affairs.
Taiwan has produced lots of talented players in the past, including Tu Hong-ching (
All of them could be favorably compared to Daisuke Matsuzaka (
In terms of coaches, look at Lin Hua-wei's performance in the Asia Cup. His carefully planned strategy enabled him to tie games with South Korea and Japan, even without a lot of talented players. His performance put looks of consternation on the faces of the coaches of other teams, making them take back arrogant and belittling comments they had made before the tournament began. The solidarity that the coaches for the Taiwan team exhibited was effective.
There is no doubt that fans from Taiwan are the most endearing and passionate in the world.
While baseball league conflicts have distracted fans to some degree, cable TV ratings for the series still shot up to the No. 1 spot. Fans showed their support on the Internet as well. Fans are the greatest asset to the development of Taiwan's professional leagues.
Okay, we've established that Taiwan has great players, coaches and fans. So what's the problem?
The answer: league officials and team owners. Teams regard players as their exclusive property, as long as they perform as expected. But as soon as problems arise, owners dump players, break off all ties with them and even try to smear their reputations.
While it's true that players should assume responsibility for their involvement in betting scandals, the leagues should not completely escape censure. Why should players shoulder all the blame? In some cases, they are slapped with lifetime bans against playing the sport again.
And while it is true that up-and-coming players in Taiwan play for foreign teams because they pay better, teams here can still provide them with an environment in which they can continue to improve their skills
The Asia Cup has become the center of attention for Taiwan's baseball fans, and baseball is the leading candidate for Taiwan's national sport.
If team owners can one day forgo their individual interests and change their narrow-minded thinking, it may be possible to bring together all the top players past and present and form one team.
Baseball leagues could be reorganized, giving each player a chance to play, while retaining the talented players and getting rid of the dead wood.
The gifted athletes that Taiwan produces each year, along with professional coaching staff and enthusiastic fan support, should be enough to really get baseball moving in Taiwan.
It shouldn't be too long before Taiwan's baseball team makes the South Korean and Japanese teams bow with respect and good sportsmanship.
Tai Hsi-chin is a legislative assistant.
To The Honorable Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜): We would like to extend our sincerest regards to you for representing Taiwan at the inauguration of US President Donald Trump on Monday. The Taiwanese-American community was delighted to see that Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan speaker not only received an invitation to attend the event, but successfully made the trip to the US. We sincerely hope that you took this rare opportunity to share Taiwan’s achievements in freedom, democracy and economic development with delegations from other countries. In recent years, Taiwan’s economic growth and world-leading technology industry have been a source of pride for Taiwanese-Americans.
Next week, the nation is to celebrate the Lunar New Year break. Unfortunately, cold winds are a-blowing, literally and figuratively. The Central Weather Administration has warned of an approaching cold air mass, while obstinate winds of chaos eddy around the Legislative Yuan. English theologian Thomas Fuller optimistically pointed out in 1650 that “it’s always darkest before the dawn.” We could paraphrase by saying the coldest days are just before the renewed hope of spring. However, one must temper any optimism about the damage being done in the legislature by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), under
To our readers: Due to the Lunar New Year holiday, from Sunday, Jan. 26, through Sunday, Feb. 2, the Taipei Times will have a reduced format without our regular editorials and opinion pieces. From Tuesday to Saturday the paper will not be delivered to subscribers, but will be available for purchase at convenience stores. Subscribers will receive the editions they missed once normal distribution resumes on Sunday, Feb. 2. The paper returns to its usual format on Monday, Feb. 3, when our regular editorials and opinion pieces will also be resumed.
Young Taiwanese are consuming an increasing amount of Chinese content on TikTok, causing them to have more favorable views of China, a Financial Times report cited Taiwanese social scientists and politicians as saying. Taiwanese are being exposed to disinformation of a political nature from China, even when using TikTok to view entertainment-related content, the article published on Friday last week said. Fewer young people identify as “Taiwanese” (as opposed to “Chinese”) compared with past years, it wrote, citing the results of a survey last year by the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation. Nevertheless, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) would be hard-pressed
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