As most local fans set their eyes on Washington Nationals pitcher Wang Chien-ming, the most successful Taiwanese baseball player in the US Major League to date, more than 20 Taiwanese players in the US minor leagues are trying to work their way up, hoping some day to make it to the big league.
Twelve of the 27 Taiwanese players in the minors, including former Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Hu Chin-lung — now demoted to the Albuquerque Isotopes in the Triple-A — opened their baseball season yesterday, the opening day of this year’s full-season minor leagues, while the other 15 are still participating in extended spring training and have not been assigned.
This year’s major league season opening day on April 5 was not so exciting for local fans because they did not have many players to cheer for. Left-handed reliever Ni Fu-te of the Detroit Tigers was the only Taiwanese player to make the 25-man roster on opening day, with Wang and Dodgers left-hander Kuo Hong-chih both still undergoing rehabilitation from injury.
The good news is that there are eight players in the Double-A teams — a record for Taiwanese players — who could earn callups to the Majors in the later part of the season if they perform well like Wang, who was called up to the big league in 2005 after six years in the New York Yankees farm system.
Among these major league hopefuls are Hu, who played sparingly with the Dodgers, and right-handed pitcher Lo Chia-jen of the Houston Astros, who made Double-A in his first season and accumulated three saves to go with a 2.10 earned run average.
Lo has been ranked as the second-best Asian prospect in the minors by Baseball Digest Daily (BDD), a Web site focusing on baseball coverage. The other three also made the top 10 list, including fifth-ranked Boston Red Sox outfielder Lin Che-hsuan, Cleveland Indians pitcher Lee Chen-chang at No. 6 and Seattle Mariners outfielder Lo Kuo-hui at No. 9
Other players in the Double-A are Oakland Athletics outfielder Chen Yung-chi, Colorado Rockies pitcher Lo Chin-lung, Boston Red Sox infielder Chiang Chih-hsien and Chicago White Sox pitcher Chen Hun-wen.
According to the BDD, the mid-level minors are crammed with Asian talent, which also includes players from Japan and South Korea.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later