Baseball fans vented their anger and frustration on the Internet yesterday following Taiwan’s loss in the World Baseball Classic to China on Saturday.
The result, Taiwan’s second defeat by China in a year, means Taiwan are already eliminated from the competition.
“Losing to [South] Korea by nine points first and to China by three points next. My father kept cursing. Taiwan’s baseball is really hopeless!” a fan identified as “Gary” said.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
“Bill,” another fan, showed similar pessimism about the future of baseball in Taiwan.
“Who cares about the championship of the Chinese Professional Baseball League [CPBL] anymore? Who could possibly be concerned now how many Wang Chien-ming’s (王建民) we will have?” he said. “Taiwan got beat by China in two international games in a row. People will stop watching baseball games if this becomes a pattern, which will potentially turn into a major catastrophe.”
Both attributed the loss to the fact that the players drafted for the World Baseball Classic this year were mostly young and inexperienced. They also blamed CPBL teams for their unwillingness to release more experienced players and the government for not spending enough on professional baseball.
“You win or lose in a game, that’s just life” Bill said. “But baseball has been played in Taiwan for 100 years, and we lost to the Chinese baseball team that has only been around for less than 20 years! This is an embarrassment.”
Some fans, however, thought that the loss may serve as a wake-up call to the nation’s baseball industry.
“You can’t say China just had better luck anymore because we have lost twice to them now. Their players, their strategies and the government support — all these are things we should learn from,” said another fan “Fatty Ape.”
Government officials, team managers and sports commentators also believed the defeat exposed the problems facing baseball in Taiwan.
“Baseball in this country is dead!” said senior sports commentator Fu Da-jen (傅達仁) in a TV interview. “You have the Chinese Taipei Baseball Association and you have Chinese Professional Baseball League, and they don’t work together. And what’s the government doing?”
Sinon Bulls manager Hsu Sheng-meng (徐生明) said the teams were in a bind about sending players to play in an international game and protecting them from injuries.
Sports Affairs Council (SAC) Tai Hsia-ling (戴遐齡) Minister said in an interview with the Central News Agency that the council was striving to develop second-tier teams in professional baseball, which could be supported by the revenue generated by the sports lottery.
Government Information Office Minister Su Jun-bin (蘇俊賓) said that the government took the loss seriously. He said Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) has asked the SAC to develop a long-term plan on baseball using resources across different government departments.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese
RSS