Taiwan baseball

Etiquetas

baseball, cpbl, mlb, opening day, taiwan

Yesterday, as well as MLB Opening Day was CPBL Opening Day, the ceremony is a like a circus. Girls, mascots, umpires dancing;the military marching around the field, is a complete festival, even fireworks before the game.

You can press the link down here to see some dance in the ceremony.

CPBL Dancing ceremony

The first game of the season was between the defending champion Uni-Lions 7-11 and the runners up EDA Rhinos, you can imagine the expectations for this game, both starting pitchers have some background in the Minor leagues,Ching-Lung Lo (羅錦龍) and Andrew Sisco with some Major league experience.

Ching-Lung Lo

http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=lo—-001chi

Andrew Sisco

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/siscoan01.shtml

The game was pretty exciting with both teams trying to show how much they’ve improved in the offseason, the fans were going nuts after a long wait for the new season to start.

The Uni-Lions won 8-4 in a close game until the 7th inning when the Uni-Lions score 3 runs, Andrew Sisco had a rough start in the league giving up 6 hits and 4 earned  runs in 3 innings, taking the lost for the Eda Rhinos, and the winning pitcher was Ching-Lung Lo taking 7 hits and 4 earned runs in 6 innings, boths teams were really aggresive in offense.

In Taiwan every game there is a MVP and they have a small interview at the end of the game, the MVP was 王寶篁 Pao-Huang Wang, he was 2-2 on the plate with a BB also on his name, it was also pretty solid on defense.

Pao-Huang Wang MVP player of the 1st game of the league

One of the hits of Pao-Huang Wang.

http://www.cpbltv.com/vod/content/251.html

To close the game came Hong-Chi Kuo making his return to Taiwan and taking the closing job for the Uni-Lions, he has been a starter most of his career, his top speed right now is around 153km/h around 95mph, everytime he throws a 95mph fastball the people just go crazy.

Hong-Chi Kuo stats in the majors

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kuoho01.shtml

This is the boxscore for the game:   (mandarin language)

http://www.cpbl.com.tw/game/box.aspx?gameno=01&year=2014&game=1

I’ve been thinking that I will start writing about Taiwanese prospects in the Major League and also Japan and maybe some historic moments in Taiwan baseball and some famous taiwanese players that have been in the majors.

Like the new rising star Wei-Chung Wang, I really hope the Brewers keep this Rule 5 pick, is a strike throwing machine, definetly a name that we will be hearing for a good while.

Well, thats all for today and if you want me to talk anything about taiwan baseball just leave your comment below.

Why is baseball so addictive?

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baseball

Oh man! I am in love with baseball, believe it or not I come from a country that we don’t know much about it, and if you ask anyone what team they like, they will tell you the New York Yankees, that is the only team that everybody knows, I remember when I was a kid my grandpa used to take me to watch our national league, the league just have 4 amateur teams and the stadiums are empty most of the time, why would I lie to you? Baseball is not our strong sport, anyways I remember I used to go watch the double-headers on the weekends and my grandpa’s friends used to tell him to take me to the stadium to start training baseball, but no one could take me to practice, I start growing up and I stop going to the stadium for a good while and maybe sometimes I just watch a game on TV, the 90% of the time the only team you can watch is the NY Yankees, I remember for the 2000 World Series when the Yankees won it over the Mets I fell in love with Derek Jeter and I told my mom, «Mom, I know what I am going to ask Santa Claus this Christmas”, I was just 8 years old,  what it was in my mind it was the New York Yankees uniform with the number 2 on the back, so I wrote my letter to Santa Claus telling him how much I like the Yankees and Jeter and how much I would love to have that Yankees uniform, but guess what happened? I never got my uniform, I was really sad that I couldn’t receive it, I guess it was so hard for my parents to find the uniform in a country that we do not know much about baseball and we just have soccer in our minds, I remember for that Christmas I got a glove, a bat and a baseball, we play catch with my dad a couple of times but I didn’t have anyone around that can play with me, I play soccer all my life and if I tell my friend «Let’s go play catch» they will ask me if I am crazy. I think I already talked too much about my childhood. I grew up and I never watch baseball again, all my life was soccer… soccer and more soccer, I just watch the World Series but that’s all.

I moved to Taiwan more than 3 years ago to make my undergraduate studies, and guess what is the national sport? Yes it is baseball, I was a bit sad that I didn’t have soccer anymore but I was excited at the same time that I can go to the stadium and watch baseball and their baseball  league is not that bad. What is even better one of the best teams is from the city I live in (Tainan Lions), Taiwan baseball is so different from the one in USA, the people here sing and dance the whole game, I am not kidding they don’t stop cheering for their teams no matter what’s the score, if any guy does a good hit or drives in a run in they will sing in chorus his name and “I love you” after that, is just a nice environment, all the famous players have their own song, everything is just so nice.

 

I have never been in a game in USA and sometimes I find it funny, because I see going to watch a MLB game as a dream, I really don’t care what team is playing , what is my seat, nothing of that matters, I just want to be there. The difference in time zone with the US is almost half a day so it is so difficult for me to watch games, I am so happy when they play at 4 pm ET because is 4 am here in Taiwan that means that I can wake up and watch the game, if it is too late I can’t watch it because I have school, I purchased MLB TV so I can watch the games after school, there are times that there is an awesome game during my class time and I don’t have any other option than skip class, I don’t regret nothing. This year the Opening Series will be in Australia so it’s perfect for me, I can’t be more happy and excited for the games coming up.

Now my favorite team is the San Francisco Giants, the team that my grandpa used to talk about all the time, he used to go to San Francisco and my family over there used to take him to watch the Giants, he used to sit right behind the plate and he used to tell me that there is nothing like being a place like that and listen to Barry Bonds hit a home-run.

The more I watch baseball the more I get addictive with the stats, splits and all the advanced stats. This is all for now but I have much more in my mind that I want to write, my fellow baseball fans, let’s hope for an awesome baseball season.