Bye Bye Baseball

opening introductions

"overseas Chinese Taipei LET'S Go!

Attending baseball in China - who would have thunk it?

2008 is the last year for baseball in the Olympics and I commemorated the end by attending the USA vs. Chinese Taipei Baseball game at Wukesong Stadium on Tuesday Night. I invited my co-worker Ms. Zhang and her fiance to join the fun. Neither had any real idea how this game works, and I realized after a few innings how many rules there are to explain. About balls, strikes, fouls, outs, home-runs, double plays, my god -- its too complicated, especially for my limited Chinese vocabulary.

The crowd was definitely rooting for Chinese Taipei as China still considers Taiwan part of its sovereign territory and the mainlanders consider the Taiwan people their countrymates. Ever since the Sichuan earthquake there has been increasing friendship between the two governments in this often tense relationship over the sovereign status of Taiwan.

The USA Olympic Baseball team is made up of AAA players and college players and they were really disappointing to watch. They seemed nonchalant and uninspired as the game went on. I heard through the grapevine that many of the players had been living up the Beijing nightclub scene every night. This was reminiscent of the 2004 USA men's Basketball team who arrived in Greece very arrogant about their talent, and played their semi-final game hung-over and suffered an embarrassing loss to Spain to come in 3rd place.

The game ended with USA winning 4 - 2 and advancing to the medal round, being played tonight (Thursday).

Given that the US is one of a few countries that care less about the sport of baseball, it was disheartening to see our team play with such little spirit. We'll see who takes the last Gold in Olympics Baseball history - bye bye baseball!