Taiwan Baseball

Friday, August 26, 2005

Tough day for Taiwan Baseball...

The senior national team for Chinese Taipei lost to the Italian NT 3-2 in 10 innings in a tuneup for the World Cup. Kuo Hui Lo had 5 plate appearances - went 0-2, with 3 walks - 1 intentional.
The good news for the team is that the reinforcements are coming - Chin-Lung Hu, Yung-Chi Chen, Po-Hsuan Keng, and Chi-Hung Cheng will be leaving their respective US minor league clubs shortly to join the rest of the team in Europe.

USA dominates Taiwan in Monterrey!!

Taiwan was outhit and outpitched by team USA at the World Youth Championships. The final score in 7 innings, was 12-1. USA will continue it's title defense by going against the winner of the Brazil-Japan game in a semi-final match up. Taiwan will play the loser of that game to help determine consolation rankings. Congrats to the US team on a dominating and impressive performance. The only team that might pose a threat to these kids is Cuba. That will be a classic matchup between two traditional powerhouses.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Quarterfinals set for World Youth Championship

USA beat Mexico 13-5 today to earn the #1 seed in Group A and will play Chinese Taipei Friday, August 26th. The matchup I was hoping to see is going to happen. I just envisioned it being in the semis or finals though. CT was beaten by Australia 5-4 and earned the #4 seed in Group B. Brazil, Australia, and Taiwan all had identical 2-2 records in preliminary play, but a run-difference ratio was used to determine rankings. Seedings for both groups are as follows:
Group A:
1)USA
2)Mexico
3)Japan
4)Netherlands
Group B:
1)Cuba
2)Brazil
3)Australia
4)Chinese Taipei
You can follow the USA-Taiwan game here on Friday. May the best team win!

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Chinese Taipei NT tuneup for World Cup

After it's SoCal - US tour, the senior NT has been back in Taiwan playing a number of domestic teams. In it's final tuneup for the World Cup, Team Taiwan will travel to Italy to play the national teams of Cuba, Italy, and China from August 24th thru the 31st.
On September 1st, the team will travel to Holland for the World Cup. The good news for Taiwan is that it has been grouped in a different pool from Cuba; the bad news is that Taiwan is in the same group as the US, Japan, Puerto Rico, and Australia.

World Youth Baseball Championship Update

Upon completion of all games played through 8/22/05, the current standings are:

Group A: (1)Mexico 4-0 (2)USA 3-0 (3)Japan 2-2 (4)Netherlands 1-2 (5)Russia 1-2 (6)South Africa 0-4
Group B: (1)Cuba 3-0 (2)Chinese Taipei 1-1 (3)Australia 1-1 (4)Brazil 1-1 (5)Czechoslovakia 0-3

The individual group round robin games go through today and finish tomorrow 8/24/05. The top 4 teams from each group will play each other: Group A #1 vs Group B #4, Group B #2 vs Group A #3, etc. The winners advance to the semifinals on Saturday, August 27th. The Gold medal and Bronze medal games will be played the following day 8/28/05, to conclude the tourney and crown a new world youth champion. Team USA has won the past 3 world championships. USA is off to a hot start with tremendous starting pitching. Robert Stock has been as advertised, with a dominating 15K, 1 hit, 7 inning shutout performance vs. the Netherlands. Mexico and USA will clash on Thursday to determine first place in their group, while Taiwan and Australia will duke it out on Thursday to determine the runner-up to Cuba in Group B preliminary play.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

XII AA WORLD YOUTH BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS

The IBAF-sanctioned championships is underway for the top 13-15 year olds in the world. Hosted in Monterrey, Mexico, the competition is split into two pools. Group A consists of: the US, Japan, Netherlands, Mexico, Russia and South Africa. Group B consists of: Australia, Brazil, Chinese Taipei, Cuba and the Czech Republic. Play began on 8/19/05 and will continue through 8/28/05. You can follow all of Team USA's action here. One interesting note for Team USA, is that the team will be led by super stud - Robert Stock, who impressed the hell out of me when he played against an older CT national team this past summer. See content that I posted on 8/6/05 for pics and comments on Robert Stock.

AAA - Junior International Baseball Tourney..

Taiwan hosted an international baseball tournament for top junior aged baseball players 15-18 that began 8/14/05 and ended today 8/20/05. Junior national teams from Japan, Australia, and Cuba competed against five teams composed of the top junior baseball players in Taiwan. Due to poor weather conditions, Japan and Ku Pau-Taiwan were declared co-champions. The bronze medal was won by Nan Ying-Taiwan. Complete game results can be found here.

CONGRATS TO TAINAN CITY, CT!!!!!!

Tainan City, Taipei won the 2005 Pony World Series over a team from San Diego 2-1 on Saturday. It was their first championship since 2000. CT was able to win on the strength of good pitching and small ball. Yao-Wen Chang, the tallest player for CT, was probably the most impressive player for the team, dominating with his pitching performances against Puerto Rico and in the championship game. Visit here for more details and pics.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Pony Baseball

Chinese Taipei has made it to the championship game of the Pony League World Series (for 13-14 year olds) The game will be broadcast on the internet this Saturday (8/20) at 1:00 pm Eastern Standard time. Click here for the broadcast link. Jia Yo Taiwan!

Hong Wen Chen

The team that will be representing Chinese Taipei at the upcoming World Cup might have one more potential pro prospect in pitcher Hong Wen Chen. Chen is the youngest of the unsigned players at 19 years old. He stands 6 feet tall even, has good size, and throws a fastball that sits around 89-91 mph. On the recent summer tour in Southern California, he was one of the few guys that stood out in my eyes(in addition to Lo). Let's see how he does in the World Cup against better competition.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Last Couple Misc. Pics of Team Taiwan (8/5/05).....

Pic of Me and John Hsu, the team trainer, translator, equipment manager, team photographer - the kid had a ton of team responsibilities. John promised me he would send me a copy of all his pics once he has some time. John is interested in coming here to the US to study at the University of Miami in FL. Anyone with UM connections, feel free to hook a brotha up! Contact me at Thetaiwaneseterror at yahoo dot com

The dugout - post game aftermath - nothing like watermelon on a hot day!

Team Taiwan with fans - I'm in the upper right hand corner :)

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Mariners, Braves, Marlins Scouting 15 year old pitcher...

Shu-Han Cheng, a 15 year old playing for a Chinese Taipei junior national team, was clocked in the low 90's while competing recently in the Enzo Civelli Tournament held in Italy. Cheng was born 12/7/89, stands 5'10'' tall and weighs 180 pounds. Keep an eye out on this kid in the next couple of years, when he becomes eligible to sign with a pro team. Chinese Taipei won the tournament with a perfect record. The other stand out player for CT was Kai-Wen Cheng. The 17 year old was the top player in the tourney playing 2 ways: hitting .520, with 2 HR's & 14 RBI's, while pitching a shutout and winning 2 complete games with an eye popping 31 K's in 16 innings.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

2005 Chinese Taipei World Cup Roster announced....

For the upcoming competition in September, Coach Yeh has decided to add a few players with US pro experience. The team will be very young, but should be competitive against their opponents.

Tentatively the roster is as follows:

Coach - Chih-Shien Yeh
Asst Coach - Jung-Tang Kung
Asst Coach - Wu-Hsiung Huang
Asst Coach - Kun-Han Lin
Asst Coach - Gilbert Rondon

There are initially 10 pitchers selected:
1)Hong-Wen Chen
2)Yi-Che Huang
3)Min-Ching Kao
4)Fu-Te Ni
5)Ying-Feng Tsai
6)Min-Hao Wang
7)Chien-Ming Chiang - YOMIURI GIANTS
8)Po-Hsuan Keng - TORONTO BLUE JAYS
9) Chi-Hung Cheng - TORONTO BLUE JAYS
10) Sung-Wei Tseng - played for the Anchorage Bucs this past summer

3 catchers:
11)Chih-Hong Chen
12)Yi-Wei Li
13)Kuan-Yi Yang

7 infielders:
14)Tsung-Han Yu
15)Chun-Yu Kuo
16) Chiang-Ho Chen
17) Yin-Chuan Lin
18)Sheng-Wei Wang - played for the Anchorage Bucs this past summer
19)Yung-Chi Chen - SEATTLE MARINERS
20)Chin-Lung Hu - LOS ANGELES DODGERS

4 outfielders:
21)Ying-Chieh Liao
22)Kuo-Hui Lo - SEATTLE MARINERS
23)Chih-Yao Chan
24)Unknown

*Players in blue demarcate those who played in the So Cal - US tour this past summer.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Chinese Taipei Youth baseball

Someone once asked me why I have an interest in Taiwan's youth baseball program. Well, the answer is simple. Of the 13 recent players (including Kevin Huang who was let go by the Red Sox) who have come here to the US to play ball, several have had their international debuts here in the US. Here is a list of the alumni who have participated in Little League or Pony World Series championships:

1) Chen (Dodgers) - 1990 Little League World Series Champs
2) Cheng (Blue Jays) - 1996 Little League World Series Champs
3) Wu (Mariners) - 1996 Little League World Series Champs
4) Lo (Rockies) - 2000 Pony League World Series Champs

Several other players have also participated in these youth competitions and gone on to pro careers in Taiwan's domestic league as well as in Japan.

Essentially, many of these games are previews of Taiwan's future baseball stars.

For a list of Taiwanese baseball players here in the US, check out this site run by Frank. He also has a complete list of all Asian baseball players here in the US.

Little League/Pony League - Chinese Taipei 2005

Well, there will be no trip to Williamsport this year for the Chinese Taipei Little League (11-12 year olds) representatives. In the qualifying Asian regional hosted in Fukuoka, Japan, Chinese Taipei tied Japan and Korea with a 3-1 record in round-robin play. However, Chinese Taipei beat Japan (4-1). Japan beat Korea (10-0). Then, Korea upset Chinese Taipei (3-1). Instead of a playoff to determine the winner, a tie-breaker system was implemented and Japan was awarded the trip to Williamsport. Talk about needing to change the system. I feel bad for the kids from Korea and Taiwan, both of whom deserved another shot at Williamsport.

In Pony baseball action (a youth baseball organization separate from Little League) , the Chinese Taipei representatives lost in the Bronco age division (11-12 year olds) in the championship game versus Puerto Rico 2-1. Game results can be found here. Chinese Taipei's roster and photo can be found here.

In the Palomino age division (17-18 year olds) of Pony baseball, Chinese Taipei lost in the semifinals to the eventual champions - Santa Clara, CA 3-2.

Chinese Taipei will have one last shot at winning a world championship in the Pony division (13-14 year olds) World Series beginning August 13th. Be sure to follow all the action here.

Sunday, August 07, 2005

Pic of Lo and Me!!!!!!!

This picture was taken by a fellow Chinese Taipei baseball fan who goes by Citybear.

Lo is listed as 6'2" and 182 pounds. That sounds about right, cuz I'm 5'9" and 162 pounds.

Big props to Citybear for taking this photo. For those of you interested in more pics of Friday's game, check out Citybear's pics at his site. He's got a much better camera than I have.

I'm gonna frame this baby!