MLB Scoop

The Chinese national baseball team was unmercifully put to the sword this morning by the South Koreans, in a 14-0 defeat that knocks China out of the World Baseball Classic.  Regardless of emphatic nature of this loss, the 2009 WBC is an enormous success for the Chinese, simply because they won a game.  Manager Terry Collins looks at it the right way when he says, “This was a great experience for us. We did not play well tonight and the game got ugly, but I think the future is bright. I hope my players leave with the memory not of this game but the first two games in which we played well.”

China may have a larger population than any other country on the face of the Earth, but when he comes to developed baseball talent, it is one of the weakest teams on paper in the WBC.  It is light years behind Japan and South Korea, and well behind Taiwan.  That China leaves the tournament in third place in its pool, having shocked Taiwan behind the heroics of second generation Chinese-American Raymond Chang, is a massive accomplishment.

Aside from the American-born Chang,  China sported only two other players in MLB systems.  Kai Liu, a lefty pitcher, and catcher Zhenwang Zhang, play in the lower reaches of the New York Yankees farm.  Righty pitcher Dawei Zhu is in the Seibu Lions system in the Japanese League.  Apart from that, the Chinese roster consists of players who ply their trade in the domestic China Baseball League, which has only been around since 2002.  Compare that with Taiwan, who have had their own domestic league since 1989 and sport a roster with 10 players in MLB systems.  That’s a vast difference in experience and developed talent for the Chinese to have overcome.

While China’s 4-1 victory over Taiwan will be overshadowed by the Dutch’s amazing win over the Dominican Republic which was a greater upset in this WBC, one can only hope that the result spurs on the development of the game in both rival nations.   For China, the win should inspire national pride in the sport, hopefully help get more support for the domestic league and attract more young players to the game.  For Taiwan, hopefully the lose and the shame of being the first team eliminated from their group will cause them to take the next WBC more seriously, to make sure that their best players like Chien-Ming Wang and Hong-Chih Kuo play for national pride.

Shocking upsets like China’s win over Taiwan and the Dutch defeating the Dominican Republic are great for the game of baseball.  The World Baseball Classic’s purpose is to serve as baseball’s true World Cup and give the game greater exposure internationally in countries that normally don’t pay attention.  Results like these only help the fledgling WBC nations gain more interest in the sport domestically, and show young baseball players in nations outside the WBC group that anything is possible with hard work, disciplined play and determination.