Pan-Blue rag blames government for loss to South Korea

Politics Taiwan Politics
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originally posted at www.xanga.com/ludahai

[i]However, there is little doubt that baseball in Taiwan has remained where it was or even slipped back while the same sport has progressed in our Asian neighbors.

And that is due mainly to the attitude and mentality of government officials who are responsible for sports development.[/i]

chinapost.com.tw/editorial/d … i&id=78407

First of all, Taiwan BEAT South Korea three years ago to qualify for the 2004 Olympics. Taiwan has NEVER been a major world power in baseball, and it is only recently that Taiwanese have played in the major leagues for the first time. How does this indicate Taiwan’s ability in baseball “slipping back?” Unfortunately, while Korea’s Big Leaguers were playing in the tournament, Taiwan’s best, including Wang Chienming, stayed behind. Wang was pressured by the Yankees not to participate. Also, Taiwan lost 2-0 in the very first game of the tournament. Looking back, that doesn’t seem that bad. It was a closely fought game, and now South Korea is the only remaining undefeated team in the tournament with a 5-0 record and can clich a semi-final berth if Mexico defeats Japan tomorrow morning.

Is the pan-Blue rag SO DESPARATE to pin this on the government? Apparently so!

Why is it the government’s responsibility to develop sports? That is the type of thing Communist countries do. Twenty years ago, the United States was a nonentity in the world of international soccer. Now, the US is ranked sixth in the world (with a realistic shot at being ranked number four when the new rankings are released in about 30 hours.) The U.S. just missed out on being one of the eight seeded teams in the upcoming World Cup and defeating European and South American teams is no longer the shock it once was. What did the U.S. government have to do with this? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! It has begun with a humble victory in 1989 over Trinidad and Tabago that allowed the US to qualify for its first World Cup in forty years. Then reaching the second round four years later helped to fuel the sport among the youth and “soccer moms.”

Let’s look at Taiwan. There are major constraints to the development of baseball. One is the love of basketball. Kids like to play basketball. It is all you see most of them play. While people like to WATCH baseball, few people actually play it. Another factor is the lack of free time for young people. They spend too much time in school, with little time to develop other interests. Sure, Taiwan was once dominant in Little League, but that was back in the days when Taiwan was cheating. Another constraint is space. There are few places where people can play. In the U.S., kids pick up plastic bats and balls and play wiffle ball in their years. Taiwan’s accomplishments in baseball despite these considerable constrants is laudable and for this pan-Blue rag to blame the GOVERNMENT for losing to South Korea is simply a sad effort to continue their relentless attack on the government of Chen Shuibien.

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One major philosophical difference I’ve noticed between Americans and citizens of most other countries, is that Americans are unusual in our aversion to big government. The American libertarian frontier “rugged individualist” mentality is a major part of our political heritage. You talk to most Europeans and Canadians and they are much quicker in demanding that the goverment do something whenever there’s a problem. Lots of Taiwanese have this same kind of knee-jerk socialist mentality, as well. I am not saying that either way is better (though obviously as an American I have my bias), I’m just pointing out that the philosophical difference exists.

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Really? It’s the exact opposite for me and lots of other people. Baseball is a fun sport to play. It’s not as physically tiring as basketball or soccer, or as potentially injurious as rugby or football. Unlike basketball, you can play it for more than 10 or 15 minutes without needing to take a water break to get a second wind. It’s watching baseball that’s boring. The pace is just too slow, and the game goes on forever…at least a couple hours longer than most other team sports.

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While I understand the gist of your point, a powerful central government is becoming more and more the reality these days in the U.S. – along with government spending.

However, the power and outrageous spending of tax dollars is not in the interests of the majority in the U.S.

It’s a new kind of “conservatism” these days.

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Well that’s the USA, in Taiwan there are sort of government programs for sports in the sense they set up the competitions to feed the National teams.

Because the government usually focuses on Major Events like the Olympics, they usually overlook these other competition. Not to mention since the economy hasn’t been doing that well there is a lack of funding available.

Not to mention Taiwan Little League program is in terrible condition now. Don’t see much of Taiwan Little League in international competition either.

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At least the Taiwanese team can compete as a country! Look at what happened to Tibet.

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:laughing: seldom have I read a bigger load of nonsense and opinion poorly passed off as fact… practically every government on earth has sports development programs, with the US having probably the biggest and best funded government sports development program in the world… “academies of excellence” “sports institutions” and all manner of physio, sports psychology, and HMS programs are all partly or fully government funded in the US and in countless other countries… you mention the US’s improvement in international football… Notice how a very significant percentage of the US national football team are non US citizens who were granted US citizenship around the time football started taking off in the US, 5 to 10 years ago?.. no government involvement in US football development? utter rubbish… you honestly think the govt. has “ABSOLUTELY NOTHING” to do with sports development and the sports world is run by “soccer moms” ?.. :unamused: Don’t get me wrong, I don

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[quote=“China Post”]. . . there is little doubt that baseball in Taiwan has remained where it was or even slipped back while the same sport has progressed in our Asian neighbors.

And that is due mainly to the attitude and mentality of government officials who are responsible for sports development.[/quote]

chinapost.com.tw/editorial/d … i&id=78407

Or maybe that’s because the games are rigged and half of Taiwan’s players are in jail for throwing games in exchange for karaoke and whores. . . especially the Hispanic players who are less ethical than their Taiwanese teammates. :wink:

[quote]July 29, 2005
Two La New Bears baseball players, starter Tai Long-Shui (戴龍水) and American third baseman Victor Rodriguez, were summoned from a stadium last evening by Yunlin prosecutors for questioning about a multi-million-dollar game-fixing scandal. . .

Yunlin prosecutors said they had issued 10 subpoenas yesterday for players allegedly implicated in the scandal in which games were rigged through bribes, providing sex services or threatening players. . .

Emiliano Girona, a 23-year-old right-handed pitcher from the Dominican Republic, and Jeffrey Andra, 30, a US pitching coach with the Sinon Bulls, were questioned by Yunlin prosecutors about possible connections with bookies. . .

Prosecutors said Giron and Andra admitted they were treated to a visit to a Kaohsiung night club with hostess by persons associated with bookies, but both denied involvement in game-fixing scam.

Giron told prosecutors that he was threatened by gangsters connected to bookies but did not tell team officials about the threats. . .

The CPBL has expelled Chen and Tai from the league.

This is the second time a game-fixing scandal has rocked professional baseball since the first league was started in 1989.

After a prolonged investigation, the Taiwan High Court closed the case of the 1997 scandal just last year, sentencing 22 players and rookies to jail terms ranging from seven months to two-and-a-half years.

Meanwhile, a Chinese-language newspaper reported yesterday that baseball teams are planning to halve the number of foreign players.

“At a meeting on Wednesday, the six teams agreed to cut by half the number of foreign players, starting next year,” the newspaper reported. “As players from Latin American are more vulnerable to bribery, the teams plan to hire mainly players from Japan and the US.”[/quote]
taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/ … 2003265476

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I found this issue having very little to do with politics. Yes, there are government incentives for athletes to achieve excellency but they will be pretty much the same under any administration.

Just one point I’d like to say here,

For the people who grew up in Taiwan, did your parents send you off to math/chinese/english classes and encourage you to score well on academic tests when you were little, or did they drive you to baseball practice 3 times a week and encourage you to compete in a baseball team?

We are what we choose to be

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Really? It’s the exact opposite for me and lots of other people. Baseball is a fun sport to play. It’s watching baseball that’s boring. The pace is just too slow, and the game goes on forever…at least a couple hours longer than most other team sports.[/quote]

There is a very strong local connection here in Taichung with the local team, the Sinon Bulls. Perhaps the fact that it is the only team sponsored by a local company AND the fact that they have won two straight Taiwan Series titles has something to do with the fact that many people in Taichung watch baseball. I rarely see people actually playing.

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[quote=“ac_dropout”]
Because the government usually focuses on Major Events like the Olympics, they usually overlook these other competition. Not to mention since the economy hasn’t been doing that well there is a lack of funding available.[/quote]

Keep lying about the economy, but it is humming along just fine. It would be better if KMT-supporting traitors didn’t take their factories to China.

Taiwan was dominant in Little League when it was cheating. When it was caught, they decided not to follow the rules and withdrew from competition. They have since started following the rules. A team from Kaohsiung made it to the Little League World Series a couple of years ago. Last year, Taiwan’s team was eliminated by Japan.

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[quote=“plasmatron”]
:laughing: seldom have I read a bigger load of nonsense and opinion poorly passed off as fact… practically every government on earth has sports development programs, with the US having probably the biggest and best funded government sports development program in the world… “academies of excellence” “sports institutions” and all manner of physio, sports psychology, and HMS programs are all partly or fully government funded in the US and in countless other countries…[/quote]

Nearly all of the funding of the sports program in the United States is privately funded.

[quote]you mention the US’s improvement in international football… Notice how a very significant percentage of the US national football team are non US citizens who were granted US citizenship around the time football started taking off in the US, 5 to 10 years ago?[quote]

Actually, it was more like 15-20 years ago. Think about this, who would come to the US to get quick citizenship to play for a team that had little to no hope of ever playing in a World Cup? NO ONE! This was the state of American soccer 20 years ago. The only prominent member of the team in the early years that was foreign-born was Marcelo Balboa, who was Uruguayan-born. He got his U.S. citizenship legitimately.

Most of the players who represented the U.S. in the mid-90s were U.S. born. I played with (and against) many of them at the Junior Level in the 80s.

Can you come up with ONE example of a U.S. soccer player who gained U.S. citizenship from any means OTHER than a normal process for gaining U.S. citizenship? I can’t think of any.

[quote]… no government involvement in US football development? utter rubbish… you honestly think the govt. has “ABSOLUTELY NOTHING” to do with sports development and the sports world is run by “soccer moms” ?.. :unamused: Don’t get me wrong, I don

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Yes, well, the rugged individualist is largely a product of the west of the US, a compensatory fantasy for the fact that the western US is a colony of the east and midwest, and dependent on it for handouts and subsidies. Want to see those rugged individualists start crying for government intervention? Just take away their Federally subsidized military bases, water, highway system…

Vorkosigan

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The USA immigration process has a “fast track” for people who are exceptional in their field. So top artist, writers, athletes, etc. are almost guaranteed a succesful application process from immigration.

If a top soccer player wanted to be naturalized as a USA citizen, chances are his processing time could be cut in half, just by submitting he was an international calbier player on the USA olympic squad and his participation would increase USA medaling opportunities at international competitions.

Not all immigration applications are the same, if that is your concern.

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The USA immigration process has a “fast track” for people who are exceptional in their field. So top artist, writers, athletes, etc. are almost guaranteed a succesful application process from immigration.

[/quote]

I asked if he could come up with an example of a player on the US National Team who had citizenship processed in this way in the early days of US emergence (mid 1980s to mid 1990s). I don’t believe there are any. I was actually involved in the national junior program in the mid 1980s to early 1990s and NONE of the players I played with were born outside the US EXCEPT Marcelo Balboa.

As I said, in the early days of US soccer emergence, it would have been foolish to come to the US and play for the US soccer team with what was then regarded as having a minimal chance to qualify for World Cups - except for 1994 when we hosted. The only people in the mid-1980s who believed the US had the potential to be a global soccer power were those of us actually IN the program. The reason it would be foolish is because one you play on the “A” level team in a full international, you are ineligible to EVER play for another national side. This is a FIFA rule. I know about this rule first hand because I was invited by the Canadian coach to play about 20 minutes in a friendly in preparation for qualifiers for the 1994 World Cup (I have dual Canadian citizenship.) I knew Canada would not qualify, and I also knew I wouldn’t be on the US team for 1994. I was looking at 1998 or 2002 at that time. However, I wasn’t going to jeopardize my chances to be on a team that would go to play an “A” level game for a team without a prayer of qualifying.

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But that just your experience in the game of soccer. There are other sports in the Olympics. Baseball, Basketball, TKD, etc. that don’t have these limitation and people swap their citizenships for a chance to play at international competition.

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In my original post, I criticized the China Post for blaming the government for the alleged decline in Taiwnese baseball. I then brought up the fact that U.S. soccer has risen up into the world’s elite with little support from the federal government. I didn’t mention other sports. Another poster interjected that, among other things, the US government gave citizenship to players to help elevate the US team. That is simply NOT true, nor would players even want to do that for a team regarded as third rate at best. Now, the top US players are home grown. THAT was the context of this thread. Leave it to dropout to ignore that because it doesn’t support his beliefs about the world.

My experience IS with soccer because that is the sport I played until I was injured in college. However, given the subect at hand - the role of the government in sports development - the rise of the US from a third rate soccer pariah in the mid 1980s to the fifth ranked team in the world and considered by some a darkhorse to lift the trophy either this year or in 2010 is quite relevant.

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The seeding or knowledge capital to excel at any new sport is usually foriegn. In that I mean the coaching staff, training practices, key players, etc. After the knowledge capital is acquired in the system, then one can have “homegrown” success.

I think that’s besides the point.

Anyways the point was is the current administration at fault for not developing various sports program on Taiwan.

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[quote=“ac_dropout”]The seeding or knowledge capital to excel at any new sport is usually foreign. In that I mean the coaching staff, training practices, key players, etc. After the knowledge capital is acquired in the system, then one can have “homegrown” success.

I think that’s besides the point.

Anyways the point was is the current administration at fault for not developing various sports program on Taiwan.[/quote]

We had a couple of coaches in the national program (including Bora) who were foreign born. However, the point was the government involvement. You don’t have to be a citizen to be a coach, only to be a player.

The government is NOT at fault for the loss to Korea in baseball. To claim such is absurd. Korea beat Japan TWICE before the Japanese were even able to figure them out. Considering that Taiwan only lost to them 2-0 without the benefit of its major leaguers actually didn’t turn out to be that bad, did it?

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[quote=“ludahai”]
It would be better if KMT-supporting traitors didn’t take their factories to China.
[/quote]What about the DPP-supporting traitors? Can they keep their factories in China, or what?

And you know what would be even better? If private citizens who chose to make money with their own capital weren’t called traitors.

And you know what would be bestest? If people would make some of their own money so that they didn’t depend on traitors.