I finished Gao’s Bio a few weeks ago (thanks to the Plecco app [or A-P-P]. Important takeaways about international competition:
During the Premiere 12 Tournament, he overheard Japanese and Korean players complaining about the crummy facilities at the Taoyuan stadium. And that was supposed to be Taiwan’s best stadium!
The Japanese and Korean national teams have a team cook on the plane. Thereby, the players don’t have to eat foreign foods when abroad that they might not be used to eating, and then get sick and have it affect their performance. Taiwan has no such thing. Are players in Taiwan that much less deserving?
He suggests more teams for Taiwan so that hitters would be able to adjust to different pitchers more quickly in international play. The most rewarding thing about his minor league career in the United States is the ability to adjust to different players.
I think he has a point with number 3. Recall the World Baseball Classic against Japan in 2013. The each new pitcher the Japanese put in would be unhittable the first time around. On the second time through the order, we’d rock them. And that included Tanaka. Then they’d put in a new pitcher, who would be unhittable.
I also think we should spend more money to take care of our players. Perhaps even give them monetary incentives to play.
The same things are said anytime a Taiwanese athlete wins a medal in the summer Olympics, or a tennis tournament, or a golf tournament: poor facilities to practice/play/compete in, no proper national sports institution to groom future athletes, etc. etc. etc.
You probably don’t get to see the domestic news conferences set up by players/athletes (after winning some major overseas competition) stating those same facts. Then the ruling government (be it KMT or DPP) sets up some no-power commission to recommend changes, and then the process is repeated, because the gov’t feels its citizens have a short-term memory.
As for more baseball teams? It’s all economics. If the market could support more teams, the market would have more teams.
So, to sum up… Taiwan’s national and county governments DO feel that athletes are less deserving.
I can vouch for that, having met and befriended quite a number of them over the years for various sports at the higher levels.
Thanks for the insight. Gao said he doesn’t want his son Brandon (布蓝登, not joking) to play baseball because athletes aren’t that well respected in Taiwanese society.
He’s also considering a career in politics after retirement. Normally, I’m opposed to putting stars in office, but I think Taiwan really needs it.
Yes, Taiwanese athletes are not as respected by their own compatriots/gov’t as other countries do for their own.
You will find that many athletic stars have gone into politics in Taiwan, starting with Chi Cheng (track Olympian), a pro basketball player (forgot his name), and some others. It’s a quick way to get richer than just being an athlete.
I find it interesting that so many Pangcah players went through the changing to mother’s last name during schooling and change back to father’s last name after turning pro thing.
Those that change back often has a non-ethnic-Pangcah father.
The Amis (Chinese: 阿美族; pinyin: āměi-zú; also Ami or Pangcah) are an Austronesian ethnic group native to Taiwan. They speak Amis, an Austronesian language, and are one of the sixteen officially recognized peoples of Taiwanese aborigines. The traditional territory of the Amis includes the long, narrow valley between the Central Mountains and the Coastal Mountains (Huatung Valley), the Pacific coastal plain eastern to the Coastal Mountains and the Hengchun Peninsula.
Yeah he is 3/4 Ami and 1/4 Washen. His grandfather came from the Anhui province. He can understand Amis but now speaks Daigi better now after living in Gaohiong for school.
There are other reasons for not having more teams. Ownership has a long way to go before the league can expand back to 6 teams. Constant local squabbles between the CTBA and the CPBL, although maybe this is better in recent years. The spectre of gambling is still always there.
I like sports. Watch rarely. Think it is useful in school. But teams are businesses, should the government favor them kver other businesses?
I get government assistance for healthyl iving and education. But not as much for these leagues which are just companies profitting. I can sort of get the push for international recognition and advertising via sports (like world games, chanpionships olympics etc) but surely taiwan gets further along via business, human rights and being a progressive asian country more than games.
Genuinely interested in why it should be a tax payers bill.
Cultivation of athletics has been partly the states responsibility since probably the Greeks. Think of it as paying national athletes to represent. No one would want to pursue sports even if they could without a way to make it a career. You can argue sports don’t matter but I think enough people think it’s important for it to be worth it.