Wang Chien-Ming...Overkill?!?

Well, it is easier to watch Wang on TV than try to fight corrupt politics, inept police, evironmental destruction, draconian education…etc…

Go YANKEES!

Yankees, Dodgers, Giant fans??? Can’t any of you get a life and get behind a REAL team…

:smiley:
(let the flame wars begin)

Speaking as a Red Sox fan, I’m figuratively holding my nose as I’m writing this, but Wang is the only Taiwanese public figure who is worthy of any sort of respect.

Still, full front page spreads in every one of the local newspapers after every one of his regular season starts is a bit much.

[quote=“Dangergyrl”]Ahh, yes the Dodgers, bottom of the 7th better leave the game B4 the L.A. traffic jam. (Yawn).

I’m not one of the haters. Actually not one post here is hating on Wang from what I see. But Taiwanese people are very fickle when it comes to many things. Wang just seems overexposed. He is playing in NYC and he is a fine player, but by contrast other Taiwanese players(in any sport) get very little support [/quote]
Exactly! Who can even name the Taiwanese round-the-world yachtsmen who recently made a very successful circumnavigation of the globe? And that REALLY is a difficult sport. Not like rounders at all.
Or the climbing team that summited Denali last week? Or the family of cyclists who went around the world on their bikes? Or Makalu Gau, who summitted Everest a few years back?
THOSE are sportsmen FAR more worthy of respect than some damn millionaire pro ball player.

[quote=“sandman”]Or Makalu Gau, who summitted Everest a few years back?
THOSE are sportsmen FAR more worthy of respect than some damn millionaire pro ball player.[/quote]

I read “Into Thin Air” several months ago and Makalu Gau and Taiwanese high mountain climbers in general came off as complete idiots. There was one anecdote where Gau and another climber stupidly got themselves trapped in bad conditions on Mt. McKinley and had to have their asses rescued by some American climbers. As Gau and another climber were literally being carried down by those Americans (a third Taiwanese climber having already perished), Gau was reportedly yelling “We did it!” Or on that Everest summit, there was a second Taiwanese climber with Gau who perished when he woke up one morning, climbed out of his tent to take a dump without first putting on his crampons, and fell down a ravine.

[quote=“alidarbac”][quote=“sandman”]Or Makalu Gau, who summitted Everest a few years back?
THOSE are sportsmen FAR more worthy of respect than some damn millionaire pro ball player.[/quote]

I read “Into Thin Air” several months ago and Makalu Gau and Taiwanese high mountain climbers in general came off as complete idiots. There was one anecdote where Gau and another climber stupidly got themselves trapped in bad conditions on Mt. McKinley and had to have their asses rescued by some American climbers. As Gau and another climber were literally being carried down by those Americans (a third Taiwanese climber having already perished), Gau was reportedly yelling “We did it!” Or on that Everest summit, there was a second Taiwanese climber with Gau who perished when he woke up one morning, climbed out of his tent to take a dump without first putting on his crampons, and fell down a ravine.[/quote]
If you followed that story at all at the time and afterward, you’d know that Krakauer’s account was horribly twisted and that he savagely misrepresented Gau, a fact he now freely admits. If anyone was inexperienced, it was Krakauer himself, who at the time was an (albeit expert) technical rock climber with VERY little big mountain experience who was only allowed on the expedition for his writing skills and his Outside Magazine credentials, not for his skills on the mountain. The FACT of the matter is that Gau is a hugely accomplished and vastly experienced climber who is well on his way to achieving his goal of climbing the 100 tallest peaks in the world, despite having lost most of his hands and feet to frostbite on Everest.
You must remember that people of all ability and skill levels die on big mountains all the damn time, and it’s almost always due to human error. To single out one climber at that level of commitment is either ignorant or churlish.

Have you been to Dodger Stadium lately? The traffic is insane! While I never leave early nor arrive late to games, I can understand how parents want to get their kids home before bed time. That’s responsible parenting . Now, I’ve been to “the Stick” many times during my college days to watch Dodger/Giant games and the fans are absolutely nuts. I do respect them though as they cheered for blue collared guys like Will Clark. These days they are the only dummies who still cheer for Barry Bonds.

Aside from our beloved little leaguers (whom I’ve seen twice in person at Williamsport), I don’t know if there are any sports figures who’ve accomplished more or have successfully brought Taiwan to the international stage. Let’s see, there were those two tennis players who went to the finals of the Aussie Open (it’s really a shame that they lost), Hong-Chih Kuo, who pitches for the LA Dodgers (but only have two career wins), Chien-Feng Chen, who had a cup of coffee for the Dodgers before deciding to return to Taiwan to play baseball, and that dude who competed in the Olympics in the '60s in the decatholon. The taekwondo gold medalists obviously deserve huge props, but it’s not major league basebll, aka- America’s game.

I think the fact that Wang pitches for the Yankees (the baseball version of the Cowboys) helps his exposure a lot. I don’t know if he’d get the same amount of attention if he pitched for a team like the Kansas City Royals. Of course the Taiwanese media is overplaying this thing but then again, they don’t name themselves like tv"BS" for nothing. I’m all for leaving this guy alone and let him pitch.

Finally, as for knowing the other players on the team, I’d bet you a Dodger Dog that most NY residents don’t know half of the Yankee roster so you shouldn’t blame the Taiwanese for not knowing who Miguel Cairo is. As for you, can you name the entire starting rotation on your own team?

  1. Gimmie a break, kids are going to get their sleep. Don’t ever tell that thing about responsible parenting to a hard core east coast fan.

  2. I cannot believe you have never heard of CK Yang. A silver medal winner in the 1960 Rome Olympics.(that dude) World famous. He died recently. Taiwan forgot about him. He was the best athlete ever produced by Taiwan.

  3. My uncle lives in NYC and Yankee fans know their team as well or better than any fans in the USA, you gotta be kidding me. Taiwanese people can’t name 2-3 players.

As a REAL Giants fan since I was 7. Yes I can name the players. People watch the games here and still can’t name them.

That could be subject to debate: http://vm.mtsac.edu/relays/HallFame/Cheng.htm — really nice person as well.

“It was in these three events that Chi tied or broke world records in 1970. Amazingly, all three marks came within a one week period. She equalled the 100m hurdle record, and broke the 200m record, on July 12, 1970 (a little more than one hour apart). On July 18, 1970, she broke the 100m record, running 11.0 seconds.”

Oops, back on topic: up with Wang, down with the Yankmees.

Yeah. She sucks big time. :raspberry:

[quote=“sandman”][quote=“Dangergyrl”]Ahh, yes the Dodgers, bottom of the 7th better leave the game B4 the L.A. traffic jam. (Yawn).

I’m not one of the haters. Actually not one post here is hating on Wang from what I see. But Taiwanese people are very fickle when it comes to many things. Wang just seems overexposed. He is playing in NYC and he is a fine player, but by contrast other Taiwanese players(in any sport) get very little support [/quote]
Exactly! Who can even name the Taiwanese round-the-world yachtsmen who recently made a very successful circumnavigation of the globe? And that REALLY is a difficult sport. Not like rounders at all.
Or the climbing team that summited Denali last week? Or the family of cyclists who went around the world on their bikes? Or Makalu Gau, who summitted Everest a few years back?
THOSE are sportsmen FAR more worthy of respect than some damn millionaire pro ball player.[/quote]

C’mon, that’s just not fair.

First of all, Wang is far from a millionaire. He makes about $400,000 a year. His teammate, Roger Clemens, makes $28,000,000 a year.

You really can’t compare different sports like you did and say which one deserves more attention. Baseball is the most popular sports in the US, and ALSO IN TAIWAN. Therefore, it has that mass appeal. The others you’ve mentioned are worthy as well, but until ESPN expands to like 10 channels, they aren’t going to be covered. When I tried to catch the tennis scores of our women’s doubles team, I couldn’t even find it on ESPN’s website. News coverage is about what brings the media the most $$. Mountain climbing, while a grueling sport compared to baseball (I know because my uncled climbed Mt. McKinley), just isn’t gonna cut it.

[quote=“Dangergyrl”]Have you been to Dodger Stadium lately? The traffic is insane! While I never leave early nor arrive late to games, I can understand how parents want to get their kids home before bed time. That’s responsible parenting . Now, I’ve been to “the Stick” many times during my college days to watch Dodger/Giant games and the fans are absolutely nuts. I do respect them though as they cheered for blue collared guys like Will Clark. These days they are the only dummies who still cheer for Barry Bonds.

Aside from our beloved little leaguers (whom I’ve seen twice in person at Williamsport), I don’t know if there are any sports figures who’ve accomplished more or have successfully brought Taiwan to the international stage. Let’s see, there were those two tennis players who went to the finals of the Aussie Open (it’s really a shame that they lost), Hong-Chih Kuo, who pitches for the LA Dodgers (but only have two career wins), Chien-Feng Chen, who had a cup of coffee for the Dodgers before deciding to return to Taiwan to play baseball, and that dude who competed in the Olympics in the '60s in the decatholon. The taekwondo gold medalists obviously deserve huge props, but it’s not major league basebll, aka- America’s game.

I think the fact that Wang pitches for the Yankees (the baseball version of the Cowboys) helps his exposure a lot. I don’t know if he’d get the same amount of attention if he pitched for a team like the Kansas City Royals. Of course the Taiwanese media is overplaying this thing but then again, they don’t name themselves like tv"BS" for nothing. I’m all for leaving this guy alone and let him pitch.

Finally, as for knowing the other players on the team, I’d bet you a Dodger Dog that most NY residents don’t know half of the Yankee roster so you shouldn’t blame the Taiwanese for not knowing who Miguel Cairo is. As for you, can you name the entire starting rotation on your own team?

  1. Gimmie a break, kids are going to get their sleep. Don’t ever tell that thing about responsible parenting to a hard core east coast fan.

  2. I cannot believe you have never heard of CK Yang. A silver medal winner in the 1960 Rome Olympics.(that dude) World famous. He died recently. Taiwan forgot about him. He was the best athlete ever produced by Taiwan.

  3. My uncle lives in NYC and Yankee fans know their team as well or better than any fans in the USA, you gotta be kidding me. Taiwanese people can’t name 2-3 players.

As a REAL Giants fan since I was 7. Yes I can name the players. People watch the games here and still can’t name them.[/quote]

Gotta love it when the Giants fans are pouting. I’m sorry the team has gone south and that the only reason you guys are going to the games is seeing some freak of nature hitting the ball to the water. :smiley:

Seriously, the LA congestion is no joke. The games start at 7-7:30pm and ends at 10-10:30pm. Add an hour in the parking lot and another hour’s drive home and you’re home after midnight. I can understand people doing that. Heck, I even saw people walking out of PacBell Park last night after the Yankees went up 6-2. Yes, they lost last night too but Bonds did hit one out.

Of course I knew CK Yang. I believe he passed away from cancer recently. I just recall his name right there and then. You still don’t know the Giants’ pitching rotation. I know, it’s okay though, they aren’t anything worthy of mentioning.

You want to talk about Yankees fans? Half of them don’t even know who their 1B was before Tino Martinez. They are full of bandwagoners from Wall Street and New Jersey! But you know what? You can be a fan of a player and not be a fan of the team. I mean, I love Wang, but I hate the Yankees. I love Ichiro, but I could care less about Seattle. Give the Taiwanese a break- Wang is a hero, case closed.

Just a public service announcement- Wang goes up against the Giants tonight :wink:

yikes I actually watched the marathon of a game today…Wang was off but it was really the crappy bullpen that ruined it again…argh

arod’s amazing though

If you look at his numbers, and age, there’s no question A-Rod, barring some awful freak accident that screws with his career, will break Barry Bonds record for home runs, assuming of course that Bonds gets the record this year. It’s likely to come in the next 2 weeks. And we know A-Rod wasn’t all hopped up on whatever. A-Rod will be regarded as one of the best ever to play the game when all is said and done, maybe the best.

However, until this year, he’s shown to choke time and time again during key moments when he HAD to deliver. This is what separates players like Derek Jeter (I’m by far NOT a Jeter fan) from A-Rod. I only wish Ken Griffey Jr. didn’t get injured for all these years. Otherwise, he’d be right in the middle of the all-time homerun chase.

well, I think Arod can be clutch…look at yesterday’s game. He had two very important hits in extra innnings…a hr and a double. Normal people don’t do that.

oh and it looked like Wang had another bad fingernail yesterday, which explains his below-avg outting even though he wouldn’t say it was the cause.

[quote=“Mellow Yellow”][quote=“sandman”][quote=“Dangergyrl”]Ahh, yes the Dodgers, bottom of the 7th better leave the game B4 the L.A. traffic jam. (Yawn).

I’m not one of the haters. Actually not one post here is hating on Wang from what I see. But Taiwanese people are very fickle when it comes to many things. Wang just seems overexposed. He is playing in NYC and he is a fine player, but by contrast other Taiwanese players(in any sport) get very little support [/quote]
Exactly! Who can even name the Taiwanese round-the-world yachtsmen who recently made a very successful circumnavigation of the globe? And that REALLY is a difficult sport. Not like rounders at all.
Or the climbing team that summited Denali last week? Or the family of cyclists who went around the world on their bikes? Or Makalu Gau, who summitted Everest a few years back?
THOSE are sportsmen FAR more worthy of respect than some damn millionaire pro ball player.[/quote]

C’mon, that’s just not fair.

First of all, Wang is far from a millionaire. He makes about $400,000 a year. His teammate, Roger Clemens, makes $28,000,000 a year…[/quote] He’s not an American millionaire…

I get a kick out of your avatar Nama.
You ought to be happy…your Cubs just swept the White Sox.

[quote=“sandman”]If you followed that story at all at the time and afterward, you’d know that Krakauer’s account was horribly twisted and that he savagely misrepresented Gau, a fact he now freely admits. If anyone was inexperienced, it was Krakauer himself, who at the time was an (albeit expert) technical rock climber with VERY little big mountain experience who was only allowed on the expedition for his writing skills and his Outside Magazine credentials, not for his skills on the mountain. The FACT of the matter is that Gau is a hugely accomplished and vastly experienced climber who is well on his way to achieving his goal of climbing the 100 tallest peaks in the world, despite having lost most of his hands and feet to frostbite on Everest.
You must remember that people of all ability and skill levels die on big mountains all the damn time, and it’s almost always due to human error. To single out one climber at that level of commitment is either ignorant or churlish.[/quote]

Well, when I got back to Internet-connected civilization after reading that book on vacation, I spent a couple of days Googling all I could about Krakauer and the controversy behind his book. From what I could find, most of the criticism came from Boukreev (the Russian guide) and his posse. For instance, Krakauer was fairly critical of Boukreev for hiking without any oxygen tanks and basically abandoning his clients to make it to the summit by himself. The Boukreev camp responded that it wasn’t out of the ordinary to summit without oxygen and once he made it back to the camp, he could grab some oxygen and help out any of the clients if they needed it. And both groups agreed that once the storm hit, Boukreev’s solitary attempts to save the stranded climbers were nothing short of heroic. This is a pretty good article about the Krakuer vs. Bourkeev debacle.

That being said, I did not find a single person defending Gau or the Taiwanese climbing team. If they were indeed unfairly maligned, I’d like to know how. But from what I can tell, everyone has corroborated the accounts that the Taiwanese were dangerously incompetent climbers. On crevices that were to be traversed by metal ladders, they went two at a time, which left nearly every other climber dumbstruck at how unnecessarily dangerous it was. Moreover, it was apparent that they were unfamiliar with how to use some of their basic climbing equipment, which looked newly purchased.

But not only were the Taiwanese dangerous to themselves, but to the other climbers. For instance, Gau’s incompetence at traversing Hillary’s Step caused a huge traffic jam of climbers, delaying them for hours. If not for that, it was certainly possible that most of the climbers who died on the descent from the summit would have made it back to the camp before the storm hit. (That being said, the largest share of the blame still lays on Hall and Fisher, who still insisted on going for the summit long after their deadline turning around had already passed.)

[quote=“sandman”]
Exactly! Who can even name the Taiwanese round-the-world yachtsmen who recently made a very successful circumnavigation of the globe? And that REALLY is a difficult sport. Not like rounders at all.
Or the climbing team that summited Denali last week? Or the family of cyclists who went around the world on their bikes? Or Makalu Gau, who summitted Everest a few years back?
THOSE are sportsmen FAR more worthy of respect than some damn millionaire pro ball player.[/quote]

you can’t compare apples to oranges but the difficulty of pitching in the US major leagues is considerable.

as for baseball being a team sport, undoubtedly true but the pitcher plays a key role and normally gets extra attention as a result.

baseball, or rounders if you will, has mythic status in taiwan, not coming from such a country you would naturally be at a bit of a loss to understand. he has made INCREDIBLE achievements so far, pitching solid as a rock in a city known for being a graveyard for the nervy. the attention he’s getting as a result would have been 100% predictable, and while exaggerated, is not undeserved.

also, the taiwanese fans are pretty knowledgeable, i don’t see any rock-dropping in wang’s future. what he’s already acheived is uncommon and may not be duplicated for a long time. i think with his style though he’s going to be around and going strong for many years to come.

Do you know how many people do that in any given year? Like my friend, his wife, and 2 kids…