Chinese People Play Baseball?
Monday, June 18, 2007
Perhaps I'm a bit lost on this one but the Chinese actually play baseball? Since when? They just seem like that token, you have enough players to suit up a team and play in this here International Competetion, squad. So when they played the other Asian teams in the World Baseball Classic they lost 18-2 to Japan, 10-1 to Korea and 12-3 to Chinese Taipei or Tawain or whatever you want to call it. In essence they were the worst team invited to the tourny.
Well apparently the Yankees, not surprisingly, are the first team to really scout in China and are the first to sign a single Chinese player. And while they're at it, why not make it two, as they signed two 19 year olds, a catcher Zhenwang Zhang who plays for the Tianjing Fierce Lions and Kai Liu, the Chinese Kei Igawa as in Lefty pitcher who's probably not any good. Basically this is just another effort for the Yankees to begin expanding their marketing and start dominating the Asian market. Nothing says profit more than getting a portion of that 1+ billion people to begin buying Yankee merchandising.
Apparently Zhenwang helped lead the "Fierce" Lions to the China Baseball Championship in 2002. He was 14, is that how badly baseball sucks in China that they have 14 year olds on their championship teams. Wow that's impressive. Oh and it's not like it's difficult to win the CBL title, there's only 6 teams in the league.
Of course the fun will begin with an overblown, boring and useless press conference on July 6th, which will probably exclusively be shown on the YES networks. For those of you outside the New York market, you just might have to get Satellite so that you don't miss this extraordinary event in which the Yankees talk about signing two 19 year old Chinese guys you never heard of who most likely will never suit up in pin stripes.
6 comments:
Eh different sovereign body and competing forces. I've met a ton of people who proclaim themselves as Taiwanese and never Chinese.
Ethnics and politics is kind of funny thing. If you ask them if they are Han Chinese, they'll say yes. If you ask them if they are "Chinese" in Chinese, they'll say yes. If you ask them if they are Chinese in English, they'll say no. It's a weird situation, especially since not 10 years ago, the Taiwanese government was still claiming to be the only government that represents all the Chinese people.
But the point is, Taiwan and China, regardless of politics, share the same history, culture, and pop culture. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that Mainland Chinese people play baseball, because, quite franky, the Taiwanese love it.
Perhaps, but its similarly a cultural thing. You won't be finding people in the midwest playing much Lacrosse or people in the Northeast playing Waterpolo. Furthermore the CBL is younger than the Devil Rays franchise, so while you may say that they have the same history and should like the same things, that's not necessarily true.
True, but at the same time, we don't find it surprising when we do run across a lacrosse player from the midwest do we? Sure there aren't many varsity college teams in the midwest, but they still produce players correct?
Also a quick mention, this definition of "Chinese" you are using also includes Tibetans. So it get really complex really fast. Maybe a slightly more appropriate to refer to the "Chinese" as you defined them/us, would be "Mainland Chinese"?
Oh, one last thing, the name of the top professional baseball league in Taiwan?
Chinese Professional Baseball League.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Professional_Baseball_League
News Alert: Taiwanese people are Chinese too, claims Chieng-Ming Wang (王建民).