A group weblog for Oakland A's fans
Saturday, May 22, 2004
Baseball in Taiwan
I haven't been to a game yet, but I have watched a few on TV. There are 6 teams in the CPBL (Chinese Professional Baseball League). The last 2 nights I watched the Bears play the Lions. The first thing I noticed was that many of the pitchers are foreign. On the Bears was a Dominican guy who looked a lot like Pedro and had the number 45. Another pitcher looked American and had the name Bailey. The players mostly look young and smaller, but maybe that is how all Taiwanese look to me. The play appears to be good, but the defense looks better than the hitting. Last night's game ended in a 2-2 tie, they play one more inning if tied after 9, then call it.
The baseball fans hit these big plastic bats together in unison and it sounds not too unlike the A's drummers, except they are all in unison and they play what sounds like pretty complicated stuff. Then an out of tune trumpet plays Popeye and Peewee Herman in time with the drumming. Maybe it is not so different from the Coliseum.
The uniforms have quite a bit of advertising on them and are very colorful, but again it is like that in Taiwan everywhere. Michael Jordan is in Taiwan this weekend for Nike and the whole place is crazy about it and he is on the front page of the newspaper. I was watching th news and there was a very serious reporter standing in front of a restaurant and behind her you could see just barely Michael Jordan eating. I imagined the commentary went like this, "Hello, yes it is true, I am here at this restaurant where MICHAEL JORDAN is eating. That's right he is eating food right here. We don't have any reports on what he is eating, but when we find out we will break our regularly scheduled programming with the update."
I haven't been to a game yet, but I have watched a few on TV. There are 6 teams in the CPBL (Chinese Professional Baseball League). The last 2 nights I watched the Bears play the Lions. The first thing I noticed was that many of the pitchers are foreign. On the Bears was a Dominican guy who looked a lot like Pedro and had the number 45. Another pitcher looked American and had the name Bailey. The players mostly look young and smaller, but maybe that is how all Taiwanese look to me. The play appears to be good, but the defense looks better than the hitting. Last night's game ended in a 2-2 tie, they play one more inning if tied after 9, then call it.
The baseball fans hit these big plastic bats together in unison and it sounds not too unlike the A's drummers, except they are all in unison and they play what sounds like pretty complicated stuff. Then an out of tune trumpet plays Popeye and Peewee Herman in time with the drumming. Maybe it is not so different from the Coliseum.
The uniforms have quite a bit of advertising on them and are very colorful, but again it is like that in Taiwan everywhere. Michael Jordan is in Taiwan this weekend for Nike and the whole place is crazy about it and he is on the front page of the newspaper. I was watching th news and there was a very serious reporter standing in front of a restaurant and behind her you could see just barely Michael Jordan eating. I imagined the commentary went like this, "Hello, yes it is true, I am here at this restaurant where MICHAEL JORDAN is eating. That's right he is eating food right here. We don't have any reports on what he is eating, but when we find out we will break our regularly scheduled programming with the update."
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Greetings from Taiwan
I'm in Taiwan for business for 3 weeks. I was going to write about baseball in Taiwan but I haven't seen much yet. I went to a sporting goods store in Hsin Chu and they had a bright orange nice leather Mizuno baseball glove. I plan on seeing a game while I am here and then I'll write about that. In the Taiwan Pro league there are 6 teams that are sponsored by big companies and all travel around from city to city, I think being mostly based in Taipei. Some of the team names are : Cobras, Whales, Bulls, Elephants.
Guess which team I am rooting for?
The elephants wear all yellow, with black trim. Let's go Elephants!
Since I haven't seen any games or even sportscenter since sunday, I don't have much about the A's or MLB to talk about, except Randy Johnson's perfect game. This guy was already a first ballot Hall of Famer. Many others have already written about his epic stuff. Way to go big unit. Here is a different perspective on it: In Taiwan I have found one station which speaks english, they seem to be American, but the sound of the news is like NPR or BBC. They gave 10 world headlines and then at the end said, "40-year old Randy Johnson pitched a perfect game for the Arizona Diamondbacks." Of all the things that happened in the world, this news was one of the top 10.
I'm in Taiwan for business for 3 weeks. I was going to write about baseball in Taiwan but I haven't seen much yet. I went to a sporting goods store in Hsin Chu and they had a bright orange nice leather Mizuno baseball glove. I plan on seeing a game while I am here and then I'll write about that. In the Taiwan Pro league there are 6 teams that are sponsored by big companies and all travel around from city to city, I think being mostly based in Taipei. Some of the team names are : Cobras, Whales, Bulls, Elephants.
Guess which team I am rooting for?
The elephants wear all yellow, with black trim. Let's go Elephants!
Since I haven't seen any games or even sportscenter since sunday, I don't have much about the A's or MLB to talk about, except Randy Johnson's perfect game. This guy was already a first ballot Hall of Famer. Many others have already written about his epic stuff. Way to go big unit. Here is a different perspective on it: In Taiwan I have found one station which speaks english, they seem to be American, but the sound of the news is like NPR or BBC. They gave 10 world headlines and then at the end said, "40-year old Randy Johnson pitched a perfect game for the Arizona Diamondbacks." Of all the things that happened in the world, this news was one of the top 10.
Sunday, May 16, 2004
Sweep!
Oakland has just wrapped up their first series sweep of the season, defeating Kansas City 6-2. Fittingly, the three-game series was swept behind the strong starting pitching of Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, and Barry Zito, who allowed a combined 13 hits and 5 runs in 23 innings. But this is pretty much what you expect when you throw the league's top 1-2-3 tandem against a bad team like the Royals.
The A's now return home for six more games against Detroit and Kansas City, the two victims of a 5-1 road trip this past week. Let's hope the team can keep on rolling.
Oakland has just wrapped up their first series sweep of the season, defeating Kansas City 6-2. Fittingly, the three-game series was swept behind the strong starting pitching of Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, and Barry Zito, who allowed a combined 13 hits and 5 runs in 23 innings. But this is pretty much what you expect when you throw the league's top 1-2-3 tandem against a bad team like the Royals.
The A's now return home for six more games against Detroit and Kansas City, the two victims of a 5-1 road trip this past week. Let's hope the team can keep on rolling.
