Baseball, Basketball Teams Gear Up for Asian Games|中職支援成棒隊 中華隊亞運抗日韓

For this time's Asian Games, Chinese Taipei is fielding a baseball team made up mainly of amateur players. The team also includes several professional players, but two have withdrawn due to injury. As a result, some worry, that the team may not be as formidable as it could have been.


Members of the Chinese Taipei national baseball team practice for the upcoming Asian Games at noon, hoping to get acclimated to the blistering weather in host city Jakarta. Chinese Taipei will play in Group B, and its opponents are long-time rival South Korea, Hong Kong and host Indonesia. The first game will be played against South Korea. The team's pitchers are already prepared to face off against South Korea's batters.

Lin Hua-qing of the Lamigo Monkeys is the provisional starter, and there are six or seven reserve pitchers who are also preparing. As for Wang Wei-chung, I hope that if we have the opportunity to win a game, I can send Wang Wei-chung to pitch for one to two innings.

The Chinese Professional Baseball League sent eight players to join the national team, four pitchers and four position players. Su Chih-chieh from the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions and Chan Tzu-hsien from the Chinatrust Brothers will provide the batting firepower. Manager Xu Shun-yi is planning to send them out as the fourth and fifth players in the batting order. The third player in the batting order will be 36-year-old veteran Lin Jia-you.

The ball isn't necessarily round. Although their strength is more formidable, baseball is like this, you have to hit it first before you know the result (win or loss). (What is the objective?) Second place and fighting for first place, or silver medal fighting for the gold.

Chinese Taipei has never missed a baseball competition at the Asian Games. Overall, it has won one gold medal, three silver medals and two bronze medals. At the 2014 Asian Games, it won the silver medal. This year's team is made up mostly of amateur players, along with Wang Wei-chung, who plays in South Korea's KBO League, and the eight CPBL players whose average age is 22 years. They were expected to provide stiff competition for Japan and South Korea. However, just one week before the start of the Asian Games, Wang and Su withdrew from the team due to shoulder issues and a right wrist fracture, respectively. Analysts say the team is not as formidable without these players. Meanwhile, the Chinese Taipei men's national basketball team is making final preparations in Taiwan after completing a training camp in Australia. The team does not include naturalized citizen Quincy Davis. Head coach Charlie Parker intends to continue with the small ball tactics used during the Jones Cup.

We may want to play more smaller and have our smaller guys play inside, a little bit like Golden State. I hate to compare ourselves to Golden State; they're the best team in the world.

This year's team only includes two holdovers from the last Asian Games, Liu Cheng and Chou Po-cheng. Liu is regarded as the team leader, and says team morale is high.

It's not that I'm the leader; it's that we're all working hard together. Actually, our ages are all quite close, so it's easy to become a team.

Chinese Taipei is in Group C, along with Japan, Hong Kong and Qatar. To advance, it will have to at least beat Japan or Qatar. The roster's new faces include Huang Zhen, who was chosen to replace Davis after performing well during the Jones Cup. It is hoped he will perform as well on the international stage.