East Windup Chronicle: Shinsano: Korea Puts Finishing Touches On Perfect Olympic Run

Congrats!

In the end, even the Olympics couldn’t screw up a great international baseball championship. It was a classic pitcher’s duel, generally well-played by both sides, and mercifully decided prior to penalty kicks. All in all a riviting game.

Thanks for the pancakes Olympics. Don’t forget your purse and shut the door on your way out. Bring on the WBC.

...A final note on what this means for Korean baseball: When I arrived in Korea back in 2003 the country was still in the afterglow of the 2002 World Cup. Between the popularity of soccer and general anti-Americanism that’s often percolating under the surface in many quarters of the country, there have been times that I wondered if baseball would ever regain it’s popularity. Well, it has. The KBO’s attendance levels are at an all time high, and this gold medal will really get people talking baseball again. A WBC win would raise baseball’s profile in Korea that much higher. But the true explosion will occur when the next great Korean player takes flight in MLB. It’s been a long time since the early years of Park Chan-ho to now.

NBCOlympics.com: IOC to MLB - We Want A-Rod

In other news, Korea tops Cuba 3-2 for the Gold and the US beat Japan 8-4 for the Bronze. Here’s hoping baseball is back in 2016.

BEIJING (AP)—Jacques Rogge would get a kick out of seeing A-Rod in the Olympics. Probably Dice-K, too.

The International Olympic Committee president said Saturday baseball would do itself a big favor toward getting back on the Olympic program by bringing the best from the major leagues, such as the New York Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez or star Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Japan Defeats US For Olympic Gold

A stunner in softball: The U.S. team, which has dominated the sport since its introduction to the Olympic in 1996, has lost the gold medal game to Japan, 3-1. With the IOC having voted to eliminate softball from the Olympic docket in 2012, it will be at least eight years --and maybe never—until the U.S. can attempt to avenge the loss.

Japan scored their insurance run with some assistance from the suddenly tight and indecisive U.S. defense. Megu Hirose led off the seventh with a sharp single to left and went to second when Masumi Mishina dropped a sacrifice bunt. Rather than taking the easier out at first, U.S. first baseman Tairia Flowers decided to throw to second to get the lead runner, but shortstop Natasha Watley dropped the throw (which may have been late anyway), and both runners were safe.

Two batters later, with runners on second and third, Motoko Fujimoto hit a comebacker to U.S. pitcher Monica Abbott, who tried to get the runner heading home. Her throw to catcher Stacey Nuveman was late, and Japan had pushed their lead to 3-1.

Is firstbaseman the preferred nomenclature?

Baseball players eyeing shortcut to Olympic gold

Five Japanese baseball players, including ace pitcher Yu Darvish, have had close-cropped haircuts since arriving in Beijing.

The reason for the shorn locks is not to look cool, but to show each player’s desire to win the gold medal in the baseball competition.

According to Japanese custom, cropping one’s hair is a way of showing contrition or determination, and is especially common among athletes.
[...]
“I was ashamed of my performance [against Cuba], so I got my hair cut,” Darvish said.

Yes, but did he trim his sideburns?

Olympic Baseball’s Two-Week Wake

As the end nears, there isn’t much joy at Wukesong Baseball Field. In the early rounds the atmosphere was sepulchral. One game, between South Korea and China, pulled in fewer than 1,000 fans. On Tuesday, about 6,000 showed up to watch the team from the place usually known as Taiwan (Chinese Taipei here) play the U.S. Paying customers were stuck in the outfield. Infield seats were reserved for the press and the “Olympic Family,” both in near-complete non-attendance.

The loudspeakers were loud enough, emitting the same seat-banging sound effects inescapable at U.S. ballparks. A blessing of baseball at past Olympics has been a commercial-free calm. But when the sound effects stop at Wukesong, the stands are sometimes struck dumb.

Toronto Sun: Canada’s team? No way Jays

Ricciardi’s roster shenanigans with pitcher Scott Richmond really toast the backbacon of columnist Bob Elliotti—er, Elliott.

The Jays recalled the 28-year-old, one start before Olympic rosters had to be filed, had him start twice more and then demoted him to triple-A Syracuse on Friday.

Jays management appeared surprised when some Canadians reacted angrily to Canada going into the Olympics without its best starter.

Only arrogance or a failure to understand this country, or both, would allow management to not know they were walking into a sandstorm, or whatever it is Mr. Lahey and Randy say every 10 minutes on the Trailer Park Boys.

When the Colorado Rockies didn’t allow Jeff Francis to pitch in the 2004 Olympics how many people in Denver cared? Canadians cared about the loss of Richmond.

Of course, it could have all been avoided had the Jays allowed Richmond to pitch for Canada and recalled him when needed next month.

Besides the thrill of it all, Canada would have had a better product.

US advances to Semis

After yesterday’s USA-China game, the Americans faced China’s rival, Taiwan/Chinese Taipei.

It went well.

John Gall hit a go-ahead solo homer to start the sixth, Brandon Knight struck out five in 6 1-3 strong innings and the U.S. baseball team beat Taiwan 4-2 Tuesday night.

Dexter Fowler, batting ninth for the Americans, missed hitting for the cycle by a home run. His sixth-inning double against Taiwan reliever Lee Chen-Chang gave the U.S. a two-run cushion.

Elsewhere: Korea beat Cuba, Canada beat the Netherlands and Japan beat China.

Tonight/Tomorrow: China/Cuba, Korea/Netherlands, Taipei/Canada and USA/Japan.

No news as to whether any game will involve a trident.

Olympic Baseball: US routs China in violent game

Fine, I was bad the last few days, not posting my Olympic updates. I was on vacation. So let’s just sum it up like this: Phelps is awesome, the new Extra-inning rule is stupid, and, to paraphrase a Bad News Bears quote, the Chinese can take all those gold medals they’ve won in Gymnastics and shove it up their asses.

And now…

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Matt LaPorta was taken to the hospital for a precautionary CAT scan Monday night with dizziness only three days after Jayson Nix fouled a ball off his left eye and needed microsurgery. LaPorta has a mild concussion and will be monitored daily, according to the USOC.

Jake Arrieta struck out seven in six shutout innings, Taylor Teagarden and Nate Schierholtz each hit two-run doubles and the U.S. team beat China 9-1 in a game that turned ugly and featured three ejections.

If tempers had been this testy back home, the U.S. players figure benches might have cleared.

China’s top player, catcher Wang Wei of the Seattle Mariners organization, was knocked out of the game with a left knee injury following a collision at the plate with LaPorta in the fifth.

After Schierholtz made a hard slide home against backup catcher Yang Yang on a sacrifice fly in the sixth—and Yang had to be held back from Schierholtz by teammates—China manager Jim Lefebvre was ejected for arguing about the rough play. Chinese reliever Chen Kun and pitching coach Steven Ontiveros were tossed soon after when Chen plunked LaPorta in the head to start the seventh.

Current Standings:
Cuba 5-0
South Korea 5-0
Japan 3-2
USA 3-2
Stubby Clapp and his Traveling Canadians 1-4
China 1-4
Netherlands 1-4
Chinese Taipei/Taiwan 1-4

Tonight/Tomorrow: Canada v. Netherlands, Korea vs. Cuba, Japan vs. China and USA vs. Taiwan/Taipei.

OLYMPICS: Results from Day Two

From day two of the Olympic Baseball tournament…

Stephen Strasburg had a no-freaking hitter through seven as the USA won the game 7-0 in a rain-shortened (8-inning) game. Matt “I was in the Sabathia Deal” Laporta and Matt Brown (Angels organization) had HRs.

The China-South Korea game was delayed for rain in the sixth inning.

Cuba beat Canada 7-6. Nick Weglarz of the Kinston Indians went 4-5 for Canada with 2 HRs. Canadian National Hero (look into your heart, you know it’s true!) Stubby Clapp went 2-4.

Japan beat Taiwan (or, as the IOC calls them, “Chinese Taipei") 6-1. Hideaki Wakui of the Seibu Lions went 6 innings and gave up 3 hits.

Tonight (Tomorrow): Chinese Taipei/Taiwan vs. China (winner gets the Strait), USA vs. Cuba, South Korea vs. Canada and Netherlands vs. Japan

Olympic Baseball: THE RESULTS FROM DAY ONE

In Olympic Baseball today (last night? This morning?):

Chinese Taipei defeated the Netherlands 5-0 behind two RBIs from Chien-Ming Chang of the Sinon Bulls.

Canada mercy-ruled China 10-0. Scott Thorman had a 3-run dinger.

The United States lost to South Korea, 7-8. They were leading in the ninth when Buffalo Bisons’ reliever Jeff Stevens blew the lead, then the game, eventually losing on a walk-off sac fly. Assisting Jeff Stevens in blowing it was LA Angels farmhand Matt Brown, who tried to throw home to get the tying runner (failing miserably), when it would have been MUCH, MUCH smarter to get the runner at first. Hindsight is 20-20, I guess.

In the final game of the day, Cuba beat Japan 4-2. Yu Darvish got knocked around for 7 hits and 4 runs in just 4.0 innings of work.

Tonight (tomorrow?), the United States is in a basically-must-win game against the Netherlands, the Chinese face the Koreans, the Canadians face Cuba and Taipei faces Japan.

To see the boxscores and official results, click the link.

The Official Olympic Baseball Prelims Topic

The last Olympic baseball tournament for an undetermined-but-likely-long period of time starts tonight… or is it tomorrow (I HATE TIME DIFFERENCES!). First there’s the prelims. This links to the schedule for the whole tournament. You can find the TV/Online schedule for the tourney (in the USA), here.

The Online stuff is free, but if it’s anything like the other online things available at NBC, there will be no voiceovers, just the noises at the stadium itself. Still, free baseball in the middle of the night with no sound is better then no baseball at all.

SI Vault: The Greco-American Olympic Team

The Olympic Baseball tournament starts tonight/tomorrow (I hate time differences), so in the final SI vault entry I’m going to post on this subject of Olympic Baseball, we look at the 2004 Games… where the USA didn’t qualify, thus meaning SI didn’t really give a crap, putting in two short paragraphs. Here’s one of them.

In its first Olympic baseball game ever, Hellas, as the blue script on Greece ‘s classic if not classical white uniforms proclaimed, scratched out two singles, made two errors and lost 11--0 on Sunday to the Netherlands --not that the crowd of 5,009 seemed to mind. The fans cheered every play by the jerry-built team (one native Greek, 22 Americans with Greek heritage) inspired and supported by Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos .

Dubya meets the US and Chinese Baseball Teams

Dubya’s Beijing Olympic Vacation comes to an end at a ballfield, thus finally allowing everyone to have a big long discussion on whether he really should be there in the first place. Keep it civilized. (hides behind sandbags)

Bush spent time addressing the United States and Chinese teams, talked baseball in the U.S. dugout, had a young local volunteer come to his side of the park so he could sign her foul ball, posed for pictures, watched a few innings of the U.S.-China tuneup exhibition, and said to the head of the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) that he is confident baseball and softball will return someday soon as Olympic events.

“We’ll get it back,” Bush told Harvey Schiller, president of the IBAF and former U.S. Olympic Committee chief, as they sat side-by-side in the stands behind the U.S. dugout on the eve of baseball’s opening round, which starts for the U.S. team on Wednesday at 6 p.m. local time against Korea on the same Wukesong Stadium Field 2.

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Among the many photos Bush posed for was one for the ages: a group shot of the U.S. and China teams behind the batting cage. The White House press corps photographers had to step back far enough to get them all into the pictures. Those are the two nations that are expected to be battling for the most overall medals in these Olympics.

Bush—currently in a tense diplomatic rift with Russia over that nation’s sudden takeover of one of the capital cities in former Soviet satellite nation Georgia—was followed by the White House press corps and did not speak to reporters. He seemed to love just talking baseball, and spent a while in the dugout asking various U.S. players where they went to college or high school.

Trading a shuttlecock for a bat

Ram Nayyar isn’t surprised that Jimmy van Ostrand is at the Beijing Olympics. He just thought it would be in another sport.

Richmond native van Ostrand, a power-hitting first baseman/outfielder with the Canadian baseball squad, was a badminton standout under Nayyar, who coached him in that sport at the Vancouver Lawn Tennis & Badminton Club.

Van Ostrand even won two gold medals at the Junior Pan-Am Games in Cuba in 2000, but he decided to focus solely on baseball soon after. It’s hard to argue—the Houston Astros prospect hit a home run in Major League Baseball’s 2007 Futures Game.

“I can honestly say that Jimmy was one of the more talented badminton players I have had the privilege of working with,” says Nayyar, whose resume includes a stint as manager of the Canadian under-23, under-18 and under-16 national team pools two years ago.

I guess ballplayers really can come from anywhere.

Clapp has a four-letter word for Canada’s hopes

He’s back. Stubby Clapp, often a Canadian baseball hero in past tournaments, was asked about Canada’s expectations for the coming baseball tournament. “Four letters,” he replied. “G-O-L-D.”

That is all.

U.S. grows ball field of dreams

Recipe for a ball field: import 40 tons of clay from San Diego and two gallons of Bermuda grass seed bred in Oklahoma. Add 1,200 bushels of turf sprigs, 6,000 tons of local sand and 300 volunteers. Stir in a few phrases not found in Chinese-English dictionaries, such as “pitcher’s mound” and “drag the field.” Let grow for two years.

Murray Cook, baseball operations manager for the Beijing Olympics, has spent the last two years building the Beijing Wukesong Sports Center Baseball Field, which will be home to the final baseball games in Olympic history. The eight Olympic teams will play their first games on the center’s practice and playing fields Wednesday. The name translates as “Five Pines Baseball Field.”

Sounds like a pretty nice venue. Too bad it’s getting torn down once the Olympics are over.

SI Vault: The Gold Medal 2000 Olympic Team

Team USA’s finest hour!

Tommy Lasorda , their 73-year-old Hall of Fame manager, understood this. He took every opportunity to mention that Ben Sheets (Brewers) and Roy Oswalt ( Astros ) would become great pitchers for their big league clubs. He said that 30-year-old Mike Neill could still hit major league pitching. He boasted that if this team could stay together for two years—me most harmless of fantasies—it could win the World Series. Lasorda pumped so much sunshine into his players that they needed an SPF 60 sunblock.

He also proclaimed that the Olympics were bigger than the World Series. In a line he had splendidly rehearsed, Lasorda reasoned that when the Dodgers win the Series, Dodgers fans are happy but Giants and Reds fans aren’t. Now everyone could be happy. Oakland and Seattle could battle for the American League West flag, but Lasorda had commandeered the one flag that matters—the one with stars and stripes, the one that rested on his left shoulder as he watched his players, the comers and the goers, wildly celebrating a 4-0 victory over heavily favored Cuba in the gold medal game.

In that game Sheets was magnificent, working with catcher Pat Borders—a 22-year-old prospect and a 37-year-old former World Series MVP, a perfect marriage of new and old. Sheets needed only 103 pitches against the flummoxed Cubans, humping fastballs and changing speeds and mixing in breaking stuff. He had 16 ground ball outs and struck out five. If Cuba had ever been shut out in international play, it was beyond the recall of 10-year manager Servio Borges. The Cubans scratched out just three hits, and only one runner reached second base against the righthander Sheets , mute tribute to his future in Milwaukee .

Does anyone believe what Lasorda said, about if the Olympic Team had stayed together for two years it would have been able to be a WS contender?

SI Vault: The 1996 Olympic Team and the Aura of the Aluminum

After all, only three weeks had passed since Cuban righthander Rolando Arrojo defected to America while his team was playing in Albany , Ga. And once again last week, Cubans were going over fences: Designated hitter Orestes Kindelan hit two home runs into the upper deck of Atlanta - Fulton County Stadium, something no major leaguer has done since 1971. One of those balls alit 521 feet from home plate, but Kindelan said the shot was no more remarkable than his own initials, that he has indeed hit balls farther. “In Puerto Rico ,” says Cuba manager Jorge Fuentes, “he hit one that was actually uncommon.”

In Atlanta the actually uncommon was commonplace. The baseballs themselves were, as NBC might put it, implausibly live, jumping off aluminum bats, having been soft-served by Dutch and Italian pitchers, in a ballpark nicknamed the Launching Pad. You do the math. The U.S. hit five home runs in the first inning against Japan last Thursday, including back-to-back-to-back-to-back jacks, breaking the Olympic record for backs set earlier in the tournament by Korean shortstop Jae-Ho Back, who, naturally, wore BACK on his back.

But back to the point, which is that Cuba and the U.S. are the Sampras and Graf of Olympic baseball. They are head and shoulders above the rest of the eight-team field, with the added attraction that they actually play, to say nothing of play each other. On Sunday, Cuba led the U.S. 10-2 and endured a two-men-on, ninth-inning rally to survive and win 10-8. The game was almost certainly a preview of Friday’s gold medal game, except that the U.S. was saving its ace—Clemson junior righthander Kris Benson , a Georgia native who was taken by the Pittsburgh Pirates with the No. 1 overall pick in June’s amateur draft.

Don’t worry folks, only a few more Olympics to go. The 1996 Olympics, of course, brought us all Turner Field.

SI Vault: 1992 Olympics

The SI Vault: You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave (starts rockin’ guitar solo).

With the stadium sold out and the press section overflowing, an upset, or even an exciting game, might have given Olympic baseball the prestige of, say, team handball. But, no. The overmatched U.S. team committed five errors and the Cubans four. There were also a couple of balls that fell among outfielders for singles, some distinct lack of hustle on the part of the Americans, a wild pitch, bad umpiring and various delay tactics by both teams. Said Fraser, “The Cubans tied so many shoes that I went out to the umpires to offer them some of our shoelaces.”

Still, it takes two to play a game that lasts exactly four hours, and the Americans were just as guilty of time-wasting. Fraser, who’s known for his gamesmanship, instructed his batters to step out a lot against Cuba’s pitchers. First baseman Jason Giambi is a nice kid and all, a good student at Long Beach State, but if he doesn’t get in the batter’s box sometime soon, we’ll scream.

The time of the game was an Olympic record, of course, and it was only 18 minutes short of the major league record for a nine-inning game. In the wee-hours press conference following the game, which began at 9 p.m., Cuban manager Jorge Fuentes was asked this question: “If you were a Spaniard or Frenchman watching his first game tonight, would you ever go to another game?” The usually dour Fuentes laughed.

He could have easily been laughing at the U.S. team’s selection process, which kept the Americans from fielding their best squad. Fraser had just one week to cut 50 players down to 25, and four weeks to forge them into the semblance of a team. Partly because Fraser didn’t have time to make proper assessments, his roster had no true first baseman, only two lefthanded hitters and no pitching depth. The Cubans, who have at least seven players with major league talent, have been together for years.

Even back then, they didn’t consider Giambi a 1B.

SI Vault: The 1988 Olympic Team

If anyone dares, DARES to put up articles from 1992, 1996, 2000 or 2004, I will come after you. This is my little annoying feature! MINE! MINE! ALL MINE!

Perhaps the biggest threat to the U.S.  pitchers in Seoul will be the U.S.  hitters. One slow June night during their tour of Japan , the pitchers ambushed third baseman Ed Sprague at the team hotel in Morioka, beating him, some say with straight faces, to within mere feet of his life. Sprague ‘s comrades in aluminum mounted a counterassault on the pitchers, wearing shower caps and kimonos. Since then the batsmen have given a gangland going-over to Abbott , who emerged from a shower one day to find eight guys in slicked-back hair and suits pouring out of his closets.

The Olympians go for the aggressive hit and the quick kill on the field as well. Switch-hitting second baseman Ty Griffin, the Chicago Cubs ‘ No. 1 pick, out of Georgia Tech , has set the tone from the leadoff spot. He has hit .500 with 28 RBIs, 14 steals and 9 homers in 28 games on the tour. Griffin made a name for himself in Indianapolis a year ago when he hit a ninth-inning, two-run homer to beat Cuba 6-4. It was the first Pan Am Games defeat for the Cubans in 20 years. “After that, I went back to Georgia Tech and wanted them to throw inside,” says the 6-foot, 180-pound Griffin. “I like to jerk the ball now.”

Whatever happened to the great Ty Griffin?

From the SI Vault: The 1984 Olympic Team

Don’t go in the SI Vault. You might never come out.

A rainout, in fact, may be the best hope for the opposition. In Fenway Park last Friday, the Olympians walloped a Boston park league team 17-2. Clark smashed three taters, and gargantuan first baseman Mark McGwire of USC bounced a shot off the concrete wall above the centerfield fence. “That’s a major league dinger,” the Angels’ Reggie Jackson , who was waiting to play the Red Sox , told McGwire when he entered the dugout. “But you need to work on that trot. Take more time getting out of the box.”

More than 3,000 candidates, including a 12-year-old girl and a 43-year-old man, participated in 63 open one-day tryouts that began last fall, and from the masses Dedeaux and his staff have assembled a team that is impressive from top to bottom. The largest player is the 6’5”, 220-pound McGwire , whom Minnesota scouting director George Brophy compares to Dave Kingman . McGwire , 20, hit 31 homers for USC this season and was Oakland ‘s No. 1 draft pick. The smallest player on the team is 5’9”, 165-pound Oddibe McDowell , 21, a bubbly centerfielder and leadoff man who was Baseball America ‘s collegiate Player of the Year this season at Arizona State . He was the Rangers’ No. 1 pick last month, the sixth time in his amateur career he had been drafted.

For those that care, Kingman and McGwire have a 728 similarity score.

Bob Watson confident of baseball Olympic reinstatement

“I think baseball and softball will be reinstated in the Olympic format,” Watson said. “I think in ‘09 they will vote it back in. They have been lobbying hard behind the scenes. I think that vote is going to be baseball’s return.”

Baseball will not be played at the 2012 London Olympics but it could return as soon as 2016, when the Games could be staged in baseball hotbeds Tokyo or Chicago. Madrid and Rio de Janeiro are the other candidates.

“Global competition is keen,” Watson said. “Baseball has been put out around the world. We are making it a global sport.”

But Watson also made it clear that the Olympics will never feature Major League Baseball stars because the 30-team US league will not shut down its April-September season so top talent can attend the Games.

“The bottom line is we’re not shutting down the season,” Watson said. “Our owners are not going to shut down the season. We’re not going for that.”

Ahh, but Bob… you underestimate the thickheadedness of snobby Europeans…

China is coming after Minor Leaguer’s E-mails

From the Olympic diary of Brian Duensing:

Tonight, we have our fourth and final game in the states against Canada and then will bus out tomorrow morning at 4:30 am.  We are heading to Washington, DC and then fly out that afternoon on a 14 hour non stop flight to Beijing.  We were told to be careful with taking laptops and things of value to us because of reports of stuff missing when coming back to the room from an event.  Our security people have told us that there have actually been accounts of people finding spyware on their computer when returning to the states, so that when they send an email or anything, the Chinese government can see it.  So hopefully that doesn’t happen and everything will be fine.

Hopefully none of the Olympians are E-mailing state secrets.

BA: Two Cubans defected in Canada

Two Cuban teens have left the Cuban team at the Junior World Championships in Edmonton and are apparently defecting.

One is a projectable LHP who has previously touched 93 with raw but promising secondary pitches who might be 18.
The other is a small, no-power, contact-and-defense second-baseman of an unknown age, though if he is playing in the Jr Championships hes probably a teenager or very early 20s.

Info on the defections themselves, without the scouting reports, here:
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=e0d10b31-df39-4f66-aed2-e4299912385b

The IBAF’s new extra innings rules make a mockery of the game!

Each team’s at-bat in the 11th inning and beyond will begin with runners on first and second bases. Teams may start the 11th at any point in their batting order under format changes announced Friday by the International Baseball Federation and adopted in time for next month’s Beijing Games.

God help us all. I really hope that MLB doesn’t adopt this for the WBC next year.

Actually, come to think of it, I really hope Selig doesn’t like this idea.

Castro blames “rich and powerful” for dropping Olympic Baseball

Baseball will not be on the Olympic program in 2012, though officials are hopeful it could return in the future. Castro said the Cuban team has “all eyes on the last appearance of their sport in the Olympics, because that’s what the rich and powerful masters of the games have decreed.”

Replace “rich and powerful” with “European” and you will be on the mark, Fidel.

Team USA releases the Olympic Roster

USA Baseball announced its roster for the Olympics this afternoon. We’ll have plenty of analysis as the day goes along, but here’s a quick look at the 23-man roster that was announced. Team USA will be prospect-laden behind the plate and in the outfield, with Dexter Fowler, Matt LaPorta and Colby Rasmus ranking among the top prospects in the game. But in the infield the U.S. will rely on plenty of minor league veterans with players like Terry Tiffee and Mike Hessman.

I think it’s a rather underwhelming roster (the whole roster is in the article). It’s bleedingly obvious that the MLB teams basically shut down most of the big prospects, you can tell this by how almost all the players are from only a few teams. No wonder the Olympics kicked Baseball out.

One Handed Wonder Still Inspires

Blaise, from Monmouth Beach, N.J., is a natural left-hander who was born with Poland’s Syndrome, which cost him the use of his right hand. When he started playing baseball, he wanted to wear a glove on his right hand, like all the other southpaws. His father, Matt, tried five different mitts, bathing them in oil to soften the leather, but Blaise couldn’t close any of them. Finally in March, Matt showed Blaise the video of another lefty with a similar problem. Blaise decided then to copy the man in the video.

In May, wearing his glove on his left hand, Blaise ran in from center field to cover second base, making a backhanded pick-up of an in-between-hop throw. When asked how he did it, Blaise said, “Jim Abbott. He’s my friend.”

A nice article on Jim Abbott - now a pro motivational speaker, but still motivating many kids for free.  Not vaguely a great pitcher, but a great person - with enough personal highlights to inspire others.

Olympics Page is Underway at Sports Reference

Sean has launched the Olympics page, and it has all the baseball stats as well.

Jose Contreras won some medals, as did Kosuke Fukudome.

NYT: Macur: Teaching baseball as a second language in China (RR)

BEIJING — On a dusty, shoddy baseball field here this spring, Jim Lefebvre, manager of the Chinese national baseball team, gathered his players and demonstrated the Red Sox slugger Manny Ramírez’s philosophy on hitting.

“If you hit it here,” Lefebvre said, acting as if he were hitting a ball after it passed his body, “you drive a Chevy.”

“If you hit it here,” he said, pretending to hit the ball as it crossed the middle of the plate, “you drive a Cadillac.”

“But if you hit it here,” he said, pretending to connect a smidgen earlier, “you’re in a Rolls-Royce with a chauffeur! Get it? That’s how much money they have. They don’t count it, they weigh it!”

The players, who speak little English, stood by, looking puzzled. Yi Sheng, the third-base coach and unofficial team interpreter, struggled to relay the story.

His job is to prepare the Chinese national baseball team for the Beijing Olympics, with the pride of the host country and its team at stake. But this is the Chinese squad with the least expectations. The host country receives an automatic baseball berth, which is the only way Lefebvre’s team could have qualified.

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“It’s really hard for us to get money for our sport from the government,” said Shen Wei, the team’s liaison to the Chinese sports bureau. “Our government would rather pay attention to sports in the Olympics that give many gold medals, or sports where we have a chance to win. We are a low priority. It’s a kind of mental anguish to see that not many people pay attention to baseball in China.”

Very interesting story about the sport that is getting probably the lowest priority of all from the Olympic-crazed Chinese government.  MLB is paying the coaches, for goodness sake.

Tom Lawless, one of China’s coaches, said his team had only six players who could play in the minor leagues. Major league scouts rated the players mostly 2’s on a scale of 1-8. The former Cincinnati Reds shortstop Barry Larkin, another coach, said the players’ talent rated at about a high school or a college level. “They are knowledgeable about the game, but have no attention to detail,” he said.

Lefebvre, who once played a cannibal on an episode of “Gilligan’s Island,” has used his ample charisma to try to convince his players that they could win a game in the Olympics. But it has been a challenge. When he first addressed his players five years ago, they would not even make eye contact. Most of them came to baseball in their teens after failing to advance in two or three other sports, he said.