Lesson 3

Baseball Fans around the World

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Baseball games are played in many countries. Even though the rules are the same from country to country, the behavior of baseball fans in each country is totally different. Some of them make so loud noise that they can hurt your ears, while others are as quiet as if there is nobody in the baseball field.

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Baseball fans in Japan are noisy while the game is playing. They yell, cheer, play instruments, even sing songs for the games. The fans prepare different songs for each player. Although the team they support is losing badly, they still keep cheering and screaming. The most surprising thing to foreign players is that Japanese fans never boo or throw garbage at the players when they are not playing well.

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Taiwanese baseball fans are even louder than the fans in Japan. Fans in Taiwan not only just yell and scream but also use air horns to cheer for their team. These special kind of horns are so noisy that they can absolutely hurt your ears. There is a special tradition when a batter hit a homer. After the player runs around the bases, a young girl would give him a stuffed animal which looks like the mascot of its team. Then the player will throw it to the fans.

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Unlike the fans in Taiwan and Japan, the fans in America may be the quietest people when they are in the baseball field. They won’t shout, yell or cheer for their team. The fans in USA just sit there chatting with each other and eat hotdogs. The reason why they go to see the baseball game is to socialize and catch up their friends’ life.

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The fans in the Dominican Republic are the same as the fans in Taiwan and Japan. They cheer and yell during the games, too. What is the most special is that there is a music band walking through stands, playing music. Fans would dance and sing with the music, and the band will go through the stand till the game is over. The fans in the Dominican Republic often do another thing, they seriously analyze the game. They will analyze every bat, every pitch in the game. No one would do that except the people in the Dominican Republic.

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Chien-Ming Wang is the first Taiwanese

baseball player to play in the MLB. In the year 2005 Wang was called up from the Yankees' AAA affiliate, and he pitched for 18 games, though an injury kept him sidelined for part of the season. He still get 8 games won and 5 games lost, the last one game was relief, his ERA was 4.02. In the playoff, he pitched against with the Angles 6 2/3 innings and allowed just one earned run. Despite his efforts, the Yankees lost the game and the series.

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In the year 2006, Wang pitched about 19 games, and his ERA was 3.63. He pitch two complete games, one was against with the Washington Nationals, the other was against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He lost the first but won the second. In the year 2007, Wang began on the disabled list, having injured his right hamstring during spring training. He returned on April 24th against Tampa Bay. In the year 2008, he keep pitching in the Yankees, he said that he want to become better and better.

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A finesse pitcher with a power pitcher's velocity, Wang throws a sinker and four-seam fastball combination, along with a slider, changeup, and splitter. His four-seam fastball usually rests between 94-96 with some lateral movement and tops out at around 98mph. His sinker, which is responsible for his elevation to ace status, has very impressive late, downward, and lateral movement through the zone and is also faster than most, sitting in the 91-94 mph range. His strikeout pitch is a sharp developing slider that closely resembles the fastball coming out of his hand, thus getting batters to swing ahead of the pitch. Wang also throws a decent split-finger fastball, though he only uses the pitch sparsely when in need of a strike out or double play.

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