Taiwan: Go Taiwan Baseball Team, Toward Beijing Olympic Games! · Global Voices
Mach 7, 2008 is a special day for Taiwan. It's not for the coming presidential election, but for 2008 IBAF Final Olympic Qualification Tournament(zh) The tournament is being played in Mid-Taiwan!
While soccer is the national sports of most countries in the world, baseball is the pride of Taiwan. Once the international baseball games held, Taiwanese could lay aside their works, even their family and lovers, just in order to cheer our pride in the field or at the television. If you think it's exaggerated, why not take a look at the game on Monday evening?
Taiwan baseball team met Canada on March 10. The massive fans watched the live broadcast, and relayed the progress on Twitter and PTT BBS (the largest campus internet service in Taiwan), to those who couldn't watch the cast, like me. As the situation was getting more and more intense, the fans were all nervous. When <PERSON> a 3-run HR that helped Taiwan take the lead in the bottom of sixth inning, not only sportscasters and fans in the field went crazy, but also fans on the internet due to our loud shouts, “Go Taiwan Baseball Team, Toward Beijing Olympic Games!”
As the game came into the end,the catcher of Taiwan team, <PERSON>, was collided by Canada player in order to prevent Taiwan from being scored. 910
I really doubted if any Taiwanese not patriots then. Chensumi(zh) said:
誰看到葉君璋以小號無敵鐵金剛之軀，護住本壘版的畫面，倘若不激動落淚的，那你就真得不是台灣球迷。那時的小葉，巨大如同一片天，替我們頂下那一分，多麼剛猛啊！
If you saw the scene that <PERSON> defended the plate with his body but not excited, then you must not be a fan of Taiwan. <PERSON> was as giant as the sky. How brave he is!
Anchor <PERSON> wrote in his blog, that as an anchor he repeatedly persuade fans no to throw cans and bottles into the field. But in the atmosphere at the moment he understood fans’ feeling though he still discouraged the behaviors done by certain fans.
或許，部份球迷不像我們知道，太過於衝動會被沒收比賽，但是在那個當下，如果還能冷靜，還要控制EQ，我想，棒球就不可能叫台灣的國球了。就好像你看到你 的親人或好友被外人侵犯，當然是先力挺再說，怎麼可能還考慮太多呢？這是台灣球迷與中華隊密不可分的感情所致，這也是加拿大等外隊永遠不能理解的事情。雖 然，我們都知道不該丟瓶罐等進場。
Maybe some fans do not know like us that games will be called off if chaotic situations happen. At that moment, however, if people can still calm down or handle their emotions, baseball would never be the national sports of Taiwan. This is something that Canadian or other teams never understand, although we all know it is inappropriate to throw bottles and cans into the field. 368