The
tournament was, for Taiwan, bigger than merely winning and losing. Each runner on
Taiwan’s national team who made his way to homebase was playing against a
global political order that would rather see the island democracy and its 23
million people vanish into irrelevance. Just being on the field is already a
achievement, but making a good showing while up at bat is an astounding
success.
On such an
uneven field it might seem easier to leave the game and let the ball fall where
it will, accepting whatever the umpire of empire decides. But that’s not
playing to win, and if the history of baseball says anything, Taiwan has always
been in the game to win.
Sure, some
could scoff that this is “reading too much” into what is for all the nations
that sent teams into the baseball tournament just an exaggerated pre-season
exhibition event aimed at rousing the passions of spectators back home. But,
they’d be wrong.
An herbivore
within ecology of carnivorous political powers, Taiwan is a democratic mouse
within a world that seems to be growing increasingly populated with
anti-democratic authoritarian, totalitarian, and oligarchic cats.
In this
landscape Taiwan’s people struggle to survive and maybe even stay one step
ahead of the predations directed at them by forces far beyond their control.
One of the ways they can do that is through international sports tournaments,
of which the World Baseball Classic is among the most challenging of global
competitions.
Taiwan put
forward a national team to compete in this year’s games, and though they
performed well on the field, they did not make it beyond the opening level of
the multilevel competition. But these players achieved a much greater success
merely by being there, being recognized, and being credited as worthy opponents
within the sport of baseball.
They
brought visibility to Taiwan, a state that many have mourned as an “invisible”
nation due in large part to the relentless efforts of “gray zone” strategists
whose goal is to maintain the shroud of invisibility. The larger game plan may
be to make Taiwan seem irrelevant to the majority of voters in powerful nations
where public opinion affects the foreign policy decisions of their leaders.
Given the
larger importance of Taiwan’s participation in the World Baseball Classic
tournament, it is strange to discover that the national team actually drew some
meanspirited feedback from anonymous online commentators. There was even a
short-lived scandal when one person suggested online that inside information
about each of Taiwan’s players had been sold to a competitor team, and that may
have helped them win a match over “Chinese Taipei.”
The idea
that anyone in Taiwan would want to go online and “trash talk” their own
national team is a bit astounding, especially considering the importance of the
island democracy maintaining a positive global profile. How can shooting
yourself in the foot help you across the finish line?
(It is
important to note that I never actually saw any of the malicious and slanderous
words thrown at Team Taiwan, and was inspired to write this only after a friend
spoke to me of his own disappointment that the national team was getting
insulted by some among Taiwan’s active netizens.)
Trolling
the home team feels like an insult to the people whose ancestors experienced
centuries of colonization, political oppression, and misfortune only to become
a decent, democratic land where diversity and community walked hand-in-hand.
Community
and Resistance have long been the dominant values associated with baseball
throughout the sport’s history in Taiwan. Certainly, in its current incarnation
professional baseball in displays the ideals of community and the importance of
diversity within unity.
Much of
the negativity apparently arose when Team Taiwan lost in its match against
Australia and won against the Czech team. Turning the focus inward, I confess
to having the same sort of bewilderment that Taiwan’s strong lineup could lose
to a team from a nation where baseball is not the national pastime, and how a
massive win against a team from a European nation that doesn’t even have a
professional league could be celebrated without irony.
Here is alink to a longer blog post looking at some of the reasons why this way of thinking waswrong. The blog post includes other contemplations on the social and cultural
importance of Taiwan’s participation in the World Baseball Classic 2026
tournament.
Comments