Leaving the Past Behind

Bas

eball in Taiwan is a bit like the island's democracy: sometimes it's corrupt and occasionally even violent, but no matter how rough around the edges, it's still a wellspring of national pride and passion. Many Taiwan people mistily remember the giddy celebration that ensued in 1969 after a team of the island's boys won the international Little League World Series in the U.S.—the first of 17 such titles captured by Taiwan. Tens of thousands of fans crowded Taipei's streets to cheer as the team rode through the capital in jeeps. "When those players returned home, some people described it as being like Neil Armstrong returning from the moon," says Tseng Wen-cheng, a baseball writer and ESPN commentator in Taipei. The people of Taiwan were so proud of the accomplishment that the image of victorious Little Leaguers eventually replaced Chiang Kai-shek, the father of modern Taiwan, on the $500 bill.

Lately, however, baseball in Taiwan has become less national pastime and more of a national pimple—and when the Chinese Taipei baseball team takes the field in Athens for the 2004 Olympics in August, it will be playing not just for medals but for a restoration of face. In the 1990s, Taiwan's professional league was rocked by a series of scandals that made America's Black Sox fix of the 1919 World Series seem like a choirboy prank. Trouble surfaced eight years ago, when five players from the Brother Elephants, one of the seven Taiwan pro teams at the time, were kidnapped by racketeers in the central Taiwan city of Taichung. The gangsters accused the players of throwing a game—costing them thousands of dollars in gambling losses—and meted out punishment by shoving a gun in the mouth of a star pitcher and pistol-whipping a second baseman.

The players were later released, but the incident sparked an investigation into illegal betting and game rigging that revealed close links between pro baseball in Taiwan and multimillion-dollar gambling rackets run by organized crime. Over the next several years, nearly two dozen players, a coach and 12 mobsters were convicted of offenses related to baseball gambling. One team, the China Times Eagles, disbanded after several of its members were suspended for life. Disillusioned fans shunned ballparks and professional play was in danger of disappearing altogether. "The years between 1997 and 2001 were the low point" in the island's baseball history, says sports commentator Tseng. "You can call those years the Dark Ages."

Helping to lead the sport into a more enlightened era is Hsu Sheng-ming, the head coach of Taiwan's international squad. Hsu, 45, steered the Chinese Taipei team to second in the Asia baseball championships last fall, a finish that qualified the island to compete in the Olympics for the first time in 12 years. In 1992, the Chinese Taipei team won silver at Barcelona. Hsu says it's important to do well again this year. "A good showing will have a very positive impact on Taiwan's athletic development," he says.

A podium finish in Athens would be a kind of poetic justice for Hsu, too. In 1999, when he was managing the Weichuan Dragons pro team, Hsu was returning home after walking his child to school when he was jumped from behind and stabbed four times in the back and buttocks. Hsu says his attackers were gang members who were angry that he refused to fix games. The incident almost convinced him to quit baseball. "I was really frustrated and didn't think things could get so complicated," Hsu says. "But if I had quit, it was like saying I had something to do with it. So I stuck around."

Hsu downplays the idea that he or his players have a larger mission than simply winning ball games—that doing well in the Olympics will somehow restore dignity to the diamonds of Taiwan. His biggest job at the moment seems to be managing not the team but expectations. "The fans obviously have very high hopes," Hsu says. "We welcome their support, but there are a lot of conditions that aren't under our control." Although the U.S. team, a perennial powerhouse and the gold-medal winner at Sydney, failed to qualify for the Athens Games, Cuba and Japan are strong contenders. Most observers say Taiwan's best hope is bronze—yet even President Chen Shui-bian is rooting for gold. "I've always believed that the baseball spirit of being brave, working hard and never being daunted by losses is exactly the Taiwanese spirit," Chen said during a meeting with players after the 2003 Asia championships.

Chen may wind up disappointed, but should Taiwan fall short, players can take comfort in the knowledge that if they are beaten in Athens at least it will be at the hands of other ballplayers, not gangland thugs. And should the baseball gods smile and Taiwan achieve a Miracle on Grass, players can expect to be greeted at home as heroes: like innocent boys from an era when baseball influenced Taiwan's money, and not the other way around.