On the afternoon of March 10th, in the second round of Group B in world baseball classic, China lost 5-8 to the Czech team and suffered two consecutive defeats.
In the first four innings, the Czech Republic didn’t let China hit any hits, and scored 3 points, leading China 3-0. In the fifth game, the China team finally opened. When the China team was full of bases, the Czech fielder chose to kill the first base, so that base runner on the third base ran back to the home plate and pulled back 1 point. However, the Czech Republic once again pulled the lead back to 3 points through a series of hits.
In the 7th inning, China, which was 1-4 behind, set off a powerful counterattack. From the second base hit of 40-year-old veteran Zhang Baoshu, several batters of China made many high-quality hits. Coupled with the sacrifice of flying high and the repeated mistakes of their opponents, China, who was United, scored 4 points in a single inning to take the lead and take back the initiative of the game.
However, in the most crucial 9th game, the situation changed suddenly. In the case that the Czech team successfully got on the first and second bases, China sent a Korean foreign aid pitcher, Zhu Quan. However, his pitching made the Czech team hit a three-point home run, and then the Czech team returned a one-point insurance score through two hits. In an instant, the China team went from leading to falling behind by three points. After entering the 9th inning, the China team was powerless, and finally lost to the Czech Republic 5-8, losing a good game and suffering a two-game losing streak.
In world baseball classic, if you want to represent a team of a country or region, you don’t have to have a passport or nationality of that country.As long as the player’s immediate family members are within three generations, their birthplace or nationality is the country or region they represent, they can play as foreign aid for the team.
In the China team, there are Zhang Yanlun (Alan Carter), Zhang Baoshu (Raymond Zhang), Zhu Quan, who plays in Korean professional baseball, Masayuki, a professional baseball player the day before, and four foreign AIDS.
As a small baseball country, this is the first time for Czech team to participate in world baseball classic, and it is also their first victory in this tournament. There is no professional league in the Czech Republic, and many players on the national team list have their own full-time jobs. Severnka is now engaged in sales; The team leader, designated hitter Peter Zima, is a financial analyst; Chinese and foreign fielder Arnold Dubovy teaches high school geography; Pitcher Malik Minarik works in the real estate industry; Lucas Ercoli, another starter of the team, is also the media coordinator of the Czech team; Even the coach Pavel Chadim is only a part-time coach, and his daily job is a neuroscientist.
However, this does not mean that the Czech team is weak, a group of people who are like-minded and passionate about baseball, plus many foreign aid players who have returned from the United States, such as Eric Sogard, who played in Major League Baseball for 11 years, and Boris Vicheca, who was signed by the Major League Diamondbacks. The Czech team has been ranked 15th in the world, while the China team has been hovering around 18, even because it has not played international games in the past three years.
In the previous European qualifiers, the Czech team hit 10 home runs in 4 games and made only 3 mistakes in 34 rounds. It is worth mentioning that the Czech team was defeated by Spain 7-21 in the first qualifier, but last stand’s team defeated France and Germany successively, and all the way to the final, and the opponent was Spain. This time, the Czechs succeeded in revenge and abruptly seized this ticket to world baseball classic.
This is the charm of baseball. You can turn the game around in one and a half innings, from 1-4 to 5-4, or from 5-4 to 5-8. If Liang Pei’s home run made the fans shine yesterday against Japan, today’s defeat made people calm down and realize the reality clearly.
The origin of baseball in China can be traced back to the 1910s, when international students, represented by Zhan Tianyou, brought baseball to China. Baseball was once one of the most fashionable sports in modern universities in China. Unfortunately, things have changed. This small ball with a diameter of less than 10 cm has now become a minority sport in China. After the 21st century, China baseball has been professionalized more than once, with several names. However, due to fresh blood and fan base, the domestic baseball league is still only a semi-professional/professional system.
From 2002 to 2019, the domestic baseball league was held again and again. In this case, China still beat Taipei, China in the 2008 Olympic Games and won the bronze medal in the 19-year Asian Championship. In 2020, affected by the epidemic, the league stopped, and this competition system faced great uncertainty. It was not until last year that the national championship was restarted again. However, among today’s national baseball teams, there are not many old faces left by the team that defeated South Korea in the Asian Championships in 2019. Many young players in the team have no experience in international competitions, so they can be said to start from scratch.
This time, as long as world baseball classic and China win one game, they can keep their position in the next tournament, otherwise they will play in the qualifying tournament. However, after losing to the Czech Republic, which is a relatively weak opponent in the group, this goal seems a little far away. However, for China, it is very valuable experience in international competitions. At the upcoming Asian Games in Hangzhou, we expect these young players to turn this experience into strength, complete transformation and create a new history.
Tomorrow at noon, China will face Australia. They beat South Korea 8-7 in the first round. For the China team, it will be another tough battle. Come on, young people, baseball in China still has a long way to go!