2009 IBA World Youth Baseball Championship

Words and photos by Taichung City Government
Translated by Ann Lee

The 14th World Youth Baseball Championship, hosted by the International Baseball Association (IBA), will take place on August 15 in Taichung. As most of the Chinese Taipei team players also happen to be from Taichung, it is hoped that the advantage of playing at home will improve this year's results over last year and, perhaps, see a championship trophy for Taiwan.

The Hsieh Guo-cheng Tryout was held in May this year and most players were selected from Taichung's Shi Yuan Senior High School, with others coming from the National Taichung Agricultural Senior High School. This combined team successfully won the national champion title and the right to represent Taiwan in this year's World Youth Baseball Championship, and will be led by head coach Huang Wu-siung.

The IBA World Youth Baseball Championship was last held in Taiwan in 2003, when Huang also coached a Chinese Taipei team mostly made up of Taichung players. The team took second place that year and there are hopes that this year's similar situation will see more excellent results. In 2003, there was a total of nine teams participating the championship and the Chinese Taipei team roster included Chiou Zih-kai, Chiang Zhi-xian, Lin Kun-sheng and Tsai Sen-fu. In the preliminary round, Taiwan beat Japan 6-0, South Africa 18-0 and the Czech Republic 29-2, but lost against the U.S. team 5-8, for a total record of three wins and one loss. In final round, the Chinese Taipei team also defeated Cuba 14-8, and beat Australia 9-2 and 6-3, but fell to the again U.S. 7-11.

Chinese Taipei: 1991 IBA champions
Excluding this year's tournament, Taiwan has hosted the IBA Youth Baseball Championship twice--in Taipei in 1997 and in Kaohsiung county in 2003, taking second place both times. Chinese Taipei has been a full participant since the first-ever IBA Youth Baseball Championship in 1989 and had its best finish in 1991, when it won the championship. Overall, the nation's teams have won six second-place titles, two third-place titles, a single fifth-place title, and two seventh-place titles.

The 2007 IBA Youth Baseball Championship was scheduled to take place in Venezuela. However, after the Venezuela government controversially refused to issue visas to the Chinese Taipei team, the IBA chairman canceled Venezuela's holding rights for this event. Although Taichung city hoped to act as an alternate host for the event, a lack of preparation time made this impossible.

In addition to Taiwan, this year's participants include teams from Cuba, Japan, Australia, Venezuela, Russia, South Korea, the U.S., Netherlands, Mexico, Panama and Czech Republic--the largest line-up in many years. In the preliminary round, Chinese Taipei team is in "Group A" with Cuba, Japan, Australia, Venezuela and Russia. Past performance shows that Cuba is still the team to beat, while Japan and Chinese Taipei share similar strengths, with Australia and Venezuela also in strong positions and Russia having lots of room for improvement. In order to qualify for the final round of eight teams, Taiwan's team needs to place among the top four teams in the first round. Although it hopes to win all its games, the team is focusing on defeating Japan, Australia, Venezuela and Russia. The final round will only give each team one chance to defeat the other teams, with winners advancing toward the championship game.

Cuba and U.S. strong contenders for championship title
Cuba has won the championship game five times, particularly during a four-year streak between 1994 to 1997. This makes it a strong, competitive team this year, much like the U.S. team, which won the championship title three times in a row between 1998 and 2003. This year's U.S. team is filled with many skillful players, leading to widespread expectations they will top Group B teams. The Japanese and Korean teams also boast "dream team" rosters, and have good potential to rank among the top four teams, while there is uncertainty about the outlook for the other teams.

Chinese Taipei lefties provide flexible tactics
The Chinese Taipei team began intense training on July 1, focusing early on physical conditioning and other areas. However, head coach Huang notes that players' ultimate test is how they perform in the final two weeks of training. He also noted that he believed the ability of this year's side equalled the 2003 team, although the team lacked a solid pitcher who could carry an entire game. Pitcher Chiang Li-wei has good pitching speed, but his performance remains unstable. "We will probably be using cartwheel battle tactics," notes the coach. When it came to batting, he also said that injuries and other factors meant the team lacked a solid batter able to take control and lead a whole game but, rather, consisted of batters with more techniques.

However, Coach Huang also stressed that because his team was dominated by left-handed batters this year, the coaching staff could implement a variety of unique tactics. As he looks for a home championship title this year, the coach added that the Chinese Taipei team would do their best and hoped that local baseball fans would turn out in force to cheer them on.