We’re looking for a few good men and women to round out the General Scrum portion of the EWC Roto Baseball league community.  If you’d like to try your hand against some of the rejects who didn’t qualify for our Champions League best roto players in the country, join up.  There’s a couple days left [...]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl-4FSRYagc

Just classic stuff here. In no way safe for work, but who feckin’ cares. Vintage footage of Earl Weaver losing it on an umpire, who quite frankly gets the better of him. Nice cameo appearance by Eddie Murray as well. (NSFW)
Earl: “What are you doing here now?”
Ump: “Why don’t you call [...]

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Taiwanese baseball fans eager to catch a glimpse of some big league action are expressing dismay over the L.A. Dodgers roster sent to participate in this month’s upcoming exhibition match against the CPBL’s finest.
The roster includes Manny Ramirez and James Loney, but after that features only 17 players with big league experience.  Fans hoping to [...]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDzq7aMl1TE

Attended the Yanshui Fireworks Festival (Yan Shui Feng Pao) Festival in Tainan County last night.  Just another one of those boring cultural festivals.  Well, except for the part where giant trucks of fireworks and bottle rockets are ignited in the middle of entranced crowds in motorcycle helmets jumping up and down as if they’re in [...]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljztNXMCmHw

It’s been a couple years now since we started EWC and I get nearly daily emails from readers all over the world asking me: “What does Shinsano really look like?”.  Today, we lay that question to rest as the Marmot’s Hole brings us exclusive coverage of Aaron cheering on Coach Brian and his protege from [...]

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Ice Dancing. Ice. F–ing. Dancing.
(Note: The following ’sports’ included in the winter and summer olympics while baseball, aka world’s fourth most popular sport, is not: luge, snowboarding, an experimental variant of rugby known as sevens, synchronized swimming, BMX, canoe slalom, and beach volleyball.)

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It’s no secret that a decent percentage of baseball players coming from Taiwan are of aboriginal descent.  And since we’re on the 19th century historiography tip, here’s a wonderful collection of late 19th century photos of Formosan Aborigines taken by the late Japanese anthropologist Tori Ryuzo.  Unfortunately, the names of the particular tribes are not specified, [...]

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As we’ve all heard by now, Wang Chien-ming is on his way to the Washington Nationals.  The writing was on the wall when the Yankees non-tendered Wang in December, but there was still speculation Wang would re-sign with the Bombers at a reduced rate in the end.  Now the break-up is official.
I’m looking forward to [...]

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As Aaron can surely attest to, it sure is chilly in Korea right about now.  But that isn’t stopping some Korean users, forced to wear gloves, from using their i-phones. Business Insider brings us word that Koreans have taken to using sausages as styluses for their phones.
Sales of whatever that brand of sausage is have [...]

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.301 lifetime.  521 HR.  1704 RBI.  Sure first ballot HOF’er.  EWC salutes Frank Thomas, who announced his retirement Thursday.

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Required Reading for NPB fans and followers: The Japan Times is currently running Robert Whiting’s four-installment series detailing the rise and fall of Bobby Valentine’s career with the Chiba Lotte Marines.  Whiting’s meticulously researched account describes a clandestine campaign to oust Valentine.
Whiting takes readers through Valentine’s meteoric rise to stardom after leading the Marines to [...]

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The international alcohol consuming community was riveted by a shocking report that a Taiwanese whisky, Kavalan, defeated its English and Scottish rivals in a blind taste test.
According to a publication called Luxist:
The contest took place in a hostelry north of Edinburgh and when the results were announced whisky connoisseur Charles MacLean exclaimed “Oh my God, [...]

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As several of our devoted readers pointed out on my facebook page recently, the LA Dodgers are making a much-anticipated trip to Taiwan to play an exhibition series against the CPBL’s finest.
There has been speculation as to which members of the Dodgers will come exactly.  Many out here are skeptical that they’ll bring their A-team. [...]

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I’m a hack amateur at best, but I’ve been having fun taking photos lately.   I thought readers might enjoy a pictoral glimpse into the day-to-day goings on of baseball in Taiwan.  The above, for example, is a bunch of dead bees gathered and artfully placed on a ball by some high school students– after [...]

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Gearing up for the upcoming season, I thought I’d bring our readers’ attention to an excellent site.  Japan Baseball News–a collaborative effort from long-time Japanese baseball guru Bob Bavasi and site author Brandon Siefken–is an effective and well-done site covering professional and amateur baseball in Japan.
The site features free content containing scouting reports, draft analysis [...]

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Like a hair metal band after a long hiatus, Aaron and I realized that we missed rocking out on EWC. So we’re getting it rolling again. We were putting our zany yet informative posts about baseball and things Asia-related on Facebook, but it just wasn’t the same. Aaron started a solo project [...]

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[Note: For readers with 'a life' who don't enjoy reading about roto baseball or me beating Aaron in fantasy sports, you can stop reading here].
It’s been a downright miserable year for the Stinky Tofu, my team in the EWC-sponsored Champions Rotisserie Baseball League.  Nothing has gone right. I’m in 10th place, in danger of being relegated.  Reyes [...]

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The Detroit Tigers remained active in Taiwan this week, signing 5′10 plus lefty Lo Hua-wei.  Lo, who enrolled in Kainan University post graduation, came out of San Hsin high school, which also produced recent Cubs signings RHP Wang Tsu-an and RHP Wang Yao-lin. 
Lo is undersized but athletic with a clean arm action and tops out at 91 [...]

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That’s right folks, after years of being denied entry to Taiwan, His Holiness the Dalai Lama has agreed in principle to visit Taiwan’s typhoon-affected disaster areas.   Read more about it here.

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This one is getting passed around the blogosphere.  Pure genius:
“Chicks who dig home runs aren’t the ones who appeal to me…I think there’s sexiness in infield hits because they require technique. I’d rather impress the chicks with my technique than with my brute strength. Then, every now and then, just to show I can do [...]

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