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 catch a glimpse of Kemp, Kershaw, Billingsley, or Kuroda will have to temper their expectations and settle for a small handful of big leaguers, farmhands, and a gang of non-roster invitees. Some fans are demanding refunds for their tickets, and there’s even a facebook page that has popped up.
Apparently my earlier plea to the Dodgers on EWC fell on deaf ears. (Hat tip to Aaron for the link).
24 responses so far ↓
1 Dodger Dogg // Mar 6, 2010 at 7:39 pm
What a bunch of phonies. Why agree to play this kind of game if they’re just going to send over 3 guys? Why not just send the groundscrew and give them uniforms?
2 mks // Mar 7, 2010 at 2:06 pm
wait, they’re sending the grounds crew? this changes EVERYTHING
3 Shinsano // Mar 7, 2010 at 4:55 pm
This reminds me of one time when I was a kid and my friend Brian Barrio and I bought tickets to a WWF event at the Cow Palace in S.F. We were standing at the urinal before the event started, and they started announcing all the wrestlers that WOULDN’T be appearing that night…Bam Bam Bigelo, One Man Gang, Jake the Snake Roberts. It was like 10 minutes before the thing was supposed to start. Lucky for me they were all Brian’s favorites.
But then later my favorites…the tag team Demolition came out in what was obviously haphazardly done face paint. Didn’t look anything like it did on TV.
Hopefully Manny won’t come out in straight hair with no cornrows.
4 IronChef // Mar 7, 2010 at 7:06 pm
To be fair, at least the Dodgers have enough players to put out a team, as opposed to the CPBL, who are running out of players not in jail.
5 Cameron C // Mar 8, 2010 at 10:46 pm
Going to hundreds of spring training games you will eventually see a split squad game. Thats part of spring training. Joe Torre and The dodgers are not going to send a team to Taiwan that can not compete with the CPBL team. That would be a total disgrace! Those non roster invitees have a lot of big league experience. Good for the dodgers for trying to grow the game around the world…
Answer this question: If the CPBL team beats the dodgers team do you think they will say, ” Yea we beat them but it was a split squad” NO WAY..they will brag till the cows come home they beat the dodgers..period!
6 Jackson // Mar 8, 2010 at 11:45 pm
@Cameron: If that CPBL team beats the Dodgers I will streak naked across every CPBL stadium at least once this season.
7 Jackson // Mar 8, 2010 at 11:55 pm
Also, to answer your post more seriously, there’s a difference between a standard spring training game and an international exhibition used to promote baseball here. Taiwanese fans are very knowledgeable about the game. It goes without saying that they want to see the stars they have no chance to see except on TV (rarely) and in box scores. Sure, split squad games are a part of life, but that’s not what fans who waited in line for tickets and got their hopes up were thinking. They want to see every day guys here. They can see former minor leaguers, non-roster invitee type guys in their own pro league.
8 DJ // Mar 9, 2010 at 3:53 am
Remember when Andre the Giant turned face against Demolition and Bobby Heenan? One of the highpoints of my life…
9 cameron c // Mar 9, 2010 at 10:54 am
Jackson – When the padres and dodgers played in Beijing in 2008 they took a lot of players. Still leaving many core players behind. Not comparing china crowd to taiwan crowd because Taiwan has a rich history in baseball that the mainland does not have. Its just that exhibition spring games in other contries will never bring the entire team to play because of the spring training contracts clubs have with local communties. Also I read the press release MLB put out about the game on their web site and it states that it will be a split squad game. The bigger picture is the future of mlb games in taiwan. people need to support this event as it is so more teams will come in the future.
10 Shinsano // Mar 9, 2010 at 11:18 am
I hadn’t thought of Bobby Heenan for a long time. I looked up his wikipedia page. Looks like he had throat cancer in 2002, and released this statement at the time….
“ I just want to let all the wonderful “humanoids” out there know how grateful I am for the good wishes…
Yes, I do have throat cancer, but I plan on beating this too.
If the late, great Gorilla Monsoon couldn’t shut me up, cancer isn’t going to either…[3]
”
He was a great character. The fact that he was from Beverly Hills, called everyone humanoids, had the bleached hair. Good stuff.
11 DJ // Mar 10, 2010 at 12:36 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buupGX84aFA&feature=related
12 Brian // Mar 14, 2010 at 11:40 am
Go look at some recent videos of Bobby Heenan. He’s unrecognizable. He comes in at :43 for a few seconds in this thing about Ultimate Warrior:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laiZgrIpbcA
13 Shinsano // Mar 14, 2010 at 11:47 pm
These are both good clips. I remember that “andre turns” on Heenan. I think I’d just started to stop being interested in wrestling, because I remember thinking it was too bad that I couldn’t get excited about Demolition winning the championship.
Is that second video some kind of wrestling documentary? I’d be curious to see something like that.
14 cameron c // Mar 16, 2010 at 5:50 am
Hey jackson – I didnt see you streak across the field after the game friday night like you said you would if the CBPL team beat the dodgers.
15 Jackson // Mar 16, 2010 at 10:08 pm
I just got back from doing it. It felt strangely liberating.
16 DJ // Mar 17, 2010 at 2:01 am
And it was captured on film! Here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZGlct1hI0k
17 Christian Louboutin Sandals // Apr 29, 2010 at 10:49 am
Hey jackson – I didnt see you streak across the field after the game friday night like you said you would if the CBPL team beat the dodgers.
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