Here’s a nice piece written by a Korean sportswriter from the Sports Chosun who’s in Taiwan covering the Korean National Team’s preparations for the Olympic Qualifiers. Basically, he’s out looking for a story and ends up musing on the popularity of Wang Chien-ming relative to his own experiences watching the career of Park Chan-ho in Korea.

In the end he’s bummed because neither Wang or Park will be participating in the qualifiers (both are taking part in MLB’s spring training).

Special thanks to Korea Beat for translating this just for our purposes.

On the 25th I went to the city of Taichung. Reporters were here, there, and everywhere looking for stories on the national team’s training for the Olympics.

I went into what I was told is the biggest department store in Taichung. It was pretty much no different from department stores in Korea, and I spent a lot of time in the bookstores. But as soon as I stepped inside the bookstore my eyes were drawn to one particular book.

I saw a couple of magazines graced with the image of Chien-ming Wang, the New York Yankees ace. They were sports magazines, one called “職業捧球” and the other called “Passion”. I heard that these are the top-circulating magazines in Taiwan. Clearly Wang has become very popular very quickly.

And something else. The national team’s training ground is the baseball field at National Taiwan College of Physical Education. A picture of Wang hangs over the security room at the entrance to the university. Above it was a brief article describing how with the Yankees in 2006 he set a record for Asian pitchers by recording 19 wins.

I asked Chae Gyu-jae, interpreter for the national team, several questions about Wang.

The respect accorded here to Wang made me think of Chan-ho Park in the mid-90s in Korea. On the days that Wang takes the mound viewership goes up 30% even in the very early morning.

Win or lose, the results of Wang’s games are front-page news in every paper, not just the sports papers but all of them. On the days he pitches the newspapers sell out and three or four pages are covered with his news.

In the current preliminary round for the Beijing Olympics, Korea and Taiwan have their final match. Luckily for Korea Wang won’t be participating. I was told that he has already used up all the games with the national team that his contract with the Yankees allows him.

Though he participated in December Park Chan-ho will not be in these games. Without those two players, it will be tough for Taiwanese and Korean fans to have a high level of interest.