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New York Yankees Pitcher Chien-ming Wang

Thriving in the Biggest Show of All

Whether in Taiwan or New York, in amateur baseball or the major leagues, the quiet and reserved Chien-ming Wang's world has always been limited to the batter he's facing.

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Thriving in the Biggest Show of All

By Lo Yi-hsiu
From CommonWealth Magazine (vol. 400 )

Chien-ming Wang is quintessential Taiwan. When Wang first arrived in the United States, New York Yankees' scout John Cox asked him, "Is there anything you need to buy?" Wang answered, "An electric rice cooker," and without another word, Cox went to Wal-Mart to buy him one.

He is also all baseball. When asked about the differences between life in the U.S. and Taiwan, Wang said, "In the U.S., everything is different from Taiwan. Only the baseball hasn't change."

Wang does not know how to define success. He has said that having been in the major leagues for only a short time, he still has a long road ahead of him. "We'll have to wait until I retire to see if I've succeeded."

On April 28, 2005, a day after he was called up from the minors by the Yankees and two days before he would make his Major League debut (a no-decision against the Toronto Blue Jays), he took the subway to Yankee Stadium, accompanied by agent Alan Chang. Before getting off, Chang said to him, "This is probably the last time you'll take the subway!"

Soon after, Wang's skills on the mound gained him fame, and he never rode the subway to the stadium again.

The Big Leagues: Baptism under Fire

Major League Baseball, with a revered tradition spanning more than a century, has always been baseball's greatest temple, where the world's best players show off their skills and compete for fame and glory. Every young baseball star aspires to become one of the 750 major leaguers playing for the two leagues' 30 franchises. 

But to reach baseball's "Big Show," a young player must learn his trade in the minor leagues no matter how talented he is and prove himself at the Single-A, Double-A and Triple-A levels before getting an opportunity to shine at the big league level.

And for those who eventually make a major-league team's roster, there are no guarantees they will stay there. Players who cannot perform consistently may end up as nothing more than shooting stars.

Wang was desperate not to suffer that fate.

"I wanted every pitch to be a good one. Only by pitching well could I stick around in the big league," he says.

Fighting for Survival in the Minors

Wang began his United States baseball career eight years ago, joining the Single-A Staten Island Yankees in 2000 at the age of 20, unable to speak a word of English and a long way from his native Tainan.

Fighting through the minor leagues can be an endless journey, with no certainty that it will result in an opportunity to play for a major-league team. Getting injured only makes the trek more arduous and lengthens the odds of success.

In 2001, just as Wang began making a name for himself in the minors, he suffered a serious injury to his right shoulder and was forced to sit out for a full year after undergoing arthroscopic surgery. It was the first time Wang had experienced the fear that grips injured athletes. 

"When I heard I needed surgery, I felt afraid," Wang says rubbing his right arm. The Tainan native, who wanted desperately to pitch in the major leagues, had no idea if he would pitch as well after the operation.

"No one can imagine the feeling of waiting for an injury to heal," says Wang's mentor and Taipei Physical Education College coach Kao Ying-Chieh, a one-time pitcher himself who can appreciate the torment felt by injured hurlers. 

Wang told himself that if he wanted to play in the big leagues, he had to persevere and could not quit. As a result, a full year after his surgery, he began showing up every morning at 10 a.m. at a training center to rehab the shoulder, repeating the same movements day after day.

His determination to stick it out and his desire to win, which carried him through the rehab process, have stayed with him since taking the mound for the first time as a New York Yankee. 

"I was kind of shaking when I faced my first batter. I didn't know what to throw," Wang says, recalling the first time he pitched in a big-league game. "Once I got past the first batter, everything was fine. It was just like in the minors. I didn't pay attention to anything around me. All I was focused on was the hitter." 

A Highly Disciplined Ace

Jogging around the Yankee Stadium outfield by himself on a typically sweltering June afternoon in the Bronx, Wang passes by Monument Park beyond the wall in left center field where the retired numbers of Yankee greats like Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio are displayed in a row, as if to inspire new stars to strive to be the best.

And like many of those Yankee greats, Wang is creating another baseball legend.

Yet while Wang may have already become the ace of the rotation, he's regularly the first player to get to the stadium and work out, arriving three hours before the team requires, whether he's scheduled to start or not.

Discipline, Wang has realized, is an athlete's lifeline.

"My shoulder isn't as good as the shoulders of other players, so I have to work out more than others," he says.

Peter Abraham covers the Yankees for New York area daily The Journal News and co-authored Ace in America: The story of Chien-Ming Wang's rise to stardom with the New York Yankees. He believes that for a player like Wang, who was not familiar with the local language and came from a completely different culture, reaching the big leagues is a rather special achievement. 

"He works very hard and he prepares very hard," Abraham observed.

Wang's heavy sinker has earned him the reputation of being a "ground ball master," but the 28-year-old right-hander is most highly praised for his poise and ability to concentrate when he's on the mound.

As he fires bullet after bullet that seem to explode on their way to home plate, Wang never gets distracted, his concentration focused entirely on winning. This strict discipline and unflappable concentration have been forged from the time he was young.

From 'Bamboo Pole' to Ace

As a child Wang was smart and obedient. His reserved, soft-spoken nature led neighbors to call him "the honest kid."

When he was in the fourth grade, he was a head taller than most of his classmates and had long arms and legs, attributes that prompted the school's baseball coach to put him on the team. Wang did everything the coach asked of him.

By the time he was in high school, Wang was 1.86 meters tall but weighed less than 70 kilograms and looked like "a bamboo pole," according to Hsiao Wen-sheng, his coach on a junior baseball team sponsored by RSEA Engineering Corp.

His thin build constrained him as a pitcher, but during his time with the RSEA team, known as the proving ground of top Taiwanese baseball talent, Wang worked hard to put on weight and grit his teeth through 10-kilometer runs to improve his strength and stamina. 

By the time he was a senior in high school, Wang had gained more than 20 kilos and his pitching velocity gradually rose to above 140 kilometers per hour, approaching the velocity of an average major league fastball. In 1998, he was selected to represent Taiwan in the third "AAA" Asian Junior Baseball Championships.

College: Wang's Ticket to the U.S.

Not much of a student, Wang's original plan was to graduate from high school, finish his compulsory military service as quickly as possible and then join a local amateur team. But that's when Wang met the coach who would change his life – Kao Ying-chieh.

"He seemed totally in his own world on the mound. All he cared about were the pitches he threw," Kao recalls, the former hurler seeing some of himself in his young protégé.

Kao not only convinced Wang to continue his studies, but also rested the young pitcher for a year to give his weary arm time to recuperate from its overuse in the junior baseball ranks. The time off was just what Wang needed, and when he returned to action, his velocity was up to 150 kph.

"He even took me to National Taiwan University Hospital to see the doctor," a grateful Wang says. "He really cared about me."

Kao helped Wang develop the velocity that would catch the attention of scouts, but it was another key figure – former Taipei Physical Education College Department of Sports Science (Ball Sports) director Lin Min-cheng – helped direct him toward the Yankees.

To help Wang get exposure with professional scouts, Lin and Kao arranged an indoor tryout to showcase Wang's pitching skills and also helped him negotiate terms with big league clubs interested in signing him.

In the end, the young right-hander decided to join the Yankees organization for a US$1.9 million signing bonus.

A Superstar Is Born

Although Wang has achieved beyond expectations with the Bronx Bombers, the highly self-critical right-hander doesn't think he has yet pitched his best game. "Actually, I haven't reached my best. I've only performed at an acceptable level so far," he says.

His Taiwan-area agent Iwamoto Rie observes that every time Wang returns to his family home in Tainan, he longs for a hot bowl of Tainan-style sticky rice but is concerned about being recognized and causing a scene at local stalls. One time they thought they had found a relatively secluded stand, and Wang rushed into the shop and ordered a bowl from the elderly shopkeeper.

To Wang's surprise, when the woman set the bowl of sticky rice down in front of him, she said to him in Taiwanese: "I know who you are. You're more beloved than the president. Keep at it and good luck!"

Whenever Wang takes the mound, people in Taiwan suspend their routines to catch the broadcasts of his games. Motorists and scooter riders on the road are captivated by big screens or televisions in store windows showing Wang in action, leading to snarls in city traffic.

Those not in the habit of staying up late suddenly find the energy to catch his day games, which in Taiwan are broadcast in the middle of the night.

For night games, broadcast in the morning, the many office workers and students who cannot get away to watch, quietly connect to the Internet to follow "gamecasts" of the action, pitch by pitch. Some even provide a play by play of the game themselves. When the "gamecasts" abruptly stop because of technical glitches, Wang's fans have been known to post angry messages in chat rooms.

Making the World Take Notice of Taiwan

Wang has reignited a popular euphoria and communal feeling that lay dormant for forty years, ever since the Hong Yeh Little League team stirred the imagination, and the passion, of Taiwanese society.

In 1968, Taiwan's Hong Yeh Little League team, which had no funding and normally played shoeless with wooden clubs and stones, sparked unprecedented excitement by sweeping a highly touted Japanese team in two exhibition games in Taiwan. The following year, Taiwan began a string of victories at the Little League Baseball World Series.

Four decades later, Wang has relied on willpower, perseverance and determination to carve out a place for himself in Major League Baseball and rekindled a new baseball craze.

He has captured the hearts of fans both in Taiwan and abroad and made Taiwan visible to the world.

"Wang Chien-ming is my favorite player," says a blond-haired five-year-old boy wearing a Wang jersey with the number 40 outside Yankee Stadium, delicately uttering the name, "Chien-ming."

In the past many foreigners had trouble distinguishing Thailand from Taiwan, the first syllables of the two countries sounding identical, but Wang's ascendance has even changed that.

Now when Taiwanese living or traveling abroad explain their country of origin, they are often greeted with the response, "Taiwan? Oh, I know it. You're really great at baseball." Around the world, people no longer mistake Taiwanese for Japanese, Koreans or Thais. People can now clearly pronounce "Taiwan" and identify its geographical location.

Wang's success has in a way liberated his Taiwanese followers, helping them rid themselves of the pent-up frustrations and sense of repression they've felt overseas.

Focused on the Strike Out

Whether he's showered with applause or catcalls, whether he's pitching a gem or getting shelled, no matter how tense a situation, Wang finds a way to ignore the distractions and pressure and devote his full concentration to his next pitch.

So what is he thinking as he prepares to wind up?

"I just think about getting the hitter out," he says.

Translated from the Chinese by Luke Sabatier


Chinese Version: 投手王建民 :我每一場球都想贏

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