MLB All-Star team reaches Taiwan for five-game series – MLB News
The Major League Baseball’s All-Star team has arrived in Taiwan on Sunday for a five game series against the Taiwanese team.
After the St. Louis Cardinals were crowned the 2011 World Series Championship on Friday overthrowing the Texas Rangers, Major League Baseball has sent their All-Star team under the leadership of New York Yankees’ star batters Curtis Granderson and Robinson
Cano to play a five-game series with the Taiwanese Club.
The All-Star team is a mixture of new and veteran players, which also include Pablo Sandoval of the San Francisco Giants. MLB has sent a combination of brilliant pitchers like Dillon Gee, Bill Bray, Mark Melancon, Jose Veras, Jeremy Guthrie, Ross Detwiler
and Collin Balester.
The games will be played in consecutive days. First game will be played in suburban Taipei and then two each in Southern City of Kaohsiung and city of Taichung. It is the second tour of the MLB in the small island 100 miles away from the China. MLB made
their first appearance in 2010 when Joe Torre led the Los Angeles Dodgers for a two game series. Dodgers were equipped with some star players like Manny Ramirez and James Loney.
"It's an honor for us to be here," said Jim Small, vice president of MLB Asia. "Baseball is such an important culture in Taiwan."
Baseball has been a mainstream game in Taiwan for many years. The popularity of the sport in a small island 100 miles away from China can be judged with their winning quality. Taiwan has won Little League World Series in 1969. Taiwanese squad has won Silver
Medal in Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and secured fourth place in the 2004 Athens Olympics.
The five-game competition will play a vital role in the efforts that MLB has begun to introduce to the game in other regions of the World. Baseball is already a popular game in some regions of Asia and these matchups will help MLB to grab more regions in
their circles. Many players from Japan and Taiwan are already playing for different clubs for many years and many are looking to enter into MLB. A recent example is an expected deal of Yu Darvish, a Japanese native player with the New York Yankees.
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