History Was Made

We made history today-
the complete story(Here is the USA Today version...mine's better! )http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/beijing/team/2008-08-15-chinabase_N.htm?csp=34&POE=click-referHistory was made when the lowly Chinese Olympic baseball team beat its largest rival, Chinese Taipei, in their only meeting in the 2008 Olympics. Chinese Taipei has long adopted America’s pastime and has become a major power in baseball over the last few decades. China has never beaten them until one of the most thrilling games I have been in occurred at the Wukesong Olympic Baseball venue.Before I begin about the game I must prep everyone on the importance of this game. As most of you know I am an alumnus of the University of Michigan. I must tell you that the Michigan/Ohio State rivalry is unmatched in all of sports. There is dislike on both camps for each other at equaling degrees. We just don’t like each other, never have, never will. It is truly a rivalry for the ages. The China/Taipei rivalry is on par with M/OSU. They are fierce rivals in every sport and they make no attempt to hide it. As one resident of Taipei put it….”They should all go jump in the sea, this is the end of the team…..” Baseball is one of their few medal hopes and to lose to China is an embarrassing defeat; to make it worse it was CHINA! Many of the same feelings have been spoken through the hallowed halls of Michigandom..”..Anybody except Ohio State. I hope you can understand the magnitude of this game. It has been on their calendar the day Taipei qualified for the Olympics.What a ThrillerThe day came very early for us as we have played three day games in a row. This one was one hour earlier than the other two games. The bus left for the stadium at 7:00 and it wasn’t but 10 minutes later when the grounds crew called and told us we were not going to take batting practice as a result of a late night rain. This is information that would have been better received before we had left for the stadium. One more hours sleep wouldn’t have hurt. Our team leader Madame Shen was incensed at this last minute change and she searched for anyone that she could share her “feelings” with. It was at this time I used some discretion and avoided any contact with her.Once the game had begun it was a feeling out period. We had a very good scouting report on them and put together a game plan to counter them. Our pitcher held them at bay without any damage for 4 innings. Taipei took an early lead with a solo home run in the fifth to take a 1-0 lead. We replaced him with a reliever in the top of the sixth and they scored another run on a couple of really bad plays. With a runner on third the pitcher induced a ground ball back to him. He fielded it cleanly and then pursued the runner who advanced to home once the ball was hit. He cut the runner off and started to get him in a rundown, that’s when everything went blurry. The pitcher all of a sudden stopped from chasing the runner and turned around and threw to first base. He fortunately got the runner out at first and then the first baseman panicked and threw the ball to third, or more appropriately, the stands, and the runner jogged home for a score. You could see the look on the pitcher’s face from the dugout that he completely was utterly confused as that play developed. It was one of those moments when things went in slow motion as you yelled out nnnnn….ooooooo.The score remained 2-0 through the top of the eighth. In the last half of the inning we put together a rally. We had strung together 3 hits mixed in with a couple of walks and scored 3 runs. The last two runs that scored, with two outs, came on a play where our hitter blooped a ball in front of the centerfielder and he ran in and tried to make a diving play. He couldn’t get to the ball and the ball caromed behind him enough to score our runner from first base. The place went nuts, finally after 21 innings we had scored. The fans from Taipei were very boisterous and the Chinese had been silent up until now. They sure made up for lost time as the stands were literally shaking, it was a great moment. By the way, all three hits that inning were all bloop hits, not exactly tearing the cover off. We had put our closer in the previous inning so he went out for the ninth to secure our victory. He started the inning off by walking the leadoff hitter, not exactly how we would have wanted to start the inning. However our pitcher induced a ground ball for a tailor made double play to second base. Unfortunately the tailor was out to lunch as our shortstop lost the ball transferring it from the glove to the hand. Taipei advanced the runner into scoring position with a stolen base as our infielders failed to cover second base and the ball sailed into centerfield. Oh brother the pressure was intense. He struck out the next batter on three great pitches and it looked liked we would pull it off. A weak hitting left hander who slaps the ball to the opposite side of the field was due up. He had worked a 1-1 count when he lifted a ball down the left field line slicing away from our left fielder. The ball hit the warning track and bounced over the fence. He had not hit a ball that far in the three games they had played. The nest hitter then smashed line drive into the pitcher, yes into the pitcher. If it would have hit his belly button it would have stayed in there. It actually hit a part of the body men have nightmares about. Amazingly he got up, raced to the ball, and threw the runner out by a matter of inches, saving at least a tie for now.We played another 2 innings without a score which led to the new tie breaking rules that were put in place for the first time in the history of the Olympics. Rather than continuing on and extending the game in the normal fashion we would start off by placing 2 runners on 1st base and second base to start the inning with no outs. This was brought in to speed up the games and make sure there would be no 25 inning games. It also adds a lot more excitement and let me tell you it certainly added a whole new element of excitement and pressure to the game. They started the inning by sacrificing the runners with a bunt. With one out we had intentionally walked the next hitter to load the bases. The guy we walked had good at bats all day so it was good that we didn’t pitch to him. The next hitter then swung at the first pitch, a curve ball, and grounded into a double play. The place went nuts including our dugout. Our strategy paid off and we were in the driver’s seat. Our pitcher came off of the mound leaping and screaming as if we had just won the World Series. The whole team gathered in front of the dugout and were hugging and screaming. It was actually comical at one point when they had gathered they wanted to start a chant so they got together and let out two bursts of something in Chinese and then as if someone had forgotten the words they stopped. They haven’t been in too many of these situations so they really didn’t know what to do, they just looked at one another and then dispersed. You could tell they wanted to just go nuts but they didn’t know how to.Now it was our turn, the inning was laid out just like theirs and we attempted a bunt. Our hitter laid down a bunt but he bunted it hard towards first base and he charged hard and threw the runner out at third. A base hit will win the game but all we could muster were two pop ups in the infield. What a huge letdown and you could sense defeat as they took the field. It is so difficult to keep the team from scoring in the tie break situations and you could just feel that we knew we had dodged a bullet the first time. Well, they bunted again and advanced the runners so we walked the next hitter again, hopefully to get the double play again. Not so this time as the pitcher walked the hitter on 5 pitches. Our pitcher was definitely distraught and I tried to encourage him to forget it and focus on the hitter for another double play. With a full count and the runners moving our pitcher made a great pitch and jammed the hitter. He had made a quality pitch and the batter hit a soft liner just in front of our left fielder to plate another run. It was now looking like an impossible number to overcome for our offense. The next hitter wasn’t a strong hitter so we felt we could get a double play out of him. Unfortunately he hit a soft fly ball down the third base line and it found it’s resting place in the soft grass on the fair side of the field. Our outfielder was shifted toward the gap so there was no way he was going to catch it, just a well placed ball. We then were able to get out of the inning without any more runs being scored.Down four runs for our last inning and now what seemed impossible before the last two runs was now definitely impossible in our minds. (guilty) We had scored in just 1 out of a possible 25 innings how were we going to overcome 4 runs?! That’s why this game is the greatest game ever invented, you have to play the game to the end. We led off the 12th with a walk on four pitches, definitely an encouragement but not our savior. Our next hitter, Wang Chao, got behind 0-2 right away and looked horrible doing so. He fouled off a couple of fastballs with one little grain of wood on his bat and then the pitcher hung a forkball and he hit it into left field for a hit. Only one run scored but we were a bit closer. The next guy struck out on three pitches and he missed them all by at least a foot, no exaggeration. The next hitter also struck out within four pitches and it looked pretty dim at this point. The top of the lineup was due and there is little hope for an extra base hit because they are small, fast runners who use their speed to get on. Well Sun Lingfeng worked the count to 2-2 when the pitcher just threw a beautiful fastball on the outside corner and the catcher started to run towards the mound. From our view the umpire started to call it a strike as he backed up and started to stand up but for some reason he didn’t call it. We all knew it was a strike. The pitcher tried to repeat the pitch but threw wide of the plate for ball four, one more run. The next hitter, Hou Fenglian our diminutive designated hitter was due up. He quickly got behind the count as the pitcher blazed a fastball in to glove, strike one. The next pitch was a forkball and the hitter looked so bad as he checked his swing, strike two. Down 0-2 and after the last swing he took it looked like it was curtains for us. All that was left to do was throw another one of those nasty forkballs and its to the showers. He didn’t throw it, he instead threw a fastball down the middle of the plate and Hou crushed it just past a diving first baseman. We were definitely going to score two runs on the hit but the right fielder charged hard on the ball and came up throwing. He fired a laser in the direction of home plate. The cutoff man was apparently out of position because there were two fielders within 10 feet of each other. This created confusion between the two and the ball caromed off of one of their legs and rolled slowly away from them. The next 3 seconds were a total blur as everything went into slo-mo. Our runner from first never broke his stride. He is our fastest runner who was a track star before being banished to the sport of baseball. As the ball kept slowly rolling he kept gaining ground towards home and by the time they got to the ball and made the throw he was already into his slide. PANDA-monium, as they say, broke out. A celebration larger than the opening celebrations broke out. The players rushed to home plate and crushed the poor little guy. It was amazing! One of the greatest thrills of my career. For 10 minutes we hugged, screamed, hugged some more and finally wept for joy as the players celebrated with the Chinese fans. We just beat Ohio State with insurmountable odds and their fans hooting at us all during the game. It was all of a sudden, Charles Woodson breaking the game open, Desmond Howard striking the Heisman pose in the end zone. Our biggest rival fall to the hands of the lowly China baseball team with a story book finish. Hollywood, eat your heart out, you couldn’t have beaten our script.