It was announced earlier this year the Yankees would conduct a clinic with high school baseball players in Taiwan from Jan. 7-11. Here is what President Randy Levine had to say then:
"This clinic serves as another step in the outreach and integration of baseball throughout the international community," Yankees president Randy Levine said in a statement. "The Yankees organization is recognized around the world, and we are confident this important event will leave a positive imprint on our countless fans in Taiwan."Today, national hero Chien-Ming Wang showed up (via Peter Abraham.)
But the Yankees are bad for baseball.
AP Photo
2 comments:
I like the little snidely mcsnide comment that typefies Yankee fans at the end of the post, but let's not put the Yankees on a pedestal for this, thank you.
While it's certainly a great camp with great and noble intentions, it's also a clever move to get a leg up on talent in Taiwan that is not yet signable due to their age. According to CTBA rules, Taiwanese players cannot be signed until their graduation. However, there's nothing saying you can't lay groundwork by hosting a clinic which just happens to feature every prospect on the Island.
Clever move, nothing wrong with it at all, but a bit more thought into the matter would reveal that it takes a lot of money to send a whole gang of coaches and your star player to taiwan for a week to host a clinic. Air travel, hotels, meal money, etc. A lot of scouting departments would have a hard time convincing their front offices to allocate resources for this. But when you have infinite resources at your disposal, why not host a great PR move and get a head start on inking the talent out here while they're still young? Nah, the inequities in baseball payrolls have absolutely nothing to do with this.
And wait a minute, I thought the Yankees had some financial problems, isn't that why they petitioned the NYC city government for taxpayer money for a new stadium, and then, er, dropped 400 million dollars on players right afterwards?
Nice work if you can get it.
Relax. Many teams run clinics and facilities in other countries.
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