[MLB]Canada joins Olympic elite

[conan0828 (重要的是信念)]

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/news/mlb_news.jsp?ymd=20040813&content_id=82
6936&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp

Japan, Cuba other favorites while US sits out


By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com


Team Canada is taking its first swing since 1988 at the Olympic Baseball tourn
ament beginning Saturday in Athens, Greece, on a Canadian Rocky Mountain high.

The team that qualified last November in Panama City, Panama, swept through a
pre-Olympic tournament without a defeat this week in Italy, beating the Nether
lands, Cuba, Italy and Chinese Taipei.

The Canadians open the eight-team Olympic tournament against Taiwan on Saturda
y and will try to make it all the way to the gold medal game, which is schedul
ed for the evening of Aug. 25.

"I'm happy we won the tournament but this is just a prelude to the Olympic Gam
es," said their manager, Ernie Whitt, a former catcher, who played 15 big-leag
ue seasons for Boston, Toronto, Atlanta and Baltimore and retired in 1991. "I'
m happy with our pitching but I still feel we have a lot more offensive potent
ial than what we've shown."

The Canadians are there while Team USA is sitting out the Olympic tournament f
or the first time since baseball became a demonstration sport for the 1984 Gam
es at Los Angeles. The U.S. defeated Cuba for the gold medal at the 2000 Games
 in Sydney, Australia, but the Americans were eliminated from these Games in N
ovember during the same tournament in which the Canadians succeeded.

The U.S. lost a quarterfinal game, 2-1, on a ninth-inning home run to Mexico,
the team Canada defeated by 10 runs in the semifinals to qualify for Greece. T
wo teams qualified out of the rainy Central American nation -- Canada and Cuba
. The Cubans defeated Canada in the gold medal game there, but were trounced t
his week, 9-1, by the Canadians in Italy.

"A win over a top team like Cuba is great for our confidence as we continue to
 prepare for the Olympics," said outfielder Ryan Radmanovich, an independent l
eague player who was 5-for-7 in the four games with two runs batted in and fou
r runs scored.

Radmanovich played 25 games for Seattle in 1998 and is part of a 24-man Canada
 roster in which every player has either big-league experience or is currently
 affiliated with a Major League team, including former Major Leaguers Andy Ste
wart, Paul Spoljaric and Rob Ducey.

Ducey, the 39-year-old outfielder and designated hitter, had an RBI single in
the bottom of the eighth inning on Tuesday to drive in the winning run in Cana
da's 2-1 win over Chinese Taipei. He's a coach at the Double-A level for the E
xpos.

"My goal is to concentrate on every chance I have to be productive," said Duce
y, who played 13 seasons in the Major Leagues for seven teams including Toront
o and Montreal from 1987 to 2001. "I don't want to let my teammates down or my
 country."

Major League-affiliated players not on the 25-man rosters of big league teams
as of Aug. 1 were made available to Olympic squads.

Aside from Canada, host Greece and Australia also have rosters replete with ML
B-affiliated players.

The Japanese team completed their roster by taking two members from each of th
e 12 Nippon Professional Baseball league teams.

Canada, in preparation for the pre-Olympic tournament, defeated Greece at Camd
en Yards on Aug. 4. They are 5-0, having only Japan and Australia left to play
 of the seven opposing teams.

"They are a good solid ballclub -- all the way around," said Expos manager Fra
nk Robinson, whose U.S. team defeated Canada last year during the pool play po
rtion of the Americas Qualifying Tournament. "They are not fancy. They don't o
pen your eyes up with fancy plays and they are not going to have a guy who is
going to strike out 15 or 20 guys in a ballgame.

"But they know how to play the game. They play it correctly and they get good
results from it. It's a team effort. They are pretty deep in their pitching st
aff. They put the bat on the ball and do well in situations."

The Canadians wanted to shore up their starting pitching for the Olympics, but
 were disappointed this week when the Colorado Rockies declined to allow hard-
throwing Triple-A left-hander Jeff Francis to join the Canadian team. Phil Dev
ey, a Double-A pitcher from the Seattle organization, replaced him.

"Our club has faced adversity before and we remain determined to forge ahead w
ith the strong talent assembled on our team," Whitt said. "We have alternative
s in place which we will implement in the best interests of our team and we wi
ll carry forward with our quest for success in Athens."

Meanwhile, the seven other teams are also raring to get started in Olympic pla
y at baseball facilities that are about a half hour outside downtown Athens an
d the main Olympic Stadium:

The Greeks have already been beset with problems. Their manager, Rob Derksen,
44, died of a heart attack this past June on a trip to New York. With the fund
ing of Orioles owner Peter Angelos, Derksen, then Baltimore's international sc
out, helped put together Greece's first, and probably only, entrant in the Oly
mpic baseball tournament. As host country, Greece was given an automatic berth
. Only days before the games, two players, Andrew James Brack and Derek Nichol
son, were both kicked off the team for doping violations. Nicholson was a cent
er fielder last season for the Detroit Tigers' Triple-A team at Toledo. Brack
used to play in the independent Northeast League. The Greeks still have 12 Maj
or League-affiliated players on the roster, most of Greek-American heritage.

The Cubans have always been the toughest cookie in international tournaments a
nd don't expect this one to be any different. They play with indifference unti
l the real event begins, thus part of the explanation for this week's pre-Olym
pic drubbing by Canada. But these are not your father's Cubans. The team has b
een decimated in recent years by retirement and defections. Orestes Kindelan,
Omar Linares, Antonio Pacheco and Luis Ulacia have retired. Pitchers Orlando "
El Duque" Hernandez, Danys Baez and Jose Contreras, and more recently, power-h
itting first baseman Kendry Morales, defected to the U.S. But the Cubans have
still won every international tournament since losing to the gold to the U.S.
in the 2000 Summer Olympics. And they are heavy favorites to win again.

The Japanese had a poor showing in Australia where they failed to win a medal.
 To save face, they decided to increase the count of their own Major Leaguers
on this year's Olympic roster. Too bad the once cream of the Pacific Rim natio
n -- Hideki Matsui, Kaz Matsui, and Ichiro Suzuki -- are playing for MLB teams
 and are not eligible. They're bringing Koji Uehara, the Yomiuri Giants, split
-finger artist, who defeated the MLB All-Stars during the 2002 tour and bedevi
led San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds by striking him out three times i
n one game. Also on the team is Norihiro Nakamura, the third baseman who was a
 slugging star vs. MLB and shortly thereafter almost signed with the New York
Mets. He thought better of it at the last second and stayed in Japan. Along wi
th Cuba and the suddenly surging Canadians, Japan in the elite class of the Ol
ympic teams.

The Italians are one of a record three European teams in the tournament, altho
ugh no teams from the continent have ever qualified for the medal round during
 Olympic play. That tells you how far international baseball has come since it
 was introduced on the demonstration level in 1984. There are 113 federations
around the world now representing baseball in individual countries. And the It
alians, who just hosted the pre-Olympic tournament in Nettuno, are well ahead
of many of the other nations on the continent as far as quality of play and fa
cilities. That's why MLB is considering playing at least one regular season se
ries in Italy sometime during the next few years if logistics can be worked ou
t. But the Italians are not there yet and have no current MLB-affiliated playe
rs on the team.

Likewise, The Dutch have become a factor in European baseball and are always o
ne of the teams to beat, particularly in a budding continental rivalry. Calvin
 Maduro, who was 10-19 with a 5.78 earned run average in 68 games played over
five seasons for the Phillies and Orioles, and Ralph Milliard, an infielder wh
o has 16 hits in 93 at bats (.172) in 42 games for the Marlins and the Mets, a
re the big names. The rest of the roster is comprised of players from the Neth
erlands' own Major Leagues. The program is up and coming. Just to prove it, th
ey handed Cuba its first-ever Olympic loss during pool play in the 2000 Olympi
cs.

The Australians would like to make the best Olympic showing in their baseball
history. They've yet to make it out of pool play and their best Olympic finish
 is a tie for sixth with Italy when they hosted the 2000 Olympics. Sixteen of
their 24 players are currently affiliated with MLB teams, including Chris Oxsp
ring of the San Diego Padres and John Stephens of the Boston Red Sox, prospect
s who are supposed to be their 1-2 punch on the mound. Pitcher Graeme Lloyd an
d catcher David Nilsson have plenty of MLB experience. The left-handed Lloyd w
as in the bullpen for the New York Yankees when they won the World Series in 1
996 and 1998 and played for seven teams in his 10-year career. Nilsson was an
All-Star with Milwaukee in 1999 and played all eight of his big-league seasons
 with the Brewers. This is Australia's third Olympic appearance and the team i
s not expected to do much damage.

Chinese Taipei outfielder Chin-Feng Chen, who was in the Dodgers organization
and had six at bats in the big leagues in 2002 and 2003, is their biggest star
. Taiwan won the bronze medal in the first demonstration games at Los Angeles
in 1984 and the silver medal in Barcelona in 1992 -- the first year baseball w
as considered a medal sport -- when they lost to Cuba in the gold medal game.
They haven't qualified since. This year, they qualified by upsetting Korea in
the double-elimination Asia Cup. Japan was the other qualifier out of that sec
tor. The Taiwanese are sneaky good and could be the dark horse of the entire O
lympic tournament.

Barry M. Bloom is a national reporter for MLB.com. MLB.com reporter Bill Ladso
n contributed to this story. This story was not subject to the approval of Maj
or League Baseball or its clubs.


--
我不需要信仰  重要的是信念

--
※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) 
◆ From: 221.169.138.209
推 Richie1105:原諒我...我完全看不懂@@
推 ysh:說中華隊是黑馬..=_=
推 eeed:The Taiwanese are sneaky good and could
→ eeed:be the dark horse of the entire Olympic
→ eeed:tournament.
推 ysh:被指鬼鬼祟祟暗著來的喔...=_=
推 luvq:推~ dark horse...
推 abyssa1:辛苦了 排版如果不把字切開會更好