“The goal coming in was to qualify for the Olympics,” said Canadian starter Brooks McNiven of Vancouver, “and open everybody else’s eyes that we’re not just cruising into this but that we’re here to win.”

2004 Olympic silver medal winner Australia miss even with a win over South Africa.

“It was tough going out there today and that could certainly be classed as one of the ugliest wins of all time, but there were a few things there really worth noting,” manager Jon Deeble said. “We could very well look back at that game for producing things like James Linger’s first hit for Australia and Brad Tippett’s first win, two things youre likely to see a lot more of for many years to come.”

2008 IBAF Final Olympic Qualifying Tournament Final Recap is here.

WP: Alvarez Ramirez (1-1) LP: Gutierrez Gutierrez (0-1)

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WP: Tippet (1-0) LP: Townend (0-1) HR: Luke Hughes

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WP: Kim, K. H. (2-0) LP: Lee C.-C. (0-1)

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WP: Green (2-0) LP: Fries (1-1)

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The three team will joined the United States, host China, Cuba, Japan and the Netherlands at the Beijing Games 2008 Olympics.

Official Recap is here.

WP: Mowday (1-0) LP: Hernandez Diaz (0-2) HR: Ben Risinger (2inning, 3 runs)

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WP: Ortega Salinas (1-1) LP: Marquez Ramirez (1-1) HR: Carlos Valencia (9inning, 1 run)

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WP: Richmond, S. (2-0) LP: Ryu (0-1) HR: Mattew Rogelstad (2, 1inning, runs), Nicholas Weglarz (3, 4 inning, 1 run)

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WP: Chiang (2-1) LP: Armitage (0-2) HR: Chih-Hsien Chiang (7 inning, 1 run)

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Taiwan shuts out Australia in crucial games, clears way to Olympic Games, a win against South Africa will assure Taiwan of a spot in the Olympics.

For Australia, life is not so good, especially after they lost to Chinese Taipei. They need to beat Spain and South Africa and rely on Canada dropping their final games against Korea and minnows Germany. NATIONAL coach Jon Deeble has slammed the international baseball federation and accused rival countries of conspiring to ensure reigning Olympic silver medallists Australia didn’t qualify for Beijing.

WP: Son, M. H. (2-0) LP: Henkenjohann (0-2) HR: Donald Lutz (2 inning, 1 run)
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WP: Periard (2-0) LP: Leal (0-1) HR: Nicholas Weglarz (2, 3 inning, 1 run)
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WP: Campos Machado (1-0) LP: Mostert (0-1) HR: Karim Garcia 2 (1, 4inning 2runs, 2, 8inning 2 runs)
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WP: Yang (2-0) LP: Mildren (1-1)
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Of course, host Taiwan keen to secure Beijing baseball berth.

“Baseball is the sport we pay most attention to,” an official with the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee told reporters. “It’s best if we can get in, otherwise we won’t care about the Olympics as much.” “Baseball is so important that if we’re not in the Olympics, people will be very disappointed,” said Richard Lin, secretary general of the island’s Amateur Baseball Association. “It’s our national sport and this chance at the Olympics is hard to get.”

Official Recap is here.

WP: Fries (1-0) LP: Terry (0-1)
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WP: S. W. Kim (1-0) LP: Olivera Cavero (0-1) HR: Seung Yuop Lee (2, 8 inning, 2 runs)
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WP: Green (1-0) LP: Chiang (1-1) HR: Nicholas Weglarz (6 inning, 1 run), KUO-HUI LO (2, 6inning, 3 runs)
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WP: Silva Sandoval (1-0) LP: Bright (0-1)
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The official recap is here.

WP: Chang (1-0) LP: Hughes (0-1)
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WP: Kent (1-0) LP: McNiven (0-1) HR: James Van Ostrand (2 inning, 1
run), Mattew Rogelstad (7 inning, 2 runs), Ryan Radmanovich (8 inning, 2runs)
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WP: Leal Gonzalez (1-0) LP: Armitage (0-1)
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WP: K. H. Kim (1-0) LP: Silva Escalante (0-1) HR: Miguel Ojeda (5 inning, 1 run)
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Baseball America let us know more about players from minor league, and The China Post describe detail on Chinese Taipei beat Mexico, Seung-woo Kang of The Korea Times wrote an article about Korea hammers Australia, you can also get the game recap form IBAF new official websites.

WP: Periard (1-0) LP: Dancer (0-1) HR: Chris Robinson (1, 7inning)
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WP: Yang (1-0) LP: Ortega (0-1)
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WP: Ryu (1-0) LP: Wiltshire (0-1) HR: Seung Yuop Lee (1, 3 inning, 3Runs)
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WP: Marquez-Ramirez (1-0) LP: Hernandez (0-1) HR: Sascha Lutz (1, 8inning)
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He also mention that he would use starting pitcher Sun-woo Kim (Doosan) as a relief pitcher. Kim will be the starting pitcher in the game against Spain on Mar. 10 and Min-han Son will be the starter in the game against Germany on Mar. 12. But Kim could be brought in as a relief pitcher as a crucial closer.

Korea defeated South Africa 5-0 at the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium in Taiwan on Friday. Son stuck out seven batters in six innings with one hit and no loss. Kim had no hit and no loss in two innings. Kyu-min Woo pitched for one scoreless innings to complete the shutout.

The Koreans pounded South African starter Robert Verschuren early, opening their account on an RBI double by Seung-yeop Lee in the first inning. They added two runs in the third inning on consecutive doubles by Dong-joo Kim and Dae-ho Lee, and Taek-geun Lee drove Kim home with an RBI single in the eighth. Jin-young Lee scored In-sung Cho with a double in the ninth to complete the rout.

Seung-yeop Lee has often been touted by other players for his professional spirit and attitude. During his free time, he goes to the health club at the Howard Hotel in Taijung, Taiwan to workout and lift weights. Sometimes, he teaches younger players how to build muscles and get into better shape.

While other players went shopping or watched TV on Wednesday, Lee stayed at the hotel to exercise at the club.

“I want to do my best and be ready to play the game in the utmost condition,” he said. “That is why I keep working on these weights.”

Lee is well known for his generosity and thoughtfulness towards his peers and junior players. Kwang-hyun Kim, the youngest member on the national team, said, “Lee is like an older brother or friend because he always takes care of others. I think I should learn from his humble attitude without boasting in spite of his stardom.”

If Lee is seen as very thoughtful and friendly, LA Dodgers’ Chan-ho Park, who served as team leader for last year’s national team, is known for his strong leadership skills.

Due to Park’s strong confidence and pride, he gives off a bit of a cold impression, though he is very charismatic. On the other hand, Lee, who looks soft and gentle, has a mighty spirit. His distinctive character is expected to lead the team to the finals in Beijing.

Before the game, manager Kim hope to got the win early, but it still need nine-inning to finish against South Africa.. “It is vital that we score as many runs as we can in the early innings against the teams considered weaker, as taking advantage of the seven-inning mercy rule would be the best way to save our bullpen pitchers for more critical situations.” “It would be important for us to get our wins early and give us a cushion for the rest of the tournament,” he said. “We won’t risk too much in the goal of winning all of our matches.”

Kim would obviously prefer less of a thriller, as he plans to go all out in the first three games, with contenders Australia and Mexico next in line, gunning for a comfortable lead and wouldn’t want to consume too much energy against an underdog opponent.
Even South Africa is bringing 11 players from its WBC roster to Taiwan, include ace pitcher Barry Armitage, a former Kansas City Royals prospect, Second baseman Jonathan Phillips, who once played rookie ball in the Milwaukee Brewers system, and shortstop Brett Willemburg, they still can not score a run against Korea.

For Korea, all eyes will be on the performance of shortstop Jin-man Park, considered one of Asia’s top defensive players at the position, who made the roster despite a bum shoulder.

Park’s injury makes the left part of the Korean infield an uncertainty, as Dong-joo Kim, whose value clearly lies with his bat, is a liability with his limited range at third base.

If Park fail to prove his fitness, Manager Kim could opt to switch for Son Shi-hun, slightly a better bat but much lesser of a glove, in the games against Australia and Mexico.

At least Kim has good news with batting lineup, which has the potential to be the country’s most productive ever. Expect Seung-yeop Lee, Dong-joo Kim and Dae-ho Lee, Centerfielder Lee Jong-wook, who hits for average and steals bases in bunches, is hitting leadoff, followed by Ko Young-min, a second baseman with a pop in the bat. Outfielders Lee Jin-young and Lee Taek-geun and catcher Cho In-sung combine as a formidable trio at the bottom of the order.

South Korea is currently playing in an eight-team tournament that stakes three tickets to the Beijing Olympics in August. The South Africans, along with Germany and Spain, were considered among the weakest of the eight squads, but host Taiwan and regional powers Australia, Mexico and Canada may be tough competition for the Koreans.

South Korea meets Australia today in their second match of the tournament and Mexico on Sunday.

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As expect, Korea, Australia and Chinese Taipei all defeat their opponent. As for a tough game between Canada and Mexico, both got 18 hits, both used six pitchers, but Canada take advantage on four errors with timely hitting, won by five runs.

“That’s international baseball because you never know,” Canadian manager Terry Puhl said in a news release. “Mexico has a lot of experienced hitters and they got back into the game. They just kept coming at us every inning and that’s a trademark of this ball club.”

“That’s a big win for us right off the bat,” said Canadian second baseman Stubby Clapp of Windsor, Ont. “It wasn’t pretty, but we hung in there and kept swinging the bats and our pitchers kept going out there, attacking the strike zone and they did a great job.”

Both Canada and Mexico are not fielding their best teams as some players are vying for a spot with teams at Major League Baseball spring training in Florida and Arizona.

Baseball Canada lobbied last fall to have the tournament rescheduled, but was rebuffed by the International Baseball Federation.

Pitchers Steve Green and T.J. Burton cemented the Canadian win on Friday, combining to shut out Mexico over the final 2 2/3 innings.

Canada jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning on a pair of hits by Mike Saunders and Matt Rogelstad. Another run in the second and three more in the third frame gave the red and white a seemingly comfortable advantage.

But Carlos Valencia helped vault Mexico into the lead in the bottom of the inning with a two-run home run before the Canadians plated three runs in the fourth to move ahead 9-8.

In Canada’s five-run seventh inning, Adam Stern and Jimmy VanOstrand drove in two runs apiece on a double and triple respectively.

“It’s a good start for us to beat a team like Mexico,” said Rogelstad, who went 3-for-4 with three runs scored. “We came out ready to play. We got some runs early in the game and we were able to keep that going.”

Below is the score and result of Game 1:

WP: Son (1-0) LP: Verschuren (0-1)
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WP: Richmond (1-0) LP: Alvarez Ramirez (0-1) HR: Carlos Valencia (1, 3inning)
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WP: Mildren (1-0) LP: Henkenjohann (0-1)
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WP: Chiang (1-0) LP: Olivera Cavero (0-1) HR: Chen-Ming Peng (1, 1st inning), Kuo-Hui Lo (1, 4th inning)
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British Baseball has called UK Sport short-sighted after being forced to pull out of a final Olympic qualifying tournament. Team GB have been unable to raise the £40,000 needed to fund the trip to the competition in Taiwan and UK Sport turned down a late request to help out.

Spokesman Bob Fromer told BBC Sport: “UK Sport are being short-sighted – I am not at all happy with them.” UK Sport’s Matt Crawcour conceded: “We sometimes have tough calls to make.”

The British baseball team was funded by UK Sport until 2005, the same year the sport was dropped by the International Olympic Committee for the 2012 Games and beyond. The British Olympic Association stepped in and acquired an Olympic solidarity grant of $100,000 (£50,000) from the IOC which funded the team through 2006 and 2007.

“That money was used to play in the 2007 European Championships, where we finished second,” said Fromer. “And that result meant we qualified for the final Olympic qualifying tournament, along with seven other teams, which starts this week, but it also used up the rest of our funds. The BOA were sympathetic and tried to arrange another solidarity grant, but the IOC said no.”

“And UK Sport turned us down in December, for which they received criticism from (Shadow Sports Minister) Hugh Robertson, who raised a question in parliament about the £30,000 UK Sport spent sending delegates to a conference on sporting legacy in Barbados.”

“In January, we told the International Baseball Federation that we didn’t have the money to be able to attend the event, and they spent a few weeks trying to help, but ultimately they couldn’t and we had no option but to pull out.”

“The tournament takes place during spring training for the American baseball teams and we have a few players trying to make it onto their teams, so they would have found it difficult to be released to play in Taiwan,” Fromer said that it would have been a tough ask for Britain to qualify for the Games. “But then, the same goes for teams like Spain and Germany.”

Britain’s place in the tournament has been taken by Germany, who join Mexico, Canada, Spain, Korea, Taiwan, Australia and South Africa in the round-robin event to decide who goes to Beijing.

“It’s very sad,” added Fromer. “I don’t agree with UK Sport’s policy. They are giving more and more money to fewer sports and that is being too narrow, but unless baseball gets back into the Olympic picture the future looks bleak.”

Crawcour defended UK Sport’s stance, saying: “Baseball falling out of the 2012 Olympics in London colored our thinking. If a sport is on the program for 2012 there would be incentive for us to invest, but baseball isn’t – it’s effectively a one-off event for 2008. “It’s all about value for money – we’d love to fund every athlete and sport but we don’t have a bottomless pit.”

There is some good news for British baseball – the second-placed finish at the European Championships secured the team a spot at the 2009 World Championships. The International Baseball Federation will foot the bill for most of the costs incurred going to the tournament.

But Fromer added: “Beyond the event, we will have no external funding, which means we will have to field a team entirely made up of home-based players. That means we will not be as strong internationally.”

Meanwhile, the GB team will play a friendly match against a team of international cricketers at Somerset’s ground in Taunton. Somerset and England batsman Marcus Trescothick came up with the idea for the game, which will form part of his benefit year.

The seven-inning contest will take place on Saturday, 4 October 2008, and feature Kevin Pietersen, Simon Jones, Ashley Giles, Ian Botham, Alec Stewart and Mike Atherton on the cricketers’ side. On the following day, the British Baseball Federation will be running a day-long youth clinic with instruction from GB players and coaches.

Dan King of Daily Mail also mention that “Beijing hopefuls are struck out.”,

Even UK Sport expressed their regret at not being able to support the baseball team, but claimed that because it will no longer be an Olympic sport after Beijing and the team were unlikely to win a medal in China, resources would be better spent elsewhere.

A spokesman added that the conference cash came from another budget. It is, of course, also very pleasant in Barbados at this time of year.

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Four years ago, Canada fell frustratingly short of a medal in the Athens Games, so the flight out from Down Under represented a new beginning.

“It looks good for us,” said outfielder Jimmy Van Ostrand of Richmond, B.C., as the Canadians headed to the final Olympic qualifying tournament for this summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing. “It’s a tough tournament and there is going to be a lot of tough competition there but we definitely have a good team to give ourselves a chance. It’s going to be lots of fun.”

Van Ostrand and the rest of the Canadian roster felt upbeat and confident after going 3-1-1 in a tune-up series against the Australians that began Feb. 27. They were able shake off a winter in which most of the players were away from baseball.

Canada must now claim one of three open Olympic spots. The week-long tournament, starting tomorrow, will see Canada in a stiff competition to come out ahead of baseball-strong countries Australia, Germany, South Korea, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, and the host Taiwan.

The Canadians will field a very young team featuring up-and-coming prospects like Mike Saunders of Victoria, VanOstrand of Richmond, B.C., Matt Rogelstad of New Westminster, B.C., and Nick Weglarz of Stevensville, Ont.

“We have all the tools here to get it done. We just need to stick to our game and we’ll get the results that we want,” said Canadian manager Terry Puhl.

Canada’s experience will likely be a factor this week, with Windsor’s Stubby Clapp, Adam Stern of Port Stanley, Ont., Calgary’s Ryan Radmanovich, Jeremy Ware of Guelph, Ont.and Mike Kusiewicz of Ottawa all returning from the 2004 team that dropped an 8-5 decision in the late innings to Cuba in a game that would have sent them to the gold medal match.

The Canadians – behind starter Shawn Hill, pitching with a torn ligament in his right elbow – carried a 3-2 lead into the eighth inning before the Cubans rallied for six runs. Canada rallied for two runs in the ninth, but with two out and two runners on base, Kevin Nicholson’s apparent home run was snagged at the wall by leaping Cuban left fielder Frederich Cepeda and preserve Cuba’s 8-5 win.

For veteran like Clapp, the thought of that agonizing finish still makes him feel “sick to my stomach … it brings tears to my eyes every time I see it on the replay.” “When we didn’t medal in 2004 I felt cheated, because we had a team to do it, circumstances just didn’t allow it,” Clapp told the Canadian Press. “At that time after being so heartbroken, it was really hard to go back to baseball again.”

The Canadian baseball folk hero retired from professional play last season, and only the national team’s pursuit of a berth at the Olympics this summer keeps him on the field now. He’s put his job as a hitting coach in the Houston Astros organization on hold in the hope that the last of his trademark pre-game back flips comes in Beijing, while taking the field for the gold-medal game.

If they didn’t make it, one of the more colorful players to ever suit up for the national team will likely have played his final game wearing the Maple Leaf.

“Unfortunately, that’s the truth,” Clapp said in a recent interview. “I’ve thought about it and what it does is motivate me more to succeed in this tournament because I want to play in August. I’d rather that be my last hurrah than a qualifying tournament. It’s a special deal and we have to take advantage of it.”

“(Winning a medal) is probably about as important as anything’s been to me, especially for this program.”

The kids will be counted on to do the heavy lifting, with veterans like Clapp guiding them along.

“The toughest part is them being able to trust themselves and that’s something that will be relayed from the veteran guys,” said Clapp. “They’re at a point in their careers where they’ve got to be able to do that and if they can’t it’s going to be tough to succeed. The pressure only gets worse. It never stops, you just have to learn to deal with it.”

Clapp is the ideal player to show them the way.

He first came to national prominence in 1999, when his bloop fly ball in the 11th inning brought home the winning run in a walkoff 7-6 victory over the United States at the Pan American Games in Winnipeg. In subsequent years he played a key role in most major Canadian baseball highlights, including qualifying for the 2004 Olympics and the stunning 8-6 win over the U.S. at the World Baseball Classic in 2006.

One of his most memorable moments came after Canada clinched its berth for the Athens Games, when the team gathered on the bus and sang O Canada together over and over.

“That sends goosebumps down my skin just thinking about that moment. It was just unbelievable, the camaraderie between the guys and the coaches,” Clapp recalled. “The Pan Am Games sticks out, the game against the U.S. was huge. The game against the U.S. at the World Baseball Classic, there were some things in that game that were just phenomenal. There have been so many games that have meant so much.”

There’s been plenty of heartbreak, too.

Aside from the loss to Cuba in 2004, there was missing out on the 2000 Olympics after a 3-2 semifinal loss to Cuba at the ‘99 Pan Ams and elimination from the World Baseball Classic on run differential despite tying the U.S. and Mexico with 2-1 first-round records. “International baseball is different, we talk about cutthroat baseball and we’ll relay that to the young guys,” said Clapp. “Let them know every pitch counts, every run counts.”

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