A New Understanding of Baseball Culture

In the fourth year of professional baseball in Taiwan the number of teams jumped from four to six; a total of 270 games were played in six stadiums; and according to the records department of the league, nearly 1.6 million spectators attended.

These figures may be dwarfed by those of the professional baseball leagues in the United States and Japan, but think how pessimistic people were about the league when it was founded. If you look at today's fervent fans, you can see that pro ball has a good future here in Taiwan.

While the fans have clearly given the sport their support, it is not hard to discover from their reactions in various situations that professional baseball has become a culture in which "the fans are at the center, and winning or losing is the biggest concern."

For example, fans loyal to different teams will fight each other to avenge or celebrate a game's outcome. Some spectators gamble on games, and it's a sure bet they care much more about winning or losing than how the game was played.

By their very nature, sporting contests have winners and losers, and baseball is no exception. Now that players have advanced to be professionals, the importance of winning or losing is self-evident. A player's performance on the field and the effectiveness of a manager's leader-ship directly affect their own personal futures and their team's reputation. Who would dare not to do their best?

From this it ought to be clear that those most concerned with winning and losing are the people on the field and in the dugouts. But if the fans get too concerned with who wins or loses, it will only hurt the future of professional baseball.

Besides enjoying the excitement, fans ought to study the ins and outs of the game's strategy, watching the players' skills and the managers' artful juggling of lineups. . . and not merely finding heros in winners and goats in losers. Only thus will the culture of professional baseball bloom and grow so we can get beyond this stage of "fan-centric culture."

[Picture Caption]

p.6

(photo courtesy of  Professional Baseball)