Spring approaches, and the flowers are in bloom. That can only mean that baseball is here again. The six-year-old Chinese Professional Baseball League, newly endowed with an NT$1.5 billion TV contract but also faced with the challenge of a rival league, is getting a lot of attention. In this glittering, controversy-laden environment, how are the main actors on the baseball stage--the players--being treated? What are their hopes and ideals?

These days few people would applaud a slave system, because in it people are treated as property. The high salaries and public exposure pro baseball players receive make them stars. But in terms of the system, they are "property" belonging to the pro teams. But now the property is taking matters into their own hands.

Tu Fu-ming, former ace of the President Lions' staff, wanted to accept an offer to become pitching coach for the Bears and their new sponsor, the Sinon Corporation. But the Lions did not agree to the move. Lions' general manager Kuo Jiun-nan said that Tu's contract with President had not yet expired, yet Tu unilaterally said he was leaving the team. "There he was in the paper with the Bears' general manager and coach, their hands raised together in celebration, like he was trying to prove something to me," says Kuo, adding that if Tu wants to leave it is fine with him, but the Bears must trade up someone of equal value.

Chen Yen-cheng of the Brother Elephants was finally purchased by the Bears. The price started at NT$2 million, but was haggled down to NT$1.5 million. Thus Chen's desire to join the Bears, who have no catcher and thus will give Chen a better chance to show his stuff, was realized. Among the various on-going negotiations, this one had a relatively happy ending.

Baseball players of the world, unite!

In most fields, it is quite simple to jump from company to company. But pro ballplayers are under the CPBL's "lifetime contract" system, and do not have the freedom to choose which team they want to play for.

Harsh as it may sound, this is one of the fundamental features of professional baseball in Taiwan. Most enterprises sell goods or services, but the CPBL sells baseball games. And all team operations, including players, inevitably fall within the careful calculations of the team. Anything not calculable according to economic rationality easily becomes a subject of contention.

It is just like an auction. As far as the corporations that put up huge amounts of capital are concerned, the players are a commodity, and so it is perfectly appropriate to apply such concepts as quality control or making the best use of their added value.

But players are, after all, people. Skills and abilities may very well be marketable commodities, but feelings and ideals are not things that can be assessed with a price.

At the end of last year, the first players' union in Taiwan was formed. The driving players behind the union include several making more than NT$200,000 per month (about US$8000, a very high figure for Taiwan). Among the key figures are Kuo Chien-cheng of the Eagles, Sun Chao-li of the Dragons, and Wu Fu-lien of the Elephants. A total of 83 players, from all the teams, have signed up, accounting for two-thirds of all pro players.

"This is the first time pro baseball players have ever addressed society in their status as employees," says Hsieh Ying-ching, legal advisor to the union. The players have come before society not to talk up and advertise their teams, not to talk about their personal achievements or skills, and not to talk about winning and losing on the field. They feel they should be seen as other laborers are seen, as "elements within a corporate system."

Just for the money?

The union was only set up three months ago. Union chief Kuo Chien-cheng admits that they are still mulling over what the union should do, and what role it should play. However, "one thing for sure is that, though most people see players as collecting huge salaries and riding around in fancy cars, we haven't gotten real respect."

Readers of the media perhaps saw the story about how players from the Elephants could go directly to the general manager if they were not satisfied with their pay raises. G.M. Hong Juei-ho set up a special "reception room" at salary adjustment time last year in order to have a "heart-to-heart" (or perhaps "wallet-to-wallet") chat with such players. You may have also seen that players of the China Times Eagles and Sinon Bears boycotted training because their salaries were not as high as anticipated. If players can discuss their salaries and even protest, are they really not being treated with respect?

From the player's point of view, they say they are not interested in greedily striving for salary increases. For example, as Kuo Chien-cheng says, this year's training boycott by the Eagles was not aimed at high salaries, but at "obtaining reasonable compensation for the non-star players who, even if they didn't make great contributions, worked very hard last year."

Out of step

Union advisor Hsieh Ying-ching, as a third party, perhaps sees the situation more clearly. He says that if you speak to the players in-depth, then you will find that many of the players don't care that much about fat paychecks, but really want a good environment to play ball, so that everyone can focus on the game with peace of mind.

Many players say that corporations that spend one or two hundred million a year on advertising are not "in step" when it comes to baseball operations. They wonder whether the sponsors were "sincere" in forming the teams in the first place. For example, "how could they establish a team yet not provide a practice field?" queries one player.

And why have steps been so slow to either build a new stadium fully up to modern standards or to at least upgrade the existing facilities? "It's been six years from the first season of play, and we senior players have reached the ends of our careers," says Hsieh Chang-heng. The result of the failure to improve the playing field has been frequent injuries as players slip and trip across the pitted grounds. The teams wastefully use up players in this way, but the sponsors reply that--since baseball is played in municipally-run stadiums--park conditions are the government's responsibility.

The goose that lays golden eggs

Many players also hope their sponsors will stop treating them like "the goose that lays golden eggs." They play all season, and when the season is over they still have to do advertisements and show up at every public event wearing their uniforms emblazoned with the corporate logo. "Are we good for nothing else but being living billboards?" asks player Huang Yue-teng of the Eagles. When players complain, the teams always respond that contracts clearly state that players have the obligation to participate in public activities arranged by the team. The players have to wear their uniforms to keep up a good public image, says management.

What players most care about, naturally, is what the team does with them after "buying" them for high salaries. Will the team value them, and, as in other industries, see their potential and develop it for the future? Will the team be there to support them and shape them through the slumps in their careers?

These questions are very important to pro players. Careers are usually very short. Players enter the pros sometime in their twenties when their talents mature, and, at the very most, will play only to 40. "We've got only about a decade," says Hsieh Chang-heng, and "these are the ten years in which a person is perhaps in the prime of life in terms of performance and income."

The players do not try to avoid working hard, but sometimes teams will, because of competition and speculation, buy a player "with the goal being more to keep the player away from other teams than to actually use him," says China Times sports reporter Lin Ming-yuan. The business mentality is "the early bird gets the worm."

Not a game of the weak

As Hsieh Ying-ching sees it, players who are kept on but not played are like "pawns." If a player makes the slightest move to get some space, the profit motive, and even considerations of face, immediately give rise to conflict. The players' desire for "career development" is completely ignored.

Yet, as far as the teams are concerned, framing the situation in the above terms is too harsh. Kuo Jiun-nan points out that the teams have lost money every year for the first six years, and every game, every contract, and every player trade is yet another costly business transaction.

"Many of the sponsors are publicly listed companies. Don't they have to be responsible to their stockholders as well?" asks Daniel Tu, secretary-general of the CPBL. What's more, at the root of many disputes is that the players are performing poorly.

Compared to most fields, baseball salaries (an average of NT$100,000 per month for newly signed players) are very high. Players also get a signing bonus of ten times their monthly salary, and there are financial incentives for playing well. And players also get a share from commercial activities organized by the team.

Eagles general manager Sam Wen says that players should be psychologically prepared for the fact that, when they enter this industry and accept such "super-salaries," that "this is not something that just anybody can do." Naturally pressures and demands will be greater. In particular, since a player's career depends on his performance, when players slump, aside from getting help from their coaches, they must rely mainly on themselves to break out of it.

A humanistic system

"Taiwan's baseball industry is an unknown to everyone," admits Daniel Tu. Everyone--the teams and the players--is still muddling through and learning. What is needed most is for everyone to put aside their biases and gain experience.

In professional sports in the US and Japan, athletes used to be simply commodities. But over 60 years of pro sports development in these nations, many defects emerged. For example, during last year's baseball strike, many people who sided with the players said that it was a reaction to the teams squeezing the players for everything they could get out of them.

The CPBL has been operating for only six years. When it first began, the motive was not really profit. Hsieh Ying-ching inquires, "Is it possible for everyone to come together and think about this question: Can we establish some 'humanistic' rules of the game different from those in the US and Japan?"

Of course, in the current baseball environment, the players must still grow. Sam Wen says that the current crop of pro players, when youths in the 1970s, ran all around the world for international competitions, bearing the burden of national pride and struggling for medals. Their growth process was somewhat distorted, leaving them with many habits such as enjoying special privileges, wanting advantages, and having a little too much self-admiration. The players must of course work harder at growing up.

Small dreams, big dream

Yet, however you look at it, the establishment of the player's union, the first organization built around the players themselves, is a first step. It shows that the players also have their dreams--whether these be making demands on themselves or achieving a balance between the teams on one side and the themselves on the other--and they have gelled into a force to be reckoned with.

Union chief Kuo Chien-cheng hopes that the next step after this first, difficult one, will be to build a consensus among players. Right now the issue causing the most conflict between players and teams is transferring or changing teams. And the key to many such disputes is communication. The union hopes to use the power of organization to become a bridge for communication.

The final goal is for the union to be able to participate in the setting of the rules of the game for professional baseball, and to enter the elite governing the CPBL that, at present, only the bosses are admitted to.

"It is bringing together many small dreams to realize a big dream," says Kuo Chien-cheng. Perhaps only in this way can pro baseball in Taiwan sustain itself over the long haul.

This set-off space is the players' rest area. Young fans wait "outside the door.".

Injury is the players' greatest bugaboo. Each team has trainers to massage and rehabilitate tired bodies.

Playing for the national team used to be the ultimate goal for young pla yers. Today more want to play in the "big leagues." （photo by Cheng Yuan-ching）

Do you still remember Huang Ping-yang? When the CPBL first began, he was one of the best players. Now he is sidelined by an arm injury. （photo b y Cheng Yuan-ching）