Anyone who stopped by this past July, as this reporter did, at the hillside baseball diamond in Tao­yuan County where KSES plays its games would have found a group of boys—clad in blue and white uniforms with the eye-catching initials “CT” (for “Chinese Taipei”) emblazoned on their caps—training hard on their skills in pitching, hitting, throwing, fielding, and base running.

Coach Lee Cheng-ta (right) discusses tactics with his players during a break between innings in a friendly competition between KSES and a Taipei City team at Taipei’s Youth Park.

Whenever an adult asked the kids whether all the practice was wearing them out, the brown-as-a-berry youngsters would just answer with a shake of the head and a bashful smile.

An adult further inquired: “Do you think you have a chance at the championship?” This is when the shy expressions turned to a look of fierce resolve: “Of course we do!” Another athlete went a step further: “I’m going to avenge my brother’s defeat in America!”

This was the second team from Kuei-Shan Elementary to win a berth in the Little League World Series.

Jobs are relatively plentiful in Tao­yuan County’s Gui­shan Township, which is located near several industrial zones. As a result, the area is home to a large concentration of indigenous people from the Amis, Bu­nun, and other tribes. The parents who’ve left their hometowns to come here for work are often unable to juggle schedules to be with their children after school. Left to their own resources, the children play outdoors.

The need of such kids for something to do prompted Chen Cheng-bo to found the KSES little-league baseball team back in 2002, when he was working as a physical education instructor at the school. To help get the team established, he brought in Lee Cheng-ta, a fellow graduate of the Taiwan Provincial College of Physical Education (now National Taiwan University of Physical Education and Sport). Lee by that time had already achieved big success as a coach, having mentored such well-known stars as Chiang Po-ching, Lin Po-yu, and Keng Po-hsuan.

MVP Lee Cheng-feng (enlarged picture, facing page) and ace pitcher Chen Chun-hsiao (right) are key members of the team that represented Taiwan this year. All the players practice hitting and fielding diligently, even under a scorching sun.

But the school had never had a baseball team, and resources were limited. The task ahead was daunting. For starters, the school didn’t even have much of a playground, much less a regulation baseball diamond. The players had to practice on a crowded basketball court, or use the batting cage in the school’s dumpy basement. Practicing base slides, they ripped up their trousers. Darting to and fro to catch balls, they frequently ran smack into the basketball standards.

In order to simulate the feel of an actual baseball diamond, Chen and Lee came up with the quirky idea of laying out tarp and plastic sheeting in the school’s auditorium, covering it with sand, and sprinkling water over it. The athletes then used it to practice base running and slides.

KSES may have arranged more friendly competitions than any other school in all of Taiwan. Why? Because that was the only way the players could get to play on a real baseball diamond.

Aware of how badly his players wanted to play on infield clay of their own, Chen took to scooping up a fistful after playing at an opponent’s diamond. Win or lose, and no matter how important the game, he did it every time. It was his way of bolstering team spirit. He stored the clay from each game in a separate glass jar. For each win, the jar marked a happy memory. For each loss, it served as a reminder that there was more work to be done.

In 2009, the hopes of a nation rested on KSES as the first little-league team from Taiwan to reach the Williams­port finals in 13 years. The team ended up losing the championship game 6:3 to a team from Chula Vista, California. The boys cried their eyes out as they grabbed a fistful of clay from the pitching mound to take back home, where it would serve as a symbol of their determination to return to Williamsport and avenge the loss. Fans watching on TV in Taiwan were deeply struck by the poignancy of the moment.

By dint of many years’ hard effort the KSES team has gone from strength to strength, to become the hope of Taiwan’s return to little-league baseball glory.

While they fell short of the championship, KSES did turn in an outstanding performance. The Guishan Township Office built a baseball diamond atop a reclaimed landfill site, and the central government’s Sports Affairs Council appropriated funds to help the school to convert basketball courts into a baseball infield.

Head coach Lee exclaimed with pride: “The boys earned all these things through hard work!”

The ability of the KSES team to go from start-up to world fame in just 10 years is truly a remarkable achievement. When the team was first formed, they set out a series of goals to “win the county championship within one year, finish in the top three nationally within three, take a national championship within five, and represent Taiwan abroad within seven.” The plan may have seemed quite unrealistic, but successive teams brought it to fruition with hard work and a never-say-die attitude.

One key to their big feat was rigorous grounding in the fundamentals. Kids interested in playing baseball generally join the team in third or fourth grade. From that time on, their after-school hours and weekends are spent in hard training.

A child just getting into baseball for the first time is like a blank sheet of paper, and must start by learning the basic skills of throwing, catching, and hitting. To throw, for example, the aspiring athlete must learn that before the ball ever leaves the hand, one must first raise the lead foot, cock the throwing arm, and pivot the body before uncoiling into the release. And one must also learn to keep one’s center of gravity in the lower body in order to throw the ball fast and far without getting overly tired.

Learning to hit is a similar process. The first thing is to practice pivoting at the waist and swinging the bat. And developing hand-eye coordination is necessary so that where the eye leads, the bat will follow. That’s what it takes to hit the ball squarely in the middle.

Young players shout out: “Thank you, ball diamond! Good-bye, baseball field!” They always show their thankfulness after each practice for the baseball field that was so hard to come by.

Once the players have progressed to a certain point in the fundamentals, it’s time to see where individual strengths lie and assign positions accordingly.

Coach Lee gave an analogy: “Assigning positions is like playing chess. If you put a player in the right place, he’s more likely to make continued progress and feel good about himself.” For example, said Lee, a fast runner with a knack for gauging the distance on a fly ball will make a good outfielder, while kids who run slowly but are especially good at blocking wild pitches or catching ground balls would be perfect choices for catcher and first baseman.

The key position of pitcher, in the meantime, is generally filled by naturally talented athletes who are quick-minded, rangy, and exceptionally well coordinated. If, on top of that, such a person can throw fast with good control, and keep calm under pressure, he may well be just the pitching ace that strikes fear into the hearts of opposing batters.

A good case in point is the team’s southpaw ace Chen Chun-hsiao. A member of the Amis tribe, he has big, piercing eyes and an infectious smile. His devoted fan base includes a gaggle of admiring girls. And his uncle, Chen Chih-hung, is a star catcher for the Brother Ele­phants pro team, so baseball genes run deep in the family.

Lee noted that even though Chen, who has a mean fastball and curve, is not so big and tall as Sung Wen-hua, the main starter on the 2009 team that went to Williamsport (the latter was already over 170 centimeters tall at that time, while Chen stands only about 160 cm), he nevertheless has some important strengths: he is left-handed, throws with good control, gets a lot of late action on his pitches, and has been clocked at faster than 110 kilometers per hour. And more importantly, he’s tough under pressure. Even when the team is trailing, he still keeps his cool. He’s been the starter for a number of big championship games in Taiwan, and has excelled in that role. “Chun-hsiao is going to be our secret weapon in Williamsport!”

MVP Lee Cheng-feng (enlarged picture, facing page) and ace pitcher Chen Chun-hsiao (right) are key members of the team that represented Taiwan this year. All the players practice hitting and fielding diligently, even under a scorching sun.

An ace pitcher always attracts close scrutiny, so why would the coach describe Chun-hsiao as a secret weapon?

As it turns out, Chun-hsiao broke his left arm this past April at home. Unwilling to lose his chance at pitching in the game to determine which team would represent Taiwan at the Little League Baseball (LLB) Asia-Pacific Region tournament, he kept the injury a secret from his parents, and only spoke up to a teacher the next day when the pain and swelling became unbearable.

“We couldn’t believe our eyes. How could he possibly have withstood the pain so long?” Coach Chen took Chun-hsiao immediately to the hospital to get his “golden left arm” set in a cast. Two or three weeks later, with the LLB Asia-Pacific Region qualifier game approaching, the coaches were in a quandary about whether to put Chun-hsiao into the lineup. Under the rules at Williamsport, even if KSES were to take the Little League Asia-Pacific Region championship, the boy wouldn’t be allowed to suit up in the Little League World Series if he hadn’t played for the team throughout its march to Williamsport.

The coaches decided to have Chun-hsiao’s cast removed ahead of schedule so he could get into a game. To protect his left arm when he came up to the plate, he simply never lifted the bat from his shoulders.

However, baseball is a team sport. Losing a star left-handed pitcher is unfortunate, to be sure, but it gives other talented pitchers a chance to shine. A good case in point is Lee Cheng-feng, the right-handed starting pitcher who was named the Most Valuable Player of this year’s Little League Asia-Pacific Region championship. He chalked up 14 strikeouts in a six-inning complete game outing against the team from Guam.

With Chun-hsiao on the mend and other pitchers stepping forward with strong performances, the coaching staff breathed a sigh of relief.

“During the Asia-Pacific Region tournament, Chun-hsiao only pitched 1.2 innings against Hong Kong, so other teams had little chance to study him,” said coach Lee, adding: “We’re planning to play him against the very strong Japan club.”

MVP Lee Cheng-feng (enlarged picture, facing page) and ace pitcher Chen Chun-hsiao (right) are key members of the team that represented Taiwan this year. All the players practice hitting and fielding diligently, even under a scorching sun.

In addition to the “unsinkable” Chun-hsiao, another notable KSES athlete is team captain Lin Kai-chun, whom the coaches describe as “incurably addicted to baseball.”

Afflicted with asthma from a very young age, he had originally been forbidden by his parents from playing baseball. But after seeing his brother Lin Hao-yu play in Williamsport in 2009, he was smitten with the sport and began begging his parents to let him play. They finally gave conditional consent, extracting promises that he would “be careful about his health” and “score at least 90% in every subject at school.” He joined the team in the second semester of fourth grade.

Having gotten off to a late start, Kai-chun practiced harder than anyone. He asked the coaches to provide him with intensive training in the fundamentals, and to help him work out a warm-up routine to overcome the effects of asthma. Perhaps due to the physical conditioning resulting from athletic activity, Kai-chun has had very few asthma attacks in the last two years. The long-limbed boy is a lightning-fast runner, and just keeps playing better all the time. This past May he won the triple crown in batting (best batting average, most runs batted in, and most home runs) in the qualifying tournament for the LLB Asia-Pacific Region tournament, and he was subsequently placed at the top of the batting order.

Meanwhile, infielder Tseng Hsin-hao and his older brother Tseng Hsin-han (a member of the 2009 Williamsport team) had been kicked off the team for regularly failing to do their homework, but when coach Chen ran across them later on the street with hang-dog expressions on their faces, he couldn’t bear the sight, and asked head coach Lee to let them back on the team.

Given a second chance at baseball, the brothers finally buckled down on their homework. When their expulsion and readmission were mentioned, Hsin-hao grinned with embarrassment.

A teammate joked: “He wants to play baseball so bad, he’s gotta hit the books no matter how much he hates doing it!”

Win or lose, at home or abroad, the boys on the KSES baseball team grab a fistful of clay from the pitching mound after every game to take back home, where it serves as a symbol of their determination to keep getting better.

Having once been entirely without any baseball field at all, the KSES ball team has received many an unpublicized boost over the years from nameless benefactors.

Quipped coach Chen: “Everyone on the team is a satisfied user of ­Wacoal undershorts!” He was referring to the fact that K.C. Chen, the chairman of the undergarment maker ­Wacoal, is an alumnus of KSES, and has stepped in generously whenever asked for a donation to help the cash-strapped baseball team take part in a game.

K.C. Chen once happened to be on hand when the team members donned indigenous garb to rehearse for a post-game traditional dance, and he noticed, when they kicked up their legs, that peeking out from under the indigenous skirts were undershorts of all different descriptions. That would never do! He generously donated hundreds of pairs so that the witnesses to any “wardrobe malfunction” would at least see a uniform set of undershorts.

The KSES team has a couple of superfans in Lü ­Xueji (a former mayor of Gui­shan Township) and Luo Hua­ling (a retired former employee of the New Tai­pei City Education Department). The two have made numerous donations to fund the team’s overseas expeditions. During the month before the team left for Williamsport this year, they treated all the players to a steak dinner one evening, and on another day fixed them their favorite curry-and-rice meal, all in hopes they’d grow just that much bigger and stronger before heading into battle against the strapping athletes from the West.

“They really are fantastic. They’re dead earnest about what they’re up to. I do believe they have a chance to achieve the unfinished dream of those who played on the 2009 team.” At the mention of the loss three years ago, Luo teared up with emotion.

In little league, you find Taiwan baseball at its unadulterated best. Here, you find no odds makers, no money riding on the outcome, and no infighting or backstabbing. It’s all about pure love of the sport. Kids go out and give their all, because that’s how the game is played. For themselves, and for Taiwan, this collection of heroes from Kuei-Shan Elementary has written another page in the remarkable history of Taiwan little league baseball!

MVP Lee Cheng-feng (enlarged picture, facing page) and ace pitcher Chen Chun-hsiao (right) are key members of the team that represented Taiwan this year. All the players practice hitting and fielding diligently, even under a scorching sun.

A team of players from several Taoyuan County elementary schools (Kuei-Shan, Ren Shen, Chung Ping, and Da Yung) were assembled into a team that won the Bronco World Series in 2011.

MVP Lee Cheng-feng (enlarged picture, facing page) and ace pitcher Chen Chun-hsiao (right) are key members of the team that represented Taiwan this year. All the players practice hitting and fielding diligently, even under a scorching sun.