Little League World Series - Hawaii vs. Japan

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Well, I watched most of the game today. The kids from Waipahu, Hawaii lost a hard fought baseball game, 4-1, to the kids from Japan. Team Hawaii had played 5 games in 5 days, all elimination games and they had come back from deficits to win their games. Today, they ran out of gas.

I was pulling hard for the kids from Hawaii and I was thinking how funny it was for the kids from both teams to look across the field and see other kids who look just like them or very similar. Obviously, Hawaii has a big Asian population and one that is quite mixed. The team had a lot of Japanese-American kids or Polynesian kids and it was good to see them do well, they had a great tournament, so congratulations to them. I can only hope some of these talented kids can go on and pursue their athletic dreams and reach the highest levels of their potential if they so desire. They will be the next generation of Alpha Asians.

I have to admit, though, that ---especially in the '70's---, I always wanted the kids from Taiwan to beat all US teams in the little league world series final. It wasn't so much as being against the home team as it was shoving it in the face of a lot of people who are of the belief that Asian kids aren't athletic. And here we had these Taiwanese kids dominating and crushing the American teams in baseball throughout the 1970's.

Comments

Mario said…
Watched it on ESPN Asia's Sportscenter yesterday. Great stuff.

One reason I, in SE Asia, become interested in baseball is because it's the American sport where Asians flourish. An American sport where in the last world championship, the final was between Japan and South Korea (same goes with softball, where Japan become world champions this month in Venezuela).

Yes, hopefully those Hawaiians, or even their bigger brothers in mainland, can become the first AA players in MLB in the 21st century.
August 31, 2010 at 2:54 AM
MojoRider said…
Yeah, that was fun, wasn't it? Looks like some of those kids from Japan are going to be future pro players if they keep at it.

And yes, I'd love to see more AA kids becoming pro baseball players. Not to knock the ones from Korea, Taiwan and Japan (Ichiro is a stud, that guy is awesome) who are in MLB, I just want to see some more homegrown Asian American kids in the major leagues. And who knows? Maybe those kids from Hawaii just might be the ones to do it.
August 31, 2010 at 11:46 AM
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