When Sun Lingfeng crossed home plate in the 12th inning of China's Olympic baseball game against Chinese Taipei Friday, a new chapter in history was written.
China, a perpetual baseball minnow, defeated the mighty Chinese Taipei side 8-7 on Sun's timely run, notching its first-ever Olympic victory.
"For others, it might be just an ordinary game and they might not understand why we are so happy. But for us, it is more than a game. It is the most memorable day for Chinese baseball," said Shen Wei, secretary-general of the Chinese Baseball Association who is one of few women involved at the high levels of international baseball.
China's pitcher Wang Nan winds up for his delivery against Chinese Taipei in their men's preliminary baseball game at the Wukesong Baseball Venue during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games on August 15, 2008. [Agencies] |
Showered with crazy cheers from the home crowd, the Chinese players rushed the field and piled on top of Sun as a dejected Chinese Taipei exited.
"Everybody went crazy there. I had to dig Sun out and worried he would be injured and unable to play the next game," Shen smiled.
The players then exchanged hugs and threw Shen into the air.
"My mind went empty during that time," Shen said. "I am so thrilled."
The Chinese baseball team has never been to an Olympics. It got to Beijing through the automatic ticket awarded to the home team.
China began building its baseball team in 2005 and it was was expected to put on a decent showing in the home Olympics. Officials hired Jim Lefebvre, a former Major League Baseball (MLB) all-star and manager, and Bruce Hurst, an MLB all-star pitcher, to coach the team.
Their progress has been steady, but too slow to seriously compete against baseball powers like Cuba, the US and Japan.
Winning even a single game has been a mammoth task for China. It has only beaten a world top-five team once - South Korea, to win the bronze medal at the 2005 Asian Championships.
"We are the weakest team in the field, there is no question about it," Shen admitted. "Just look at the other teams: They all qualified through major international competitions or by winning their regional qualifiers. We qualified just because we are the host."
When China first set foot on on the Olympic field on Wednesday, the players quickly learned about the pressures of playing in front of a crazy home crowd, and promptly lost to Canada 10-0 after the "mercy rule" was called.
"We are a much better team than we showed," Lefebvre said after that game. "We will be back."
"The loss to Canada hurt our players because they thought they screwed up their Olympic debut," Shen said. "They should not be that bad."
The loss was humiliating, but Shen told her players to forget about it, keep their heads high and continue to fight. Her words seemed to be effective as China came out much sharper against former silver medalist South Korea, forcing a scoreless tie on Thursday before the game was called due to rain.
"They started to play like a real strong team," she said.
Friday's game was a roller-coaster ride for China, which lost its 3-2 lead in the eighth inning. Chinese Taipei evened the score at 3-3 and the game went into extra innings.
"At one point, I held the hands of one players who was about to hit. We cried because we wanted the victory so much," Shen said.
The game moved into the 11th inning, marking the first time in history a new international rule was employed. The rule says that in and after the 11th inning, the hitting side can start with runners on first and second base and start batting at any point in the order.
China outscored Chinese Taipei 5-4 in an exciting 12th inning, as Hou Fenglian's RBI single knocked in the winning run.
"We've been working so hard in the past few years. We've been waiting for this moment," Shen said.