Sociology of Sport Journal, 2012, 29, 546-558
© 2012 Human Kinetics, Inc.
Official Journal of NASSS
www.SSJ-Journal.com
RESEARCH NOTE
From the “Taiwan Yankees”
to the New York Yankees:
The Glocal Narratives of Baseball
Tzu-Hsuan Chen
National Taiwan Sport University
This study examines both the general narratives of baseball in Taiwan and particularly New York Yankees-related narratives since Taiwanese player Chien-ming
Wang joined the team in 2005. By reviewing newspaper coverage and TV ratings
data, I argue that a nationalistic perspective was the undertone in the Taiwanese
mass media; indeed, the media could define the Yankees as Taiwan’s vicarious
national team or the “Evil Empire”, depending on Wang’s current relationship
with the Yankees. However, with Wang’s departure from the Yankees, the Yankees
have been removed from Taiwan’s nationalistic narratives and returned to being
New York’s team. The idea of athletes connecting their homeland and the nation
hosting the professional team seemed common and straightforward. However, as
the relationship between athletes and their teams change, team-related national
narratives can also change.
Cette étude porte sur les récits concernant le base-ball à Taïwan et en particulier
les récits liés aux Yankees de New York depuis que le joueur taïwanais Chienming Wang a rejoint l’équipe en 2005. En passant en revue la couverture des
journaux et les cotes d’écoute des programmes de télévision, je soutiens qu’une
perspective nationaliste sous-tendait les productions médiatiques taïwanaises. En
effet, les médias pouvaient voir les Yankees comme l’équipe nationale taïwanaise
déléguée ou comme « l’Empire du mal », selon la relation entre Wang et les
Yankees au moment du reportage. Toutefois, avec le départ de Wang, les Yankees
ont été retirés des récits nationalistes de Taïwan et sont redevenus l’équipe de
New York. L’idée selon laquelle des athlètes relient leur patrie et la nation hôte
de l’équipe professionnelle a semblé commune et simple. Cependant, puisque la
relation entre les athlètes et leurs équipes change, les récits nationaux liés à une
équipe peuvent aussi changer.
The New York Yankees, the most renowned and valuable baseball team in
the sports world,1 and Taiwan, a relatively obscure nation in the political world,2
became an unlikely “imagined community” in 2005 when Taiwan’s best baseball
player, Chien-ming Wang, joined the Yankees.
Chen is with the Graduate Institute of Physical Education, National Taiwan Sport University, Kueishan,
Taoyuan County 333, Taiwan.
546
From the “Taiwan Yankees” to the New York Yankees 547
Although Major League Baseball (MLB) is hailed as the premier baseball
league in the world, it did not receive much attention from baseball-crazed Taiwanese fans until Wang joined the Yankees and became their ace, leading the team
with consecutive 19-win seasons in 2006 and 2007. Because of Wang, the Yankees
virtually and vicariously became Taiwan’s national team. However, the marriage was
short-lived. Wang suffered a severe injury in 2009, and the Yankees released him.
This essay examines the Taiwanese mass media’s representation of a professional American baseball team through the lens of a single player’s relationship with
the team. The Yankees were first articulated as Taiwan’s vicarious national team
(“Taiwan Yankees”), were later condemned as the “Evil Empire” after releasing
Wang, and eventually returned to being the New York Yankees. This case exemplifies
the glocal view of sports in the contemporary world. The triangle of Taiwan-WangYankees and the transformation of the narratives embody the struggles between
sport, nationalism, and transnational corporation in the age of glocalization. In this
circumstance, the Yankees are not a team limited by geographic location; rather,
the team functions as a symbol in glocalized, nationalistic narratives “hyphenated”
by a single player.
Research Method
To convey the way Chien-ming Wang and the Yankees have articulated and transformed baseball and sport nationalism in Taiwan, this paper examines the content of
the mass media and the actions of the audience. The media content can be gleaned
from comprehensive news reports. News stories for the period between Wang’s
debut on May 1, 2005 and the end date of August 27, 2011 were gathered from
numerous newspaper databases, including “udndata.com” and “Newspapers in
Taiwan.” The keywords “Chien-ming Wang” and “Yankees” generated over 20,000
news stories from major newspapers in Taiwan, including newspapers of The United
Daily chain, The China Times and Apple Daily. All were read and analyzed by the
author. Quotes from certain reports are used to elucidate the arguments.
With the advances of communication technology, mass media are consumed
in an unprecedented number of households and even in the palms of people on the
move. While the forms of media evolve, the contents are still largely text-based.
In Taiwan’s case, the aforementioned newspaper agencies are the major content
providers for various media outlets. In the discussion of nationalism in the age of
media-capitalism (updated from Anderson’s “print-capitalism”, (2006, p.41)), the
content of newspapers still matters significantly. It is especially so now that these
written words can be stored and retrieved in electronic form without the threat of
being lost or erased.
On the other hand, Appadurai (1996) argues that the collective experiences of
the mass media can create sodalities of worship and charisma. Broadcasts of major
sporting events in general and MLB in this particular context are mostly viewed
in a synchronized and live fashion that amplifies the intensity of the experience
and embodies the collective effervescence. TV ratings are the reflection of the
scale of viewing. In this essay, AGB Nielsen Media Research, whose report is the
most used among media-related industries in Taiwan, provided the raw data for
the TV ratings. Therefore, the data of live-broadcast MLB games from the FTV,
548 Chen
the exclusive terrestrial broadcasting rights owner, were collected for the period
spanning from the 2008 MLB season to August 27, 2011. The numbers presented in
this paper were compiled and calculated from the AGB Nielsen data by the author
for specific purposes in accordance with this context. The data shown in this essay
are used as evidence to reflect the distribution of and trends in viewership of the
MLB games in Taiwan.
Sport Nationalism and Baseball in Taiwan
Before examining the narratives of the Yankees in Taiwan, certain aspects of the
cultural and historical background of this island and its national sport must be
explained.
Taiwan had been colonized by Spain, the Netherlands, and Japan since the
17th century. It received military and economic aid from the US after the Second
World War. Above all, its relationship and history with the People’s Republic of
China (China hereafter) is particularly complicated. Seeking its own distinctive
identity has been a mission for Taiwan’s government and people. The construction
of identity can be observed from both internal and external perspectives. The US
and Japan largely represent Taiwan’s modern worldview. Recognition, or the hope
of recognition, by stronger or equivalent nations—especially the two above —is
vital to the Taiwanese. However, due to interference from its political rival China,
the breathing room for the island on the international political stage is slim at best.
Since the diplomatic crisis that jeopardized and eventually terminated Taiwan’s
(under the name of Republic of China) seat in the United Nations, the US and Japan
have been the nation’s two most significant allies because of the complicated and
tangled history. Even so, the political assistance from both countries is limited due to
pressure from China. What is left for Taiwan is the realm of cultural and economic
activities. Baseball, despite seemingly developing in isolation, is actually, as Yu
(2007) argues, one of the most important vehicles for Taiwan to engage with the
world, particularly the US and Japan (Chen, 2007a; Morris, 2011).
The spread of modern sports culture has proceeded along with imperialism
and colonization since the 19th century (Maguire et al., 2002). Through education,
religious missions, and immigration, Euro-American sports were exported from
the core to the peripheral countries. The inception of Taiwanese baseball was a
byproduct of Japanese colonization. However, with the end of the Cold War, the
arguments of glocalization began to influence the discussions of global sports
cultures. People from the so-called Third World were liberated from the shackles
of imperialism and fused local cultures into sports (Giulianotti, 1999).
Baseball is the national sport of Taiwan, although Taiwan did not invent the
sport, and baseball is not more accessible than other sports.3 It is the cultivation of
the sport throughout Taiwan’s modern history that makes baseball essential. Baseball
has accompanied the nation through its worst moments and provided nationalistic
undertones through its history.
Taiwanese little leaguers first participated in the Little League World Series
in Williamsport in 1969 and won the championship immediately. They proceeded
to dominate the tournament for two decades. The development of Taiwanese little
league baseball paralleled the volatile and dire international political realities. Since
From the “Taiwan Yankees” to the New York Yankees 549
the late 1960s, Taiwan’s status in the UN has been tentative; the country eventually
lost its seat on October 25, 1971. Chiang Kai-shek and his administration seized
the opportunity to appropriate baseball, and the annual Little League World Series
in particular, as a political device to bolster the regime and validate its legitimacy
over China. In the speech to the World Champion Chu-jen (Giants) team, this
appropriation is apparent in the government official’s language:
Our country is in a very difficult situation. Your victory accomplished the President’s instructions. It raised people’s morale… I believe that all the compatriots
must have felt the passion and encouragement from your victory. We should
accomplish what we have to do. We should work harder to recover Mainland
China. (“Kuo Tai She Cha Hui, Ying Chu Jen Hsiao Chiang,” 1971, p.3)
The children on the team were regarded as warriors who would fight for
Taiwan and restore the misplaced faith of its people. Baseball in Taiwan has been
constructed around the exaggerated and flamboyant title of “world champion.”
The regime misappropriated a summer camp-esque tournament, using it as an
ideological tool to compensate for its difficulties in the real world. Diplomatic
operatives distributed national flags and mobilized Taiwanese crowds to travel to
Williamsport. The sea of flags and cheers could be seen and heard on television in
Taiwan to demonstrate unity overseas, reinforcing the fragile Taiwanese nationalism (Lin, 1995) and reterritorializing Williamsport as an enclave of it. The social
modernization of Taiwan coincided with the peak of its little league baseball success.
Chiang’s regime began loosening its tight grip on civil society toward the end of the
Martial Law Era in the 1970s, and baseball has since become a pillar for Taiwan
as an imagined community. For the Taiwanese, baseball serves as a surrogate for
Taiwan’s place in the world. Baseball is hardly a true “global sport,” especially
compared with soccer. However, it is played by some of the other countries that
are significant to Taiwan, such as Japan and the US. Just as Appadurai’s (1996)
culturalism argument suggests, if baseball matters to Taiwan’s most important
allies, then it matters to Taiwan.
“Taiwan” Yankees
While Taiwanese little league players dominated Williamsport for two decades,
their success always raised the question from Americans: “Where have they gone?”
(Dawidoff, 1991, p.60). Taiwanese little league players were known for their early
achievements; their success, however, rarely lasted long. Treating baseball as a
twelve-year nationalist project left many promising players injured due to overwork at a young age. Before Chien-ming Wang, none of the Taiwanese players had
firmly established themselves as major leaguers. The lukewarm reception of MLB
broadcasts was a clear indicator.
Over 100 terrestrial and cable TV channels existed in Taiwan in 2005. However,
when Wang made his MLB debut against the Toronto Blue Jays on April 30, 2005—a
game in which he pitched brilliantly—none of the channels were under contract
with MLB. In Taiwan, access to the game was only possible through MLB.com’s
pay service, which irritated many Taiwanese fans. The fans petitioned lawmakers
and the government to broadcast the game. The administration responded to the
550 Chen
demands immediately. After maneuvering budgets from numerous ministries and
making swift negotiations with MLB, the Public Television Service, Taiwan’s terrestrial public channel, was awarded the broadcast. Wang did not disappoint the
fans and repaid the administration’s efforts with a brilliant performance. After a
fine rookie season, he finished with 19 wins and was second place in the Cy Young
Award voting in 2006.
On September 9, 2006, Taiwan was in the midst of one of the worst domestic
political crises in decades. Then President Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic
Progressive Party, his family and in-laws were involved in a series of corruption
scandals. Hundreds of thousands of citizens protested on the streets around the
island and demanded Chen’s resignation. Although outnumbered, Chen’s supporters also held numerous campaigns to counter the protests. When the anti- and
pro-Chen sentiments reached a boiling point and the nation seemed completely
divided, baseball played a significant role in unifying the troubled nation. Baseball,
and Wang in particular, was the only thing that the divided nation could agree upon
and support collectively. On the day of the protest, Wang pitched excellently and
won a game for the Yankees. Baseball was the only significant topic covered by
the major news media besides the large-scale protest. Wang became the icon of the
nation on the international stage, and he became synonymous with the title “the
Glory of Taiwan.” A “Made in Taiwang” sign hung in Yankee Stadium captured
the dual hybridity of what Wang represented. The sign conveyed personal/national
identity (Taiwang) as Wang single-handedly became the symbol of a nation. On the
other hand, it also implied that the New York Yankees became Taiwan’s vicarious
national team every five days when Wang pitched. Nationalism/capitalism-driven,
glocal, and reterritorialized identity (Taiwan Yankees) thus emerged, with Wang as
the link connecting Taiwan and the Yankees.
With Wang’s wins accumulating, MLB fever also reached unprecedented highs.
Wang earned his 19th win of the season with his final regular season start on September 28 and broke the single-season record for Asian pitchers, which had been
previously held by Chan-ho Park of South Korea. After Wang accomplished this
feat, then President Chen and Vice President Lu sent out a congratulatory telegram
calling him the “Glory of Taiwan, Glory of Asia.” All the major newspapers made
Wang the headline story the next day and included large photographs. Apple Daily
and The United Daily even wrapped their regular issues with poster-like covers to
boost sales (Chen, 2007b).
Before Wang pitched the first game of the Divisional Series of the 2006 MLB
playoffs, The New York Times ran a front-page story on the excitement over Wang
in Taiwan4. The fact that Wang’s story made the front page of The New York Times
was also significant news for the Taiwanese, who regarded the story as great publicity for the struggling nation. During the broadcast of the game, FOX illustrated
the geographical location of Taiwan and Tainan, Wang’s hometown.5 This feature
delighted millions of Taiwanese, who have felt marginalized on the international
stage since the surge of China. A story in The United Daily even equated the
prime-time exposure to $22,500 of paid advertising (Lan, 2006). On Double Ten
Day, Taiwan’s national day, the beleaguered Chen Shui-bian even brandished an
autographed baseball and a photo of Wang at the end of his speech, while asking
From the “Taiwan Yankees” to the New York Yankees 551
the nation to unite under his leadership and make Taiwan better, “just as Wang
has accomplished in the US.” Taiwan is desperate for international publicity and
recognition, especially from its significant allies, such as the US and Japan. Baseball has been a barometer for Taiwan vis-à-vis these other nations in constructing
narratives of national identity.
Watching Wang pitch every five days became part of the rhythm and routine of
everyday life in Taiwan. Even when Wang was not pitching, FTV and ESPN still
broadcast the majority of Yankees games and drew high ratings. Taiwan was able
to build a “non-reciprocal intimacy at a distance” with Wang and the Yankees via
these broadcasts (Thompson, 1995, p.219). Wang’s success and constant exposure
also had a “halo effect” to his teammates and the Yankees as a whole. Star players such as Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada have
become household names in Taiwan. Among them, second baseman Robinson
Cano, who was promoted to the Major League the same year as Wang, is called
“Wang’s classmate.” Cano’s father Joselito played in Taiwan’s professional baseball
league for five seasons. These connections made Cano one of the local favorites.
The hitters in the powerful Yankees lineup have become “allies of Taiwan” in the
narratives presented by the mass media. However, if a relief pitcher foiled Wang’s
victory or a hitter failed to pull through in the clutch, he would immediately become
a “war criminal” in the Taiwanese press. For example, Wang pitched seven brilliant
innings in his debut; however, reliever Tom Gordon failed to protect the lead and
gave up a game-tying homerun to the Blue Jays’ Corey Koskie in the 8th inning.
The next day, Gordon (along with Jason Giambi and Hideki Matsui, who failed
to contribute offensively) became the “top war criminal who cost Wang’s win” in
Apple Daily, Since Wang’s debut, the “ally and war criminal” column has become
common in the Taiwanese press:
Bernie Williams - Ally of Taiwan: Grand Slam Wins Cheers Across the Ocean.
(Ming Sheng Daily, May 18, 2005)
Cano - Ally of Taiwan: 8 Homers backing Wang since June. (The China Times,
Sep. 1, 2007)
Matsui Homered - Best Friend of Taiwan. (Apple Daily, May 20, 2008)
Ming is “Gordoned”: Gordon # 1 War Criminal. (The China Times, June 30,
2005)
3 Ineffective War Criminals: Yankees 0 for 8 in Scoring Position. Wang Helpless. (Apple Daily, June 25, 2009)
It is indisputably nationalistic to single out these “war criminals” who cost
Wang his victory. The metaphor of the game as war also shows the grave nature
of baseball to the Taiwanese. When Wang struggled and a rumor circulated that
he would be replaced in the starting rotation in the midst of the 2005 season, a
lawmaker began an absurd campaign encouraging people to petition the Yankees’
front office to keep Wang in the rotation. In that sense, it is clear that the Yankees
were deterritorialized from New York and reterritorialized in/by Taiwan. New York
552 Chen
was just the geographical site and backdrop for the games. The narratives of the
Taiwanese media were an embodiment of Tomlinson’s (1999) argument of deterritorialization and reterritorialization in globalization par excellence. Wang’s role
as a starting pitcher also helped to rouse the attention of the Taiwanese audience.
The nature of the starting pitcher’s regular appearance makes Wang easy to follow
and ideal for mass media to publicize. In addition, the most distinguishable and
comprehensible statistic for pitchers, wins, is not only easy to grasp for casual
fans but is also directly tied to their teams’ performance. A position player may hit
three homeruns in a game, but the team can still lose. However, starting pitchers
cannot win unless the team wins as well. This sense of a common destiny firmly
bound Taiwanese baseball fans to the performance of the Yankees. The Yankees
were Taiwan’s vicarious national team, whether they were willing to accept or even
aware of that role. By “Taiwanizing” the Yankees, the local press successfully used
the nationalistic angle, which had been cultivated since the introduction of baseball
to the island, to maximize their readership (Liu, 2008).
The popularity of the Yankees is further illustrated by TV ratings. For FTV,
the games in which Wang started were the crown jewels, with double the ratings
of average Yankees games and triple those of other matchups. Wang’s halo effect
earned the Yankees 0.63 ratings in contrast to 0.46 for non-Yankees teams. Even
without Wang, the average ratings of the Yankees games were 0.61 (see Table 1).6
The excitement that sports create and its implications for identity provide
sports with a guise that prevents them from being examined as a mega-business.
In this case, the Yankees as a transnational corporation successfully blended their
pinstripes into the red, white and blue flag of Taiwan via satellite, trans-Pacific
broadcasts when Wang was on the team. New York and Taiwan became an imagined
community that shared a common destiny in terms of winning and losing on the
baseball field. Chien-ming Wang was regarded as a successful example of “if you
can make it there you are gonna make it just about anywhere,” the belief popularized by Frank Sinatra, shared by New Yorkers, and understood across the globe.
By this logic, if Wang made it in New York, Taiwan could do the same. Under
this mentality, Taiwan willingly and proudly incorporated itself into the Yankees
“Empire”. The narratives of baseball have transformed from the nationalism inbred
from Japanese imperialism and Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese nationalism to the
hybrid of nationalism and global capitalism.
Table 1 Ratings of the MLB Broadcasts in Taiwan (2008-Aug. 27, 2011)
Yankees
NonYankees
Yankees Games
without Wang
Games with Wang
(Yankees/Nationals)
Number of
games on TV
493
296
455
34
Ratings
0.63
0.46
0.61
1.25
From the “Taiwan Yankees” to the New York Yankees 553
Evil Empire
As the nation was still enthralled by “Wang Fever”, an abrupt and tragic injury
shattered the dream. Fresh from consecutive 19-win seasons and established as the
ace of the Yankees, Wang injured his ankle while running bases in an interleague
game against the Houston Astros on June 15, 2008. The nation held its collective
breath, but the “Glory of Taiwan” was diagnosed with a season-ending injury, a
ligament sprain and a partial tear of his peroneal longus tendon. In 2009, Wang
attempted a comeback, but he tore the labrum of his shoulder in midseason. After
being released by the Yankees in the subsequent off-season, Wang joined the Washington Nationals but did not pitch in any Major League games until July 29, 2011.
“Wang Fever” subsided drastically with the star’s catastrophic injury.
The Wang-centric narrative of the Yankees enjoyed five years of success. While
these years held ups and downs for Wang, the devotion to the Taiwan Yankees
remained steady as long as he still wore the Yankees pinstripes. However, after the
Yankees severed their ties with Wang, the team became labeled the Evil Empire
that ungratefully betrayed Wang and the faith of 23 million Taiwanese. Taiwanese
fans viewed Wang’s release as ungracious, particularly because Wang had publicly
expressed his intention to stay in New York during his rehabilitation (Yu, 2009).
The term Evil Empire has long been associated with the Yankees. It was first
used by Boston Red Sox President and CEO Larry Lucchino when commenting
on the Yankees’ victory in a bidding war to sign the Cuban pitcher José Contreras
in 2002 (Frommer & Frommer, 2005). The term alludes to the Yankees’ method
of purchasing star players from the market instead of growing players in their
farm system. When Wang made his MLB debut, his uniqueness as a rookie out of
the Yankees farm system had already garnered attention in Taiwan. He was called
“a Taiwanese angel in the Evil Empire” (Lan, 2005, p.3). After Wang established
himself as a vital member of the Yankees, the local press praised Wang for “making
the Evil Empire re-think” its free-spending strategy (Chen, 2005, p.C7). A famous
sports writer even called Wang’s success “the turning point of Yankees culture”
(Shou, 2005, p. A15).
When Wang pitched for the Yankees, the evil of the team was not entirely
invisible to the Taiwanese fans. However, it faded into the background of narratives on the Yankees. The extent of the team’s evil was diluted or even forgotten
because of Wang:
The 25-year-old Chien-ming Wang, with his humble and low-key personality,
triggers a “chemical change” of our perception toward the Yankees. We forget
to criticize the Yankees being a filthy rich “Evil Empire”. Especially we can
enjoy innocent joy from a simple baseball game–no lies, no coarseness, no
shameless trickiness. (Kuo, 2005, p.A15)
However, in the stories relating to Wang’s poor performance and subsequent
release, the Evil Empire was no longer a discursive backdrop but rather a wicked
villain. In these narratives, the Yankees became the “Evil Empire 2.0” (Ho, 2009a,
554 Chen
p.C4) for “rubbing salt in the wound” (Kung, 2009, p.C4). The Evil Empire was
increasingly associated with the Yankees. In “Evil Yankees, Wang’s shoulder is their
worst fear” (Lou, 2009, p.A3), it was stated that “the Evil Empire is not afraid to
spend but is also extremely utilitarian.” Some went on to portray the Yankees as the
ungrateful foe; Lan (2009, p.B3) lamented, “Wang’s 55 wins for the Yankees mean
nothing, just like air.” Some stories even attempted to stir nationalist resentment
against the Yankees. For example, The Liberty Times argued that, after releasing
Wang, the Evil Empire intended to “humiliate” Wang by highlighting the video clip
of his worst performances on their website to “scare away” other teams so that Wang
would be forced to resign with the Yankees for a lower-cost minor-league contract.7
Beyond Nationalism
The transformation from the Taiwan Yankees to the Evil Empire shows the fluidity
and mercurial nature of nationalistic narratives, especially because, in this case, the
media focus was a single person. The transformation was understandable, given
the circumstances; however, one must ask the following question: if the Yankees
are truly the Evil Empire that betrayed the faith of 23 million Taiwanese, why did
Taiwanese channels continue broadcasting Yankee games and still draw high ratings after Wang’s departure? As Table 2 shows, FTV devoted the majority of its
broadcasts to the Yankees. It is understandable that this was the case in 2008 and
2009 because Wang was pitching for the Yankees in those years. However, after
Wang was released, the games still drew .55 ratings compared with .42 of the nonYankees games in 2010.
MLB was first televised in Taiwan as early as 1970 and has been broadcast
regularly since the mid-1990s, but it did not become a major cultural phenomenon
until the arrival of Chien-ming Wang. When MLB became a mainstream media
product, it became an extension of a nationalistic narrative dating back to the
introduction of baseball in modern Taiwan. Winning is the most important dimension of the game. Statistics, strategies, skills or other dimensions have never been
important topics in the mass media. As argued earlier, Wang’s role as a starting
pitcher seamlessly transformed the angle of view from a national team sport to a
professional one. However, after the object of emotional projection left with Wang’s
injury, the audience was freed from the media’s conventional nationalistic lens.
During this time, the Taiwanese national baseball team also struggled. Not only
Table 2 Ratings and Number of the MLB Broadcasts in Taiwan
(2008-Aug. 27, 2011; by year)
2008
2009
2010
2011
Total games broadcast
210
231
208
140
Ratings
.65
.70
.50
.47
Yankees games broadcast (%)
133(63%)
166(72%)
113(54%)
81(58%)
Ratings
.71
.72
.55
.45
From the “Taiwan Yankees” to the New York Yankees 555
did it fail to obtain the results the nation expected, but also more catastrophically,
it lost twice to its political archrival China. These failures made this period one of
national infamy for Taiwanese baseball (Hwang, 2008).
With Wang’s absence and the failure of the national team, Taiwan’s mass
media sought a replacement to carry the nationalistic torch. Hong-chih Kuo of the
Los Angeles Dodgers pitched brilliantly in 2010 and appeared capable of filling
the void. On the field, he became the first-ever Taiwanese All-Star, a feat that not
even Wang had accomplished. However, being a reliever, Kuo does not appear
regularly in the game, which makes him hard to follow regularly in the way that
fans followed Wang, who was a starter. The ratings of the Dodgers games (0.52)
were even lower than those of the Yankees games sans Wang (0.61), let alone those
of other less prominent Taiwanese players and their teams.
Without Wang’s nationalistic halo illuminating the Yankees, Taiwan’s mass
media searched for alternative angles for MLB coverage. The Yankees won the
World Championship for the first time in nine years without Wang’s contribution,
as he was injured on July 4th, 2009 and contributed only one regular season win
to the championship quest. Although Wang was still on the squad and received a
championship ring, he regretted that he did not contribute more (Liao, 2009). The
Taiwanese press reflected the same bittersweet sentiment. The coverage of the
Yankees gradually lost its Taiwanese nationalistic undertone. Without Wang, the
hyphen between Taiwan and the Yankees was significantly weakened. The Yankees
are no longer Taiwan’s; now they belong to New York. They were treated as just
another renowned professional team in MLB, and fans were encouraged by sports
writers to jettison the “Yankees complex” (Ho, 2009b).
In the post-Wang era of the Yankees broadcasts in Taiwan, the nationalism
that had been projected onto the Yankees began to fade. At the same time, an evergrowing number of coverage angles focusing on details of the game beyond winning and losing opened up. Blogs, internet bulletin board systems, fan discussion
boards and social media offer diversified points of view besides national glory (e.g.,
Cho, 2009).The initial nationalistic narratives built around Wang and the “Glory
of Taiwan” set the tone of the mainstream view of MLB. In other words, the core
connotation of baseball in Taiwan remains nationalism. The rigidity of culture
makes it difficult to shed overnight the nationalistic notion baseball cultivated for
over forty years since the Little League Fever Era. Consequently, nationalistic
narratives persist in Taiwan’s mainstream mass media. However, in the absence
of a common baseball hero who holds the core of the identity construction for
most Taiwanese, other narratives can develop. When people share similar habits,
rhythms, and routines, everyday life becomes institutionalized. The mass media
penetrates our everyday life to create such an institutionalized rhythm. In so doing,
“predictability is installed and bodies, things and spaces become subject to ordering processes” (Edensor, 2002, p.19). Our intimate environment is becoming more
“phantasmagoric”; that is, illusory, deceptive, and “thoroughly penetrated by and
shaped in terms of social influences quite distant from them” (Giddens, 1990, p.19).
Without Wang on the team, the Yankees were still the institutionalized emotional
projection that penetrated into everyday life for some Taiwanese, even though they
were unleashed from Taiwan’s nationalistic appropriation and eventually returned
to being New York’s team.
556 Chen
Conclusion
This essay illustrates the evolution of the Taiwanese media’s narratives of the Yankees, from praising the team during Wang’s success, to referring to it as the Evil
Empire after Wang’s release, to its eventual return to favor independent of Wang’s
presence. While the narrative appeared to be a simple emotional reflection toward
an internationally renowned professional team, it was nationalism and Taiwan’s
unique complex for baseball that implicitly dictated the transformation.
The early stage of Taiwanese baseball represents a history of imperialism and
political maneuvering. From its inception in the Japanese Colonization Era to the
Little League Fever, nationalism has been the undertone of the game. Taiwan’s
diplomatic and domestic struggles have made its people eager for a cultural refuge,
helping the sport of baseball to be appropriated for nationalistic purposes. It is the
ecology of the world of baseball that coincides with Taiwan’s worldview, which
is predominantly US- and Japan-centered, further bolstering it as the nation’s
most popular sport. Appadurai’s culturalism argument echoes the political reality
of Taiwan and its relationship to baseball as the country has desperately sought
international recognition and approval. Baseball became the vehicle to achieve this
recognition. In the 21st century, “Chien-ming Wang Fever” not only rejuvenated but
also transformed baseball as a new form of identity for the Taiwanese people. The
Yankees hitchhiked on the Wang bandwagon and were introduced and described
as Taiwan’s vicarious national team. However, when the Yankees “betrayed” Wang
and Taiwan by releasing him, they soon became the Evil Empire. The narratives of
the press were nationalistic and “Taiwang”-centric in this regard.
The national identity operates in the most delicate and least tangible parts of
our cultural tapestry. It is an intertwined process that includes individual, communal, regional and national threads. While most studies of identities focus on
cross-national hyphenation, such as Taiwanese-American, the construction of
identities also involves vertical articulation (individual-community-region-nation)
(Chen, 2005). Nationalism might be individuated, as Cho (2009) argues, but these
agents may still possess a common denominator. Baseball and its derivatives were
one such denominator in Taiwan. Nationalism is the core narrative of baseball in
Taiwan. However, when the object of nationalistic projection did not exist, the fans
in Taiwan were able to form their own perspectives on baseball viewing. Taiwan
still retains some nationalistic narrative regarding MLB; it is merely hibernating
until it is beckoned once again. When Wang made his return to MLB with the
Washington Nationals on July 29, 2011, the ratings jumped to 1.59 for FTV. Still,
the Yankees are regularly the most-watched MLB team in Taiwan. Their popularity may stem from Wang’s tenure, their glorious past or their current success; the
reason likely varies for each individual Yankees viewer. Even if some fans became
Yankees haters, the Yankees remained at the top of media ratings. Love them or
hate them, they have been the top MLB media product in Taiwan. They were the
common denominator for most of the Taiwanese during Wang’s absence with no
one filling the void, as the TV ratings showed. After being the “Taiwan Yankees”
and then the Evil Empire for the past few years, the Yankees are now just the New
York Yankees without Wang as the hyphen.
The dynamics of sport and identity are far from monolithic. With the expansion of mega sports leagues such as MLB, international sport labor migration
From the “Taiwan Yankees” to the New York Yankees 557
has become the norm (even more so in soccer). Athletes as links connecting their
homeland and the nation hosting the professional teams seemed common and
straightforward. However, as the relationship between the athletes and the teams
changes, the narratives of the teams can also change, as this essay shows. This essay
examines the case of Taiwan-Wang-Yankees; I call for further studies in different
cultural contexts to demonstrate the dynamics and complexity of sport nationalism
in the age of glocalization.
Notes
1. According to Forbes, the Yankees are perennially the most valuable baseball team in the
world since the magazine starting valuing franchises in 1998.
2. The Republic of China, or ROC, commonly known as Taiwan, is one of the few remaining
political entities that is not officially recognized by the United Nations (UN) and is consequently
forced to participate in sport competitions under the name “Chinese Taipei.”
3. Baseball is difficult to practice alone, requires at least 18 players for an official game, and
calls for a ball, a bat, a glove, and a large open space. On the space-constrained island of Taiwan
(with 23 million people inhabiting 36,008 square kilometers), many schools actually ban this
“national sport” from their campuses due to potential damage to passersby or buildings.
4. See http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/sports/baseball/03wang.html?hp&ex=11599344
00&en=0a317fae71f80c74&ei=5094&partner=homepage
5. The same map was shown again during the broadcast of Game 2 of the Division Series
between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Mets, which Hong-chi Kuo, also a Taiwanese,
started for the Dodgers.
6. The ratings shown here are for the live broadcasts only. Due to the time difference, most
of the MLB games are played in the morning in Taiwan. ESPN, a cable channel, usually picks
the same matchups as FTV. ESPN’s ratings are approximately 35–40% lower than FTV’s when
showing the same live games, but ESPN does schedule more reruns for the games as the counter
strategy.
7. Source: http://iservice.libertytimes.com.tw/liveNews/news.php?no=307924&type=%E9%
AB%94%E8%82%B2
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