By Jason Pan
China’s Jinniu team (from Chengdu, capital city of SichuanProvince) made history by winning the first 12U Asian Championshipcrown for China.
It was a time for joyous celebration for the players and the Chengdu City home crowd, when the last out was recorded to assure their 14-11 triumph over the Chinese Taipei team in the final.
Representing China in this BFA (Baseball Federation of Asia) tourney, the Jinniu Team
was boosted by home crowd support throughout the competition. They did not disappoint, as they topped Group A in the round-robin. Jinniu Team thus advanced to the final against the winner of Group B, the heavily-favoured team from Chinese Taipei (the Tongyuan School,
Taipei City).
The Jinniu youngsters performed superbly under pressure, as they fell behind but fought back to tie 4 different times, and won the game in 9th inning drama.
With the game tied at 11 in the bottom of 9th inning, Jinniu hitter Wu Chi-Peng blasted a 3-run walk off homer that won the title.
In the post-game interview with chinese media, the 12-years old hero-of-the-day Wu Chi-Peng said: “We were up against a very strong opponent today. But we never gave up, and we
pulled together to give our best efforts. I’m overwhelmed with happy feeling for our winning the championship.”
The chinese media made a big effort to promote the game and raise the profile of amateur baseball in the country. The name of the chinese team comes from the Jinniu District (means “golden bull” in Chinese) of Chengdu City, where most of the youngsters played on the Jinniu school team.
Team Korea downed Indonesia 6-2 in the consolation finaland took home the bronze medal.
The competition was organized by the Baseball Federation of Asia (BFA), the Chinese Baseball Association (CBA) and the Chengdu Jinniu District People’s Government.
