But from what it sounds like, I’ll PROBABLY be in agreement with you.

showed/showing on one of the off-brand channels, I take it?

“China, however, profoundly embarrassed themselves. Their pitchers’ lack of control (most of the HBP) is just sad at an Olympic level.”

well, the chinese baseball team is lousy: they’re not AT an “olympic level” they just got an automatic berth.
they’re so bad it’s at least possible that none of the HBPs were on purpose. but if the donald and laporta HBPs were retaliation for the catchers, it almost certainly wasn’t ordered by the chinese coaches as they’re all americans.

btw the guy who took out the other chinese catcher was nate schierholtz of the giants.

ny times:

The host country receives an automatic baseball berth, which is the only way Lefebvre’s team could have qualified.
"Our goal is not to become Olympic champions, but to play the game right," Lefebvre said. "We just don’t want to be embarrassed out there, you know?"

Tom Lawless, one of China’s coaches, said his team had only six players who could play in the minor leagues. Major league scouts rated the players mostly 2’s on a scale of 1-8. The former Cincinnati Reds shortstop Barry Larkin, another coach, said the players’ talent rated at about a high school or a college level.

and I’ve been rooting against China in these Olympics (too many gold medals), but I was hoping the Chinese baseball team would do well. It would be great for the sport if more of the Chinese were interested. It might also help baseball get back into the Olympics in 2016 if the Chinese team had a good experience.

With that said, I hate when runners lower their shoulder to knock out a catcher. I can’t believe there’s no rule prohibiting a runner from intentionally running into a fielder in order to knock the ball out of his possession. How is running into a catcher (who has the ball) different from what A-Rod did a few years back when he lamely swiped at the pitcher or first baseman while running to first?

So I never think it’s appropriate to run over a catcher who has the ball (if he doesn’t have the ball he should get out of the way). But I also never think it’s appropriate to throw at a batter’s head. No player should ever intentionally do something that could kill a guy.

You have to understand that the Chinese team is still in a developmental stage, they haven’t played baseball thier whole lives like most every other player in the tournament so you can’t expect them to be so refined.

  I think like 6 of those HBP were curveballs also, they were probably pretty nervous too.
Also, while chinese in the world politics are quite detestable, these guys are hardly the Peoples Liberation Army, thier managers are Americans, and they train in the US for the majority of the year so you really shouldn’t look at this team the way you look at the Chiinese governement.They’re just trying to play baseball.

  I feel bad for La Porta, he didn’t deserve it, but Sherholtz sure as hell deserved a good plunk to back for what he did.

Is that because they invaded and occupied another country under false pretenses and thereby caused one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of our time?

Oh, no wait that’s the good ol’ US of A. No, you’re referring to something along the lines of Tibet or China’s inability to apply pressure on the Sudanese government.

You know, the kind of hegemonic transgressions in which our own government has spent the last century leading the world.

Nothing against you personally, Nevermoor. After all, you DID disclaim your xenophobia. But, when another nation’s actions in the world are the reason you root against their olympians, it would sit better with me if you were at least Swedish. Not that they’re totally innocent either!

I root for team USA too, but I don’t do so with self-righteous indignation against Chinese athletes. But, whatever, do you what you want. Just don’t expect all of us to think it’s cute when you say stuff like that.

You can’t get more than one strike for a single post, can you?

Man, I’m gonna get it!