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Thursday 27th September 2007

Taiwan will be hosting the 2007 World Cup, the 2007 Asian Olympic Qualifier and the 2008 Olympic Qualifier for baseball in five different cities

The great part is that all of these tournaments take place after the MLB regular season so you will have more baseball to see in November and December!

The World Cup teams from the states will be composed of non-40 man roster MLB players so the competition will be very good during the sixteen team tournament that takes place November 6-18

They will be playing the World Cup in Taipei, ShenShuan and Taichung cities

Taichung has two stadiums in the same city

Taichung Stadium - "the old Stadium shows its age"

Intercontinental Stadium

One called "Taichung Stadium" (83 years old) and the other is named "Intercontinental Stadium" which is relatively new

Taichung Stadium - "batting tunnel on the pond"

As with most older parks, the need to expand in a downtown area are pretty tough
Taichung Stadium needed to build a batting tunnel for the facility and the only place was actually on top of a pond
Quite a unique plan as I can foresee the coaches fishing while the players take swings in the cage

Shenshuan was used during the 2001 World Cup
Since that tournament they installed a natural turf infield instead of an all clay infield
Its much improved but the need for better maintenance continues to be an issue at this park

The final stadium to review was Taipei and the name of the stadium is Tein Mou
This is where they will be hosting the championships

Tien-Mou Stadium - "no grass!!"

We got quite a shock when we walked onto the field to see they had stripped the field of all the grass and were undergoing a major field construction only a month before the tournament
The local contractor has proposed Zoysia for the field but this type of turf is really not considered your top choice of a sports grass
We have a way to go here - I am sure everything will work out - it always does and we are going to be helping them to ensure the field is the best it can be

The climate here is tropical - therefore, it's hot and humid - let me clarify, I mean HOT AND HUMID!!
Not sure what we can do about that but I can assure you, this tournament logistically, will be a tough one

Tsuchiya Mower

Taking a look at the equipment in Taichung I came across a different brand triplex mower call "TSUCHIYA"
We are always talking about the green, red and orange mower competitions
Deere, TORO, JAC ...Now we have "teal"