It’s a simple book. We thought about trying to find a publisher, but that whole process appears too daunting. Myworld doesn’t have the patience to submit a manuscript and wait five months for a response. We also have no interest in going through a self publisher. 

The story hit me during my travels to Panama, Taiwan and the Dominican Republic to watch baseball, combined with my trip to China two years earlier. The idea came to me months before the Linsanity hoopla, but that did confirm to me what might happen if a player born in China has success in baseball.

I call it a marriage between “The Natural” and “Bull Durham”. A young man born in Beijing comes out of nowhere (actually an adoption center) to throw a fastball as hard as Aroldis Chapman. He falls in love with the game as a kid after his adopted father takes him to a baseball game at the Olympics in Beijing. His whole youth is spent throwing baseballs, whether it is long toss or throwing at a strike zone painted in a concrete wall. With enough practice and years of practice he is able to throw his fastball over 100 miles per hour when he turns 20.

The Baltimore Orioles are the hapless team that “discovers” him. Now it is a matter of nurturing him through the minor leagues. Can he survive the hoopla? After a 20 plus year losing streak there is great pressure for the Orioles to promote him to their major league team to increase their sagging attendance.

They need a catcher. There is a journeyman catcher who speaks Mandarin. He married a woman from China a couple years ago and learned Mandarin to impress her. He is contemplating a career change. He’s already been released by two major league teams and is 26 with a pregnant wife. He delays his retirement from baseball for one year to catch this Chinese pitcher. Instead of a boy meets girl romance this is a boy has already met girl and married her romance. Now they have a child on the way. Are there happy ever afters in their future?

There are national security issues surrounding Jason Woo’s promotion to the major leagues. A number of little subplots that play throughout the story. Why does it thunder after each game Jason pitches?  And why can no one find any background on his childhood growing up?  If he is really from China why is there no record of his birth or any schooling?

All the characters in the story are fictional. They have no basis to any person in reality. It is set in the not too distant future. Not everything in the story fits the reality of the location, such as the pitching carnival booth at Camden, but that is why it is fiction.

Hopefully you enjoy the story. Myworld will continue to report on the international news in baseball. Now you will just have more to read or not to read, depending on your choice.

Anyone who wishes to comment can contact me at admin@myworldofbaseball.com. Unfortunately, I do not post or respond to the comment section of the site. If you want to get a response you will need to email me. Too much spam in the comment sections to spend much time there.  They usually get deleted without ever being read.