I wanted to get this out there before I start all the All Star customs.
As longtime readers of this blog might know, I have quite a soft-spot for Chien-Ming Wang. For one thing, he played for my team his first 5 and 1/2 seasons. For another thing, he's the greatest baseball player ever to come out of Taiwan (Wei-Yin Chen and Hong-Chi Kuo are nowhere near this guy), and he's usually a starting topic of conversation for me and my Taiwan-born dentist.
But the last couple seasons have kinda been 'meh' for Wang. I mean, 2010 he didn't play at all, 2011 and 2012 he played parts of seasons, and now he was just released by the Blue Jays. I understand that he hasn't been pitching to the caliber of his 2007 season, but it's a bit shocking for the Jays to release him like that. I mean, it's not like any of the pitchers they activated would have actually done something.
Still, I'm just hoping he's actually gonna get to pitch for someone again. But when he does, his star will have depleted even more, and by that point, people will be more interested in the exploits of another Taiwanese import.
Again, there will always be 2006, 2007 and 2008, and there will always be seeing him pitch at Yankee Stadium, and marveling at how awesome his slider was. Forget about all this nonsense with Washington and Toronto. The real Wang was the one in the late 2000's, the one that created the legend, not the one that tried to tear it down.
Wang's still gonna be one of my favorites, regardless of anything. I imagine he'll also continue to be a favorite of his home country, as well.
Coming Tonight- An All Star. Be it a pitcher, an outfielder, a catcher, I don't know yet.
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