Hanshin Tigers Sign Southpaw

THREE SIDES INTERESTED IN BUYING UNICORNS
The Korea Baseball Organization’s Hyundai Unicorns are still alive, despite the decision by the KT telecom giant to not sponsor the team for 2008. Hyundai has announced it will not field a team this year and there have been fears that the Unicorns will be dropped from the KBO, creating an unbalanced seven-team league.
However, three groups have emerged to express interest in taking over the reins of the Unicorns. The KBO is not revealing who those groups are, in order to avoid the embarrassment which followed when failed negotiations with the KT, STX and Nonghyup corporations became public. The KBO office did allow that the groups are “neither foreign companies nor Hyundai affiliates.” Two of the parties are said to be very active in negotiations for the Unicorns, while the other is essentially sitting on the fence. One of the conditions the KBO is putting forth is that the team must be based in Seoul.
The Unicorns are four-time Korea Series champions.

SHIMOYANAGI SIGNS CONTRACT TO REMAIN WITH HANSHIN
Free agent left-handed pitcher Tsuyoshi Shimoyanagi agreed last week to sign a two-year contract with Japan’s Hanshin Tigers. Shimoyanagi will sign a contract with the Central League team that pays 400 million yen over the 2008 and 2009 seasons.
Shimoyanagi has put up three consecutive double-digit winning seasons for Hanshin. He was 10-8 in 25 starts for the Tigers last year, posting a 4.11 ERA.

TAIWANESE NATIONAL TEAM VISITS PUERTO RICO
Taiwan’s national team is currently in Puerto Rico, where they are playing a 13-game schedule against local competition in preparation for March’s Olympics Qualifiers. The Taiwanese lost their opening game on January 18 to a Puerto Rican side by a 4-1 score. Starter Chen-Chang Lee was touched for three runs and six hits over three innings, while President Lions first round draft pick Wei-Hua Lee tossed the next four frames, allowing just one run on two hits.
Taiwan came back to beat the Carolina Giants 5-0 on January 19 behind a dominant performance by pitcher Chih-Chia Chang. Chang hurled five scoreless innings and struck out seven Carolina batsmen. The Taiwanese then fell to the Puerto Rican national team 4-3 one day later.

DODGERS AND PADRES TO PLAY PRESEASON GAMES IN CHINA
Major League Baseball will be sending two of its teams to China for the first time this March, when the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres play a pair of exhibition games in Beijing. MLB and the Players Association made the announcement last Thursday at a Beijing press conference attended by Dodgers manager Joe Torre and Padres vice president Dave Winfield.
The games will be played March 15-16 at Wukesong Baseball Field, the host venue for baseball during this summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing. It will mark the first time that major league teams have played in China. Both the Dodgers and Padres will send split squads across the Pacific, since they also have Cactus League games scheduled the same weekend in Arizona.

(Courtesy of World Baseball Today)

• Latin Update #3