Asian rookie pitcher Fu-Te Ni called up to the plate

Asian pitchers haven't ever really lived up to their hype.

I caught an interesting article that pointed this out to me. Some of the asian pitchers you may recall:

Hideki Irabu

Chan Ho Park

Hideo Nomo

Byung-Hyun Kim

Nothing spectacular. They all start out OK, but then when it came time to be consistent they couldn't handle the pressure. For pitchers like Irabu coming to big markets like the Yankees gave him even more scrutiny when he wasn't living up to expectation. I remember always choosing to be Hideo Nomo when we used to play "baseball" as a kid. Then when he fell off I was player-less. Quite tragic for my eight year old self. But the story essentially is the same for all of these guys. 

Some Asian players do prevail (Ichiro), but we have no Asian "Roger Clemens" thus far.

But maybe in the league we know now time will change and young Fu-Te Ni...could be different?!

There are some other pitchers in the league like Chien-Ming Wang of the Yankees or Matsuzaka of the Red Sox, but they also are struggling after their first couple of seasons. Fu-Te Ni is a rookie for the Detroit Tigers and in his first game he had a  pretty good showing striking out big name players like Jason Giambi and only letting up one run. Nothing spectacular and the Tigers lost, but that wasn't his fault. Maybe, he actually does have the arm to strike out more big name players. Maybe, he was just nervous his first game. But hopefully he will not be all hype, and will show that we Asians can also throw the ball.

Will Fu-Te Ni break the curse? Will he be a solid pitcher throughout his career? Or will he be a dud? 

Time will only tell, but best of luck to him. 

Play Ball! m00g00.