Taiwan: What can a baseball do? · Global Voices
I-fan Lin

There are some Taiwanese playing in Major League Baseball: Chin-Feng Chen in Dodgers from 2002-2005, Chin-Lung Hu in Dodgers, Hong-Chih Kuo in Dodgers, Chin-Hui Tsao in Royals, and Chien-Ming Wang in Yankees.  Although they are loved by Taiwanese, these baseball stars are not the focus of this article.  Here are stories about how baseballs change the life of challenged people and students in remote elementary schools.
Photo courtesy of Haomei.
The first story starts when a screen writer, an actor, and a director, Nien-Jen Wu left a message in Haomei's blog about the Sacred Heart Home for the challenged people.  Fr. Franz Burkhardt founded the Sacred Heart Home in Chia-Yi, Taiwan, in 1980, and he planned to build a larger building to help more challenged people.  Although the Reverend Franz Burkhardt, a recipient of presidential and papal honors for his services to Taiwan over almost half a century, died in 2002, his colleagues keep working on this project.  Due to the funding shortage, Haomei started to blog about the Sacred Heart Home and helps raise money and invite people to visit the Sacred Heart Home.
An episode for these fund-raising activities is about baseballs.
Chensumi talked about how Tai-Yuan Kuo signed baseballs for a fund-raising auction:
我跟郭泰源總教練提到聖心募款的事情，他聽得很仔細，也很豪爽答應簽名[…]我在一旁小心打探，「多簽一些可以嗎？」[…]郭總說，「可以啊，愛心的事情，當然沒問題！」
This auction raised 182100 NTD for the Sacred Heart Home, and this success inspired some baseball lovers to contribute their baseball-related souvenirs to the second auction.  The second auction raised 281861 NTD for the Sacred Heart Home.  The result is not only satisfactory for the Sacred Heart Home but also for the baseball players and  lovers–
以前只要提到金錢和棒球掛勾，大家都會想到簽賭，沒想到這次金錢跟棒球掛勾，居然成就這麼動人的好事。
The second story is about helping some baseball teams in the remote elementary schools.  Chensumi reported:
堅果團購夢想計畫已經募到新台幣72000元。[…]我們也將委請藍文成教練幫忙遴選最需要幫助的球隊，在賽後這段期間，儘快將球具送達學校，給那些有夢想的棒球孩子，充滿溫暖的禮物。同時感謝球魂網站好友林言熹與楊榮健的協助，取得球具配備最划算合理的估價單。[…]預估我們所募得的金額，將有機會補助三支以上的偏遠部落少棒隊。
Chien-Kuo Group's plan is based on the love for the children and baseball:
我們也許讓未來有機會站上大聯盟投手丘與打擊區的小孩們，未來要扛下國家隊第四棒或職棒中心打線的小選手們，可以有新手套，可以不必擔心練習用球不見，同時 讓他們知道，這段辛苦的棒球路，不是那麼寂寞，因為我們相信，在棒球起步的階段，曾經受過幫助的人，會一輩子都懂得感恩，不會愧對棒球之神賦予他們的使命。」
Redyellow described what they saw when sending the equipments to one of the elementary schools:
這一天我回來後，心底帶著暖暖的滿足。意外變成先發登板的我，帶著大家的愛心來到汐止國小，看著天真活潑的小球員，心裏彷彿被純淨的水流洗淨一般。到底是我 幫助了他們，還是他們幫助了我，讓我找回心中久違的感動。[…]替這些勇敢追夢的孩子們吶 喊加油吧！因為這也是為我們自己加油啊！
終於我覺得自己是個棒球迷了。但是今天不當球迷。