U.S.A. / SPORTS
Page 8 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
April 17, 2017
Asians in American sports w Asian Americans in world sports
Depleted squads from Japan & South Korea fall short at WBC
WORLD-CLASS BASEBALL. Tetsuto Yamada
(top photo) of Japan bunts during the eighth inning
of a semifinal game against the United States held as
part of the World Baseball Classic, in Los Angeles. In
the bottom photo, Norichika Aoki bats during the first
inning of the same semifinal match. (AP Photos/Chris
Carlson)
By Mike Street
Special to The Asian Reporter
or Asian athletes, the World
Baseball Classic (WBC) has fallen
victim to its own success. The
Japanese and South Korean players who
rose to international prominence at the
tournament are now too focused on their
success in the U.S., which drained talent
from their national teams. As a result,
South Korea was eliminated early from
this year’s tournament while Japan lost a
squeaker in the semifinal against Team
USA, the eventual champion.
Since its inception in 2006, the
tournament has provided international
exposure for players in other professional
leagues, most notably the Korean Baseball
Organization (KBO) and Japan’s Nippon
Professional Baseball (NPB). As those
stars signed contracts with Major League
Baseball (MLB) teams, however, the
demands of the MLB season have taken
them out of the WBC tournament.
MLB players Shin Soo Choo, Hyun Soo
Kim, and Jung Ho Kang had anchored
South Korea’s team in the past. However,
Kim opted out this year to focus on
improving from a shaky rookie season,
while the Texas Rangers held Choo out of
the WBC due to his injury history. Unable
to secure a U.S. work visa due to his DUI
conviction in South Korea, Kang has
bigger things than baseball on his mind.
For its part, Japan was without the
aging Ichiro Suzuki, whose best years are
behind him, with journeyman Norichika
Aoki as their sole MLB representative.
And the pitching staff was missing all its
MLB talent, as Masahiro Tanaka, Kenta
Maeda, and Yu Darvish all opted out.
Because of an ankle injury, the team was
also without the NPB’s top talent, 2016
Pacific League MVP Shohei Ohtani. In
four seasons, the 22-year-old Ohtani has
amassed a 39-13 record with a 2.49 ERA on
the mound, logging more than a strikeout
per inning. On the days he’s not pitching,
Ohtani plays as a designated hitter, where
he averaged .322 last season with 22 home
runs.
Despite these talent deficits, both teams
had plenty of other native talent to draw
F
on, resulting in mixed outcomes at the
2017 WBC.
South Korea finished the inaugural
WBC tournament in third place, lost to
Japan in the 2009 finals, then failed to
advance out of the first round in 2013. In
2017, South Korea hosted Pool A, giving
them a leg up in a tough group.
Facing Israel in the first game, South
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Korea battled to a 1-1 tie after nine innings
before surrendering the winning run on an
infield grounder in the 10th inning.
Against the Netherlands, South Korea fell
behind early as the Dutch scored three
runs in the first two innings, eventually
winning 5-0. Even lowly Chinese Taipei
proved a hard matchup, as South Korea
needed 10 innings to secure its only win.
For its second straight tournament, South
Korea did not escape the first round.
Japan fared much better in its early
games on home turf in Tokyo. They
crushed Cuba, 11-6, in their opening
match, came back against Australia to win
4-1, then jumped on China early before
winning 7-1.
Japan faced its toughest second-round
challenge against the Netherlands. Each
team scored one run in the second inning,
followed by four runs in the third, three of
Japan’s coming from a homer by first
baseman Sho Nakata. Japan took a
one-run lead in the fifth, but the
Netherlands tied the score in the bottom of
the ninth. In the 11th, Nakata came
through again, driving home two runs on a
line-drive single for the win.
Next, Japan faced Cuba, a rematch of
their opening game with a similar result.
This time, the teams traded leads
throughout the game until Japan scored
three in the bottom of the eighth and went
on to an 8-5 win.
Facing surprising powerhouse Israel
next, Japan seemed to have met their
match, as the game remained scoreless
through five innings. But then Japan
broke open the game with five runs in the
sixth and three more in the eighth, so the
three runs Israel scored in the top of the
ninth didn’t matter.
Japan headed to the WBC semifinal to
face a U.S. team that had experienced
some early-round problems. Although
they advanced from both brackets, the
U.S. dropped a game in each, losing 5-7 to
the Dominican Republic and 5-6 to Puerto
Rico.
But Japan’s vaunted defense fell flat at
precisely the wrong time in the semifinal
game. In the fourth inning, second
baseman Ryosuke Kikuchi bobbled a hard
ground ball, allowing Christian Yelich to
reach second. Yelich would later score on
Continued on page 16
Foreign adoptions to U.S. families continue long decline
By David Crary
AP National Writer
EW YORK — The number of
foreign children adopted by
U.S. parents dropped almost
five percent last year, continuing a
steady decline that’s now extended
for 12 years, according to new State
Department figures.
However, department officials say
they have been working closely with
numerous countries to strengthen
international adoption procedures,
and they suggested the numbers
could rise if the U.S. adoption
community helped to address some of
the concerns of the countries about
ethics and oversight.
The department’s report for the
2016 fiscal year shows 5,372
adoptions from abroad, down from
5,648 in 2015 and more than 76
percent below the high of 22,884 in
2004. The number has fallen every
year since then.
China, as is customary, accounted
for the most children adopted in the
U.S. Its total of 2,231 was down
slightly from 2015 and far below a
peak of 7,903 in 2005.
Congo was second on the list with
359 adoptions. Many of those were
adoptions that had been delayed for
several years during a suspension —
now lifted — that the Congo govern-
N
ment imposed out of concerns over
adoption fraud.
Ukraine was third on the list with
303 adoptions, followed by South
Korea, Bulgaria, India, Uganda,
Ethiopia, Haiti, and the Philippines.
As adoptions from various coun-
tries have declined in recent years,
adoption advocates — and the State
Department — have cited Africa as
an area where adoptions may in-
crease. However, Susan Jacobs, the
department’s special adviser for
children’s issues, said this can pre-
sent unique challenges because some
African birth parents may incorrectly
believe that adopted children would
return home to care for them after
living abroad temporarily to get a
good education.
For a second straight year, there
were no adoptions from Russia, which
once accounted for hundreds of U.S.
adoptions each year, but imposed a
ban that fully took effect in 2014. The
ban served as retaliation for a U.S.
law targeting alleged Russian
human-rights violators.
The last time there were fewer
foreign adoptions to the U.S. overall
was in 1981, when, according to U.S.
immigration figures, there were
4,868 adoptions from abroad.
The State Department, in its new
report, said it had identified three
concerns that were causing some
foreign countries to be wary of
international adoption:
w Illegal or unethical practices by
some U.S. adoption agencies or
adoption
facilitators
operating
abroad. One Ohio-based agency was
recently barred by the State Depart-
ment from engaging in international
adoption for three years because of
extensive improprieties.
w Lack of comprehensive, nation-
wide laws that prevent adoptive
parents from transferring custody of
adopted children to another family
without official authorization. This
practice, known as re-homing, has
often involved children adopted from
abroad who prove more challenging
to raise than the adoptive family had
anticipated.
w The failure of some U.S. families
to complete required post-adoption
reports. Trish Maskew, chief of the
State Department’s adoption divi-
sion, said Kazakhstan and Guate-
mala were potentially interested in
resuming long-suspended interna-
tional adoptions to the U.S., but only
if several hundred overdue reports
were completed by parents who
adopted
children
from
those
countries in past years.
Chuck Johnson, CEO of the
National Council of Adoption and a
Continued on page 11