The World Baseball Classic, co-organized by Major League Baseball and the International Baseball Federation, will restart in March after a five-year hiatus. Among them, the Chinese baseball team will be invited to participate in the Group B match in Tokyo, which will be played against Japan, South Korea, Australia and the Czech Republic. On February 10, the Chinese Baseball Association announced the list of 30 players participating in the World Baseball Classic, including four Chinese players, the most notable being Yusuke Masa, who participated in the first U23 Baseball World Cup with Japan and won the title of MVP (Most Valuable Player).
Yusuke Masa, according to IC photo
Both of Mr. Mansa's parents are from China, and his father has always retained Chinese citizenship. Interestingly, according to Japanese media reports, Yusuke Masa's father does not speak Japanese, and Yusuke Masa himself does not speak Chinese, and the daily communication between father and son at home also requires his mother and brother to act as translators.
Born in 1994, Yusuke Masa represented Japan at the inaugural U23 Baseball World Cup in 2016, not only helping Japan win the championship, but also winning the U23 World Cup MVP for hitting four home runs in that tournament. In 2017, Yusuke Mansa, who shone in the U23 World Cup, joined the SoftBank Hawks of Nippon Professional Baseball, but his contract was not renewed in 2022 and switched to Hitachi, a team of the Japan Social Baseball League, which is another option for players in addition to Japanese professional baseball, college baseball and high school baseball, and many of the team members are ordinary people.
On February 10, Japanese media took the lead in revealing that Yusuke Masa would represent the Chinese team in the World Baseball Classic, and the list subsequently released by the Chinese Baseball Association confirmed this. Today, many media said that the Chinese team has four "naturalized players" this time, but this statement is not accurate. Because the World Baseball Classic is different from traditional international competitions, the rules of the tournament stipulate that players on each team do not necessarily need to be citizens of that country or region, but only one of their parents is eligible to be a citizen of that country or region.
At the 2017 World Baseball Classic, 5 Chinese players entered the list of Chinese baseball teams, including Zhang Baoshu, Chinese American in Panama, Zhu Quan of Korean Chinese, and Zhang Baoshu represented the Chinese team in the World Baseball Classic for the third time. Before the 2017 match, Xinhua News Agency specifically reported that although the five Chinese players all had at least 1/4 Chinese ancestry, their nationality was not Chinese, and their identities were not naturalized players. In the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Zhang Baoshu and Zhu Quan will represent the Chinese team again, while Yusuke Masa will be selected for the Chinese team for the first time. In addition, the Chinese team roster also includes 25-year-old Chinese-American pitcher Alan Carter, whose mother is from China.
The 4 Chinese players who represented the Chinese team this time are actually not top players in the world professional baseball, Zhu Quan is not the main player of Korean professional baseball, Yusuke Masa has switched from Japanese professional baseball to the social team, Alan Carter has just entered the minor league of the United States from college, and Zhang Baoshu is 40 years old. But their personal ability and game experience will still enhance the strength of the Chinese team and bring greater help.
The World Baseball Classic is divided into four groups, with the top two in each group advancing to the knockout rounds, with China finishing 11th in the tournament.
Red Star News reporter Jiang Shan
Edited by Ou Peng