When last UmpBump cast its wary eye on Olympic baseball, we were bemused to see that the IOC and something called the “International Baseball Federation” (presumably, the precursor to the United Federation of Planets) had actually changed the rules of the game:

Each team’s at-bat in the 11th inning and beyond will begin with runners on first and second bases. Teams may start the 11th at any point in their batting order under format changes announced Friday…

This transmogrification of the actual rules of baseball was hard enough to swallow. But now we have learned that, in addition to having a communist government with an appalling human rights record and being big ol’ dirty polluters (and worse still, not yet banning UmpBump), the Chinese have failed to instill in their team the proper respect for the sport’s unwritten rules.

In the fifth, top prospect-turned-Olympian Matt LaPorta crashed into catcher Wang Wei, who then, regrettably, had to leave the game. In the sixth, Nate Schierholtz bowled over Wang’s replacement, Yang Yang, while attempting to score on a sac fly. Yang, who was incensed and had to be restrained by teammates from attacking Schierholtz, later went on to score China’s only run of the game on a solo homer and allegedly pimped it in a fashion better suited to a Manny Ramirez walkoff bomb than a 9-1 rout.

China’s manager, who is 1965 Rookie of the Year Jim Lefebvre, argued that Schierholtz’s slide was illegal. However, it was LaPorta who bore the brunt of the Chinese team’s wrath as it was he who was beaned with a pitch in the seventh inning. LaPorta lay on the ground for several minutes before finally leaving the field, and was later diagnosed with a concussion. (By the end of the game, five Americans and two Chinese had been hit by pitches.)

C’mon, China. Your repressive regime and lead-infused toys are bad enough. Do you have to mess up basebrawls too? Everyone knows that in games that count, the runner is honor-bound to try and knock over the catcher. And everyone knows that if a retaliatory pitch is required, it is properly aimed at the ribcage or the backside. If you want the respect of the wider world, you’ll have to do better than this.

We UmpBump writers have a gripe with the Chinese government and their banning of American baseball websites. First, it was FireJoeMorgan. Then, Joe Posnanski met this fate. So we have a question for you, Mr. and Mrs. Chinese Government. Where’s our ban? We want to be censored! Nay, we demand to be censored, damn it!

So with this in mind, and to also commemorate the retirement of Mr. Furman Bisher from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, we present to you our attempt at getting banned in China. And really, how could this NOT work?

I Like Things I Remember

By Fur-man “Shu” Bisher

Baseball used to be a game played with nine men to a side, two managers, four umpires, seven iron maidens, thirteen Papua New Guinean prostitutes, an ostrich, and the American players always played in America, as long as they were white Americans, except for those times when the Blue Jays and Expos played, or when the Expos played in Puerto Rico, or when the MLB All Stars went to Japan in 1934 with the Bad News Bears. Come to think of it now, that would be sort of like some old-timey analogy that no one understands but I’m going to use right now. But the American players had a deal, see.

Well, not any longer. Giving up the great policy that was isolationism can change any habit. As I write this, our boys are getting ready to play a baseball game. Guess where? China. That China, the guys that gave us the Yellow Turban Rebellion in the second century. Some people don’t like you to bring that up, this new idea of “the Olympics” is so hot. But I’ve got a long memory. I saw what a few Chinese peasants can do to the Han dynasty.

Oh, well, ‘scuse me. It’s just tough to get away from it when you turn on your TV in the morning and see Chinese Olympic security forces menacingly riding segway scooters to prepare for a possible uprising. It’s AD 184 all over again, I say.

I remember as if it were only 400 years ago when the Yellow Turbans defeated Zhu Jun and the Imperial Army. China was more heptadecagonally-shaped then. Now, hurlers are called “pitchers” and they throw things called “curveballs” and “change ups”. Is that Hee Seop Choi boy from China? At least I can still sleep wearing a onesie.

It is disgraceful that the game is now being played in that country, a game that is as American as a hamburger, or a frankfurter, or an apfel strussel. It would be my guess that in China, they don’t grow maple. For the bats, you see.

It must be assumed that some day, baseball is going to be played by Latins as well. Now wouldn’t that be something? But seriously, not the Chinese.

Ban us. All the cool kids are banned. Do it. Doooooooo it.

You know the problem with baseball? Games take too long. Sometimes, games can go into extra-innings and last for hours!

Fortunately, that won’t be the case at this year’s Olympics. The International Baseball Federation has that problem licked. New rule alert!

Each team’s at-bat in the 11th inning and beyond will begin with runners on first and second bases. Teams may start the 11th at any point in their batting order under format changes announced Friday by the International Baseball Federation and adopted in time for next month’s Beijing Games.

…

Federation president Harvey Schiller said the extra-innings change was adopted to save time.

“Extra-inning contests can bring about the most exciting results for players and fans, but such circumstances also make it difficult in the context of the Olympic program,” Schiller said. “We must demonstrate to the International Olympic Committee (that) not only does our game belong alongside the other great sports of the world, but our sport is manageable from a television and operational standpoint.”

This is a good start, but I still think baseball would benefit from trampolines and maybe some paintball guns.

Via j-walkblog.com