Go go Chinese Taipei! Go go Chinese Taipei!
Play ball! Let's talk about that vid!
-Hey you're watching VidTalk on VoiceTube TV, I'm JR -I'm Ray, and today we're talking about baseball.
As you could possibly judge from our abundance of props. We've got the cheering sticks, I'm wearing a baseball cap.
-We got the ball, we got the glove. -So obviously we're talking about baseball.
That's right cause this past week we just played at the Premier12 tournament and it was amazing, a lot of exciting games.
And I gotta say, it's very touching, moving. Cause even though we got eliminated in the end, we still won the respect.
We lost the game but won the respect, cause for the past few years as I observe, whenever we were behind in a game, we would easily give up.
But this time, we fought to the very last inning. It was very touching, very moving.
Really, this time round the Chinese Taipei team put up an excellent performance.
So for those of you who don't know, the Premier12 is a world championship series on baseball which is held by the WBSC,
the Word Baseball Softball Confederation. And the Premier12 is hosted right here in Taiwan, where 12 teams fight for the champion title.
So for the past few days we've been up against some really good teams in the world. Canda, Cuba, Puerto Rico...
and in the game against Canada it was 8-9, we actually had a really good game.
-It's really tied, really exciting, and we actually had a turning point... -What was the turning point? -that kinda got crushed though.
-Oh okay. -I think it was in the eighth inning, we had a hit nearly against the wall but the Canadian outfielders made a great safe.
There's nothing you could say about that, it was a perfect performance, and it crushed our hope of reversing the game.
So it was 8-9, we lost that game but really good one by the way.
And then we went on to play against Cuba, which was 4-1 in the end.
At first it was 1-1, and then finally in the eighth inning, our very one and only Captain Taiwan Lin Chih-sheng.
He hit a three-point home run and took it 4-1 and we closed the game 4-1. That was amazing.
You know to be honest, I don't follow baseball as closely as you do, but even I know about this game, even I know about this hit.
Because it's so iconic, it's so viral, and it's in fact the video we're gonna talk about today.
Yeah it is the video we're talking about, it's very viral on the Internet right now so you can actually find it on Facebook or YouTube.
-It's crazy! Lin Chih-sheng. Awesome! -But then we go to the final game right?
And then to the final game against Puerto Rico. Lin Chih-sheng hit another home run, he actually scored the first point 1-0,
then it was 1-1 they equalized it. We took it to the tenth inning and it was still tied.
So we went on to the tiebreaker. Tiebreaker.
And it was 1-1, 3-1 we took the lead, 3-3 they equalized it. And eventually however they hit a grand slam home run.
So me and my friend were watching in the living room on our sofa and the game was so tight in the tiebreaker,
so we were actually praying together. "Oh God~ please let us win this game, we really wanna play in the Top 8 in Japan."
-I've never found myself so devout in my life. -It's like suddenly you're a really religious man at the moment of the game.
Yeah like, "God I know I haven't prayed for days, but you know we really love you, please let us win."
-But when... -When Puerto Rico hit that home run in the tiebreaker, all of a sudden we were like, "What just happened?"
-"God do you really exist?" -Like "Where are you?"
-We were totally devastated! -That one home run really shattered our dreams, it closed off the gates to Japan.
But as I said, we lost the game, we got eliminated. But still we won the respect, I think they played a really good game.
And they really had that sportsmanship in them, so as I said good game Chinese Taipei! Awesome.
You know, JR I think it's really fascinating for me personally to hear you talk about and review all these past games with our team.
But you know I have a confession to make, I'm actually pretty lame when it comes to baseball, a lot of the terms you know...
-I can tell. -How could you tell? -Cause you're wearing a Sesame Street cap, man! Is Elmo your icon?
This is the closest thing to a baseball cap that I could find so I just wore this, so a lot of the terms you were talking about just now...
Innings, tiebreaker, infielder, outfielder. I have no idea what you're talking about.
So is it possible? Can you walk me through some of the terms so that at least I know what you're talking about?
-Oh yeah, definitely of course. So the first thing you probably would like to know about is the positions. -Right, right.
So on a team you have nine starters in a game. And when you're batting, you're batting.
When you're fielding though, there's the catcher, the pitcher, the first baseman, second baseman, third baseman.
And between second and third base there's a person called the shortstop. Shortstop.
-These are the infielders. -Oh so they stay within the field. -Yeah, that's right on red soil.
And outfield you have the left fielder, center fielder, and right fielder. These are the outfielders.
-Oh so in and out. I see, okay. -Alright.
I think it's pretty fair to say that 70% of the game is determined by the pitcher's performance.
Whether he performs good or bad is very decisive in the game. That's probably why he's most likely, the most expensive player on the team.
-Oh, like salary-wise? -In terms of salary, yeah.
So let me get this straight. We have three main players. We have the pitcher who pitches the ball to the batter who tries to hit the ball.
-If he doesn't, the ball goes to the catcher who catches the ball. -Catcher.
-If he does though, if the ball goes out into the field, the infielders and outfielders should try and stop him?
-Stop him from getting on base. -Okay, to catch the ball and stop him.
And eventually running home of course.
-So in a nutshell that's basically it right? -Yeah, in a nutshell basically that's it. As you've just mentioned.
But how does the game go on though? How do they keep scores?
-So the game has nine innings in it. -What is an inning?
Innings are rounds of the game. And within each inning there's the first half and the second half,
and usually we just call them the top of the inning or the bottom of the inning.
For example, if you wanna say the first half of the ninth inning, top of the ninth inning, the second half of the ninth inning, bottom of the ninth inning.
Okay so we have different innings but within each inning how does a team score?
-Well there's three bases right? And whenever a person on base runs home, that's one point. -What is a home run then?
Well the home run is when the batter hits the ball out of the fence, nobody catches it, so he gets to run home.
-But why is it called a home run? -Because he runs to home plate, first base, second base, third base, and then run home.
So everybody gets to run back, and you get all these points.
-And that's a grand slam home run, when you have three people on base already. -So you get four points.
-You get four points. -Is that what happened in (the game against) Puerto Rico? -Unfortunately yes.
Unfortunately yes, we lost at the tiebreaker.
We've got the basic positions, the runs, the tiebreakers down. You've taught me a lot, I think I should be able to...
-To teach somebody about baseball next time. -Or at least discuss with someone baseball right?
But also when I was researching for VidTalk today, this episode. I came across a few interesting jargons on baseball.
Some terminology. I was wondering, I was thinking it might be interesting for our audience to hear these terms.
So I'll give you the terms and you can explain to them what it means in baseball.
-So is this a test? -No this is not a test. This is not a game.
It's just information for our audience to get more familiar with baseball terms.
Let's see what you got!
-So the first one I've seen was a "perfect game". -Perfect game is kinda similar to a no-hitter. No-hitter.
-But there is a tiny difference. -What's the difference?
So when you say you had a no-hitter, it means that the pitcher did a really great job allowing no hits during the game.
But a perfect game is even better, cause that means nobody set foot on plate, that means there were not hits and there were no walks at all.
-Do you recall any recent perfect games? -In 2012 there was a perfect game in the Major League by a pitcher called Felix Fermandez.
He was playing for the Seattle Mariners. He had a perfect game.
-Wow. -Definitely outstanding.
So a perfect game, that's the first one. The second one that I came across was "clutch hitter".
Clutch hitter means this is a very important player within the game. He probably made a hit that was decisive in the results.
-He changed the outcome of the game? -Reversed ground. Right.
-So that in Chinese is probably like a key player. -And a good exmaple of this would be...
Definitely Lin Chih-sheng this time during the Premier12. I think he is a key player on and off field,
cause I heard off field he's a captain that really knows how to motivate his players so he did a really good job.
-I see, inspiring his team mates to perform better? -And needless to talk about that home run, that three-point home run against Cuba. That was awesome.
So he is definitely a clutch hitter.
And the last one I've got for you is a "walk-off grand slam".
Walk-off grand slam! Most easy to understand.
-And a good example of this would be... -Let's not talk about that...
-The one with Puerto Rico right? -Yeah, Puerto Rico... that was devastating!
So that was the definition of a walk-off grand slam because it stopped the game. -Yeah it ended the game after that grand slam.
So we've got perfect game, clutch hitter, and walk-off grand slam. And these are the three terms for you today.
-I hope it's interesting for you guys to learn about baseball. I learned a lot from JR. -I had fun.
And we are still going to show you a video because it's VidTalk. And today the video that we've prepared for you is the iconic, the epic moment
-of our Captain Taiwan, -That's right! -destroying Cuba so go ahead and enjoy this clip. -Lin Chih-sheng.
He sent this crowd into a frenzy.
And here goes the pitch! And it's out of here. GOODBYE!
-That was epic. -Look at his face, the coach's face. He's not happy about that. -He's devastated.
-That was awesome. That was the moment. -The iconic epic moment that everybody is going to remember.
So we're going to take that video and make it into our weekly challenge and the sentence that we want you to learn today is.
He sent this crowd into a frenzy.
-Now, what is frenzy, JR? -Frenzy means wild excitement. Extremely excited, super-duper excited.
Like you are right now? So a state of euphoria, very very excited. Frenzy.
So to send someone into a frenzy is to put someone into that condition.
-To be extremely excited. -Right, so we want you to make a sentence with "send someone into a frenzy".
-Mind you this can be positive or negative. -It's kind of neutral. -Right, you can say I drove my mom into a frenzy.
-That would probably be bad. -That would probably be negative.
So make a sentence with "send someone into a frenzy" and leave it in the comment sections below
and you might see your own comment in the next episode of VidTalk.
And we've enjoyed talking about baseball here on the show today, and that's a wrap for today.
Thank you for liking, commenting, and sharing this video.
And remember to subscribe to VoiceTube TV right up there and come back every Thursday night for a new episode of VidTalk.
If you want to see more of me and JR, click on the links below us right here.
-Rayduenglish, Jrleeradio, click right here. It's kinda weird when we do this. -Stop.
And now we're gonna go to our comments left by you guys in our last episode.
Okay let's go to the comments and last week we were talking about using the phrase "let's agree to disagree", which means...
-To disagree. Basically, right. -You almost forgot. -I almost said agree, it's to disagree. -Kind of tricky right there.
-Agree to disagree. -So this is from Huai En Qiu, I like your name. She or he said, I can't tell,
"In the movie Men in Black 3, Agent J said, which is played by Will Smith, 'You'll lose', Boris responded 'Let's agree to disagree'.
After the fight, Boris said 'It's not possible' and Agent J said, 'Let's agree to disagree'."
-I didn't know that. -I actually forgot that line but it was a good movie.
Next is Fengming Chen, "I think Ray's fingers are more beautiful than JR's, but my friend doesn't think so.
We agreed to disagree after arguing for 20 minutes yesterday."
Thank you for taking 20 minutes out of your meaningful life to argue about our fingers.
Yeah and just for your reference, let's just show our fingers and you decide.
-I think his fingers are more beautiful. -Are they? -Okay, let's just go on.
Alright next one is from Chen Yong-jie, "Often times people are talking over the fact about who is the best host ever, RD or JR."
I think they're trying to divide us... "Eventually they all agreed to disagree. After all, it was too hard to figure it out."
-Well you know, we try not to think about this, -for the sake of the show. -but at home I'd still like to think I'm the best.
Alright last sentence... this is from Wu Yi-fan, "After arguing about politics for months, Julie and her husband agreed to disagree,
-and they stopped arguing about politics." -Good sentence. Don't argue about politics, just watch VidTalk.
And is your wife's name Julie? Just kidding! Anyways, once again thank you very much for watching this show.
-I'm JR. -I'm Ray. -And we'll talk to you next time.