Spring training: Dodgers' Kuo can't be hit harder than he has on road to majors 11:45 PM PST on Monday, March 5, 2007 from www.pe.com By DIAMOND LEUNG The Press-Enterprise V ERO BEACH, Fla. Arms crossed, Hong-Chih Kuo glares at the words: Impossible is nothing. Story continues below It's only a catchy adidas slogan, isn't it? Just an Asian ad campaign celebrating the 25-year-old, whose three-time surgically repaired left arm has finally allowed him to pitch effectively at the big-league level and challenge to begin this season as the Dodgers' fifth starter. But what means everything to Kuo is not his image as an emerging Taiwanese hero -- a cell phone pitchman in TV commercials who had his biography published last month. It's a seven-year-old videotape of him throwing in his first professional game. The scene, from a California League game in San Bernardino, should have been a proud moment. Months earlier, Kuo became the first player from the island nation to sign with a major league team out of high school. Before the 17-year-old accepted a $1.2 million bonus and attention from the cameras at his press conference in Taiwan, he received his cancer-stricken father's blessing to leave for the land of opportunity. "He told me I gotta try to make it to the major leagues," Kuo said. In his debut, Kuo struck out seven of the 10 batters he faced without allowing a hit. It was a performance so dominating, even for Class A, that one youthful Dodgers executive in attendance imagined this was what his father must have seen from Sandy Koufax. But on the second to last pitch he threw, Kuo heard a horrific pop in his elbow. Then, on what would be his final pitch for the next 14 months, he struck out the batter -- on a curveball, no less. Suddenly on LA's Radar Gun It wasn't supposed to happen like this. Then again, was it any more improbable than Kuo getting noticed by an American scout at a time when few Taiwanese prospects were on the radar, and Chin-Feng Chen was more than three years away from becoming the first of his countrymen to reach the majors, also with the Dodgers? Acey Kohrogi, the Dodgers' director of Asian operations, happened to be watching a tournament in Japan when he spied a skinny high school left-hander lighting up a stadium radar gun that clocked pitches in kilometers. "What's 157?" he wondered. Ninety-seven mph was the answer. Even in Asia, where off-speed pitches dominate, the boy was unafraid of challenging hitters with his fastball. Kuo is fearless, a Taiwanese baseball official told Kohrogi. He had grown up playing with future Yankees star Chien-Ming Wang and in high school nearly outdueled a Japanese pitcher named Daisuke Matsuzaka. And Kuo made an attractive signing because it was thought his arm had not yet been exposed to a heavy workload. But shortly after Kuo arrived in America, speaking only Mandarin, he was left shaking his head at the injury that forced him to undergo an operation that he had never heard of to salvage his career. Hit Hard on Way to Majors Tommy John surgery to replace the ligament in his elbow cost him the rest of his 2000 season. Later that year he returned home to visit his father shortly before he died. The hard knocks kept coming. Kuo didn't heal properly even after an operation to clear scar tissue and needed a second Tommy John surgery that sidelined him for all of 2003. "He's not a real show-emotion kind of guy, but you could tell facial-wise that he was disturbed watching guys that he came into the system with go to the big leagues," said Ken Howell, Kuo's minor league pitching coach. "You could see the frustration." But officials thought enough of Kuo to have him rehab at Dodger Stadium, where he received emotional support from Tommy John veterans Eric Gagne and Darren Dreifort. After five pro seasons, Kuo had thrown a grand total of 42 1/3 innings in 18 games, most of his time spent testing his arm with doses of fastballs, change-ups and sliders. He'd also bulked up to a solid 6-foot-1, 235 pounds. Finally, in September 2005, Kuo made his major league debut. Kohrogi presented his prized prospect with some mementos -- the Dodgers cap he wore on signing day and footage of that dramatic first start in San Bernardino, shot from the dugout by his translator. "I hoped they would give him strength," said Kohrogi, who was later told Kuo had tears in his eyes while breaking down the tape. Kuo was twice demoted to Class AAA Las Vegas and converted to a starter after going 0-4 with a 5.34 ERA as a reliever. Last year, in the heat of the pennant race, he was handed the ball for his first career start, as an emergency replacement. On what was coincidentally Taiwan Heritage Night at Shea Stadium, Kuo no-hit the Mets for four innings and shut them out for six to earn win No. 1. "I've seen this kid pitch when the lights were the brightest, and he showed up," Howell said. "And that's what you can't teach. Players either have that or they don't, and he has it." Kuo was handed a phone after the game, and on the other end was Kohrogi, who compared the feelings of that evening with the joy of watching one of his own children succeed. "Thank you," Kuo said. "I made it." Reach Diamond Leung at [email protected] --

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