http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/mlb/columns/story?id=4983116 ESPN專欄作家Ramona Shelburne的台灣行專欄 有好幾篇文章，全都在同一個網址底下 因為全部貼完太長，會分成幾篇貼 Wednesday morning, Arizona "Surprised" is the wrong word. "Amused" is a little more accurate to describe Joe Torre's reaction to Manny Ramirez's choice to travel with the Dodgers for a three-game exhibition series in Taiwan this week. "Manny was saying a lot of things," Torre said. "I guess it didn't really surprise me all that much, but he toys with you all the time." That pretty much sums up the general sentiment of the Dodgers regarding Ramirez's choice to make the 15-hour flight to the island nation. Though club officials insisted that they had no reason to believe Ramirez would change his mind at the last minute, just about everyone who gathered for the early morning departure from the Dodgers' spring training facility here in Glendale, Ariz., was keeping their eyes peeled for Ramirez's arrival. Shortly after 8 a.m., he drove into the parking lot, took his bags out and lined up for a security screening before boarding the team bus to the airport. "I'm happy; he'll keep me company," Torre said. Most of the Dodgers' regular players elected to stay in Camelback Ranch to continue normal spring training. Though a charter flight is about 3,000 times more comfortable than your typical commercial flight to Asia, 15 hours on a plane is still 15 hours. Said Ramirez's close friend and teammate Ronnie Belliard, "Long way. Long way. I'm about to sleep for 10 hours, watch two movies and when I wake up, hopefully we'll be there. Long way, though." It's not like the Dodgers begged Ramirez to go. General manager Ned Colletti has publicly stated he would've preferred that Ramirez stay in Arizona. So why in the world would Ramirez, who is coming off one of the more tumultuous seasons of his career, volunteer for such a trip? "I'm excited, let's go," Ramirez said, offering little explanation as we stood in line before boarding the team bus. Still, it was something, considering the fact Ramirez had been declining every interview request the past 10 days or so. The short answer is that he's going because he has a few endorsement opportunities there. But Torre thinks there's more to it. "You don't make a trip this far unless you really have a desire to go someplace," Torre said. "I think it's curiosity. I've never been there before. I'm curious, too." Thursday evening, Taiwan I'm not quite sure how they did it. Fifteen hours on a plane and not once did we ever lose the sun. Finally, as our EVA Air 777 charter touched down at Taipei's international airport about 6 p.m. local time, it felt like dusk was approaching. The day, however, was just getting started. We'd heard people were crazy about baseball here in Taiwan. Shortstop Chin-lung Hu, one of two native Taiwanese players on the Dodgers' roster tried to explain it to me before we left the Dodgers spring training complex at Camelback Ranch in Glendale, Ariz. "Baseball is the national sport,'' he said. "That is what we play. I'm not sure why it's not soccer. But everyone in Taiwan plays baseball.'' Still, it came as something of a surprise when several hundred fans and a throng of camera crews were waiting outside the gate our flight was due to arrive at. Fans had started lining up at 1 p.m. Manny Ramirez, as expected, was the biggest attraction, but native sons Hu and pitcher Hong-Chih Kuo were also very popular. At one point, first baseman James Loney stepped out of the charter bus to sign a few autographs and it was like Beatlemania outside the airport. As the crowd around him swelled, Loney signed a few more autographs, but went back in the bus after a couple minutes. A police escort accompanied the charter buses through rush hour traffic to the Sherwood Hotel in downtown Taipei, where another throng of fans and photographers awaited the team's arrival. "Wow, this is crazy,'' outfielder Xavier Paul said. "There was so much energy out there.'' Hotel workers lined up to greet the players, applauding as they passed through the hallways on their way to check in. Several hundred local media were already stationed in a ballroom awaiting the team's press conference. When the rosters for this trip were first announced, there was some local disappointment the team wasn't sending all of its main players, as was the case in October 1993 when the Dodgers were the first team to visit Taiwan. That sentiment has been quieted though; Kuo and Hu did interviews via satellite explaining why it would be so hard for all of the starters to leave spring training on such a grueling trip just a few weeks before the regular season. "They didn't understand at first,'' Kuo said. "But we explained it to them.'' I have no idea how manager Joe Torre found the energy after such a long flight -- with only about 15 minutes up in his room to freshen up before the press conference -- but he charmed the reporters nonetheless, as he so often did back in New York as manager of the Yankees. "I'm looking forward to being here,'' Torre said. "This is a part of the world I've never been to. I was always curious, knowing that your Little League teams used to win the Little League World Series all the time so I knew baseball was very big and I'm very anxious to get a look at the city.'' Torre then exchanged gifts with local dignitaries and fielded numerous questions about Kuo, Hu and his former Taiwanese ace with the Yankees, Chien-Ming Wang. Music played during the press conference and reporters openly applauded after each answer. Later, the hotel put on a lavish feast for the players to meet and mingle with local baseball and business leaders. A live band played a mix of Taiwanese music and songs like "La Bamba'' and "Pretty Woman.'' Afterwards, Paul, minor leaguers Trayvon Robinson, John Lindsey and Brian Barton decided to take a quick walk around the neighborhood. About 20 fans were still waiting outside the lobby of the hotel, waiting to meet the players. Lindsey, 33, a career minor-leaguer from Hattiesburg, Miss., walked by most of them without getting a request. A man suddenly came up to him with a stack of pictures. As he flipped through them, it was obvious he'd printed photos of every player who'd made the trip. "This you?'' the man asked Lindsey, holding out a pen for him to sign the photo. "Wow, I can't believe he found that photo,'' Lindsey said afterward. I can. These are real baseball fans over here. --

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