Los Angeles Dodgers' popular slugger Manny Ramirez on Sunday led his team to breeze past Taiwan's all-star professional baseball team 11-1 in their last scheduled exhibition game.
Ramirez displayed his striking power before some 15,000 fans packing the Chenchinghu baseball stadium in the southern county of Kaohsiung.
The Dodgers, a mix of major and minor leaguers, surprisingly lost to the home team during the first game held in Taipei Friday. The scheduled second Taipei game was rained out Saturday.
In Sunday's game, Ramirez drove in an RBI single to kick off the first inning, and James Loney tripled to obtain two other runs.
Ramirez added a single and a double during the other six innings he played while Trayvon Robinson smacked a two-run homer in the ninth.
The Taiwanese side, selected from the Taipei-based Chinese Professional Baseball League, posed no threat to the visitors. They scored their only run in the first inning on Chang Chien-ming's double and one each single by Pan Wu-hsiung and Lin Chih-sheng.
The Dodgers collected 16 hits out of the all-star team's four pitchers, while their five throwers yielded nine scattered hits.
"Both teams played with a lot of energy today," Dodger head coach Joe Torre told reporters at the end of the game.
Asked to comment on the fans' reaction to the visit, he said: "I really appreciate their passion and the energy they bring out to the ball park and the knowledge of the game."
The Dodgers last visited Taiwan in 1993 generating much fanfare, and since then the local fan base for US Major League games has expanded.
The game's popularity received another boost after home-grown talent made it into the league, including relief pitcher Hong-Chih Kuo for the Dodgers and pitcher Wang Chien-ming, formerly the New York Yankees' pitcher with 19 wins for two consecutive seasons. Wang is now with the Washington Nationals.
Copyright 2010 AFP Global Edition
