Ranking as the world’s top 10 teams, our editorial team went around the baseball diamond to chase the history of Hong Kong women’s baseball team.
Lee Ka Kiu, Fung Suet Ching, Tsang Wing Sze and Chan Kwan Yi report Photo: Chan Kwan Yi
Hong Kong Baseball Association held a 4-day promotion earlier in Central which attracted lots of locals and tourists to learn baseball through interesting games.
“Baseball was not a mainstream sports ten years ago,” said Yeung Kit-ling, vice‐chairwoman of HKBA who co-founded the Hong Kong Women Squad in 2007. “We started with only three local women baseball teams in Hong Kong.”
Hong Kong Women Squad caught little attention until 2016 when the team rose to number 10 among 119 countries in WBSC Women’s Baseball World Cup. In the same year, Hong Kong also took the fourth place in Phoenix Cup in Hong Kong International Women’s Baseball Tournament.
This year the Hong Kong team is made up of 27 senior members and 15 junior members. Still the road to take it to a more popular sports is far.
“Sometimes we feel frustrated,” Yeung said. “Sai Tso Wan Recreation Ground is the designated training venue for the Hong Kong Baseball National Squads, but it is not a standard baseball field.
“We hope to have training in a qualified and professional baseball field.”
She added that the grass pitch will be closed for several months for turf replacement. The lack of standard baseball fields and flexible closing period hinder the local baseball sports development.
Swing Tsui, a CUHK Women’s Softball Team member, admitted that baseball is relatively hard for girls so it is rare to see women’s baseball teams.
Tsui said, “Some may step back to play baseball as it requires more energy consumption and it is exhausting to girls.”
She also said softball players pitch a ball with underhand, unlike baseball which is pitched overhand.
“The distance between softball pitching areas and home plates are shorter than baseball’s. “
To boost local baseball development, HKBA launched a series of District Promotion Baseball Training Schemes in different districts and schools.
As a result, 74 women newcomers participated in the classes last year, in the third phase of the scheme.
“Yeung Kit-ling is my Chinese History teacher and she established the first Women’s
Baseball Society in my college,” said Jane Lee, who was graduated from Ho Fung College (HFC).
At least two classmates from the baseball society became Hong Kong Women Squad members, she added.
The humble start in HFC mirrored that of Shatin Martins, a community baseball team featured in the Weeds on Fire, a nominee for the best movie in Hong Kong Film Awards this year. The team led by the then Sha Tin district officer and former Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yum-kuen eventually beat the better Japanese youth team in the 80s.
Likewise, HFC has become the testing ground for high school baseball promotion. Baseball with modified rules is introduced into different colleges to attract newcomers and lower the cost of playing baseball.
“This simplified game requires only six players, a smaller pitch and cheaper equipment,” Yeung said.
Seven colleges, including HFC and Tuen Mun Government Secondary School, are now passionate to promote women’s baseball. Both of them won the first place and second place respectively in the Hong Kong Secondary School Baseball Elite Championship 2016 (Women Senior).
“At first, the Hong Kong Women Squad was not endorsed by the government,” Yeung said.
“Each of us had to pay around HK$5,000 to HK$8,000 to join the Japan’s tournament in 2008 without any sponsorship.”
To date, Hong Kong SAR government has become a main sponsor of HKBA. Its Sports Subvention Scheme provides annual subvention to the baseball team to join overseas and local international events, squad training program and development schemes.
