Team Review: Luoyang White Horse

For some reason, I can't get Blogspot's picture uploading program to work right now. Sorry!

I don't have any work or finals today (the last one is Modern Chinese Literature, tomorrow morning at the ungodly hour of 7 AM), so I figured I'd take the chance to stick up another team preview or two. Then again, now that the season is underway, I guess it counts as a team review instead. All semantics aside, here's the roster and some commentary on the Luoyang White Horse

The Season
As of April 22nd, 2008, the White Horse are in fourth place in the Northwestern League, playing .500 ball with a 4-4 record, and a game and a half behind the division leading Jinan Leopards. Luoyang's scored 29 runs and has given up 33, a difference that can be explained by their 9-3 loss to the fifth place Urumqi Flying Tigers earlier today.

The Stadium

Luoyang plays in the park formerly known as Enron Field, here renamed White Horse Stadium. This obsession with white horses comes chiefly from the famous White Horse Temple (白马寺), one of the most famous ancient Buddhist temples in mainland China. Perhaps commercializing a religious symbol is a tad inappropriate, but it fits in well with current capitalist practices in mainland China.

Starting Rotation
1. Tom Seaver
2. Robin Roberts
3. Ed Walsh
4. Hilton Smith
5. Red Ruffing
SS. Jose Munoz
SS. Kazuhisa Inao

Because only eight games have been played thus far, it's too early to give much pitching analysis.

As is often the case with deadball-era Negro League pitchers, I couldn't find anything about Jose Munoz online.

Relievers
Steve Farr
Don McMahon
Tim Burke
Rick Honeycutt

Starting Lineup
1. Wild Bill Wright RF
2. Jeff Kent 2B / Ben Taylor 1B
3. Dobie Moore SS
4. Harmon Killebrew 1B / Harmon Killebrew 3B
5. Bob Johnson LF / Zack Wheat LF
6. Bill Dickey C
7. Ken Boyer 3B / Jeff Kent 2B
8. Happy Felsch CF

Ben Taylor is currently injured, and should be back on April 24th.

Among starters, Harmon Killebrew is currently leading in batting, with a .387 / .406 / .742 line, along with three homers and 5 runs batted in.

Bench
Jimmy Ryan
Nish Williams
Bobby Wallace
Mike Tiernan
Lee Lacy
Masayuki Kakefu
Bobby Rose
Darren Daulton
Rusty Staub

Bobby Rose comes from the Japanese All-time Greats disk, believe it or not. He is considered to be one of the greatest foreign players in the history of Japanese baseball.

Anyway, there's today's quick team review. It will probably be a while before I start posting standings and league leaders, since not enough games have been played to report anything meaningful.