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WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: 1ST ROUND POOL BMarch 7, 2017Ray ChangKwon JuWeiqiang MengTokyo, Japan Q. I would like to ask the three of you, tomorrow the WBC will start for you. Tell me about your condition today and how prepared are you? RAY CHANG: I think we are extremely well prepared. We had some really good practice and training sessions along with five or six exhibition games that we all played extremely well. As far as the conditioning side of it, I think we are all healthy and ready to go, and I know we're all very excited to get things going tomorrow. KWON JU: Since I played Korean baseball teams and I joined Team China a little later than other players, but I'm still trying to adjust with Team China and I just tried to do my best in this tournament. Q. So when you play against Australia, in this group B, who do you think is the team that's more dangerous, more important? RAY CHANG: I think they are all important. I think the past two WBCs that I have played in, I think we had the mentality of just trying to win a game and move on to the next. I think with the team that we have this year, with some new additions and some more experience, you know, we're looking to try and advance, and that's the only mentality that you can have going into tournaments like this. So you know, we're trying to win every single game. All the games are important. WEIQIANG MENG: I think we just have to do our best in this tournament. I learned a lot from my teammates and we have to learn every game. It doesn't matter who is the opposing team. We have to do our best. KWON JU: It's my first time to play in the WBC tournament since I played in Korea since high school. I'm very excited about it. I did think that every single game, every single moment, is very important. I will just try to do my best every single moment with Team China. Q. Outfielders, infielders, pitchers, everybody is talked about in Japan. What kind of play do you want to show here in this WBC? WEIQIANG MENG: Well, I don't pay that much attention, but anything that I do, I have to try to do my best. It doesn't matter the position I'm playing in. So if I can contribute to the team, it's the best. Q. To the three of you, what do you expect from the game tomorrow? What type of game do you want to show? WEIQIANG MENG: Well starting from tomorrow, I just want to do my best from every game that we have. In order to get the results, we have to do that. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter the opposing team. We have a chance to win, and we have to fight for this chance. RAY CHANG: I expect to play our style of baseball. We don't have guys who can hit home runs at any time. We've just got to play the style of game to where we cannot make many mistakes. Everybody's got to do their job, and play a team game. And so I'm really looking forward to tomorrow, very excited. It's been a fun two weeks of training. But you know, this is the moment that we all look forward to and have been training for. So we're really excited about it. KWON JU: I believe that Team China is not strong from the past tournament but I'm very excited to play against Cuba tomorrow, and we'll see the results tomorrow. We'll do our best. Q. Can you comment on what it feels like to be Chinese American and playing on the Chinese national team? RAY CHANG: It doesn't feel anything different. I grew up in a Chinese family. My mom is from Shanghai and my dad is from Hong Kong. You know, I was raised in a Chinese household. So being with all these guys, I feel like I'm at home, you know. And I thank my mom every day that she did teach me Chinese, you know, from the get go. Growing up to the States, I kind of lost it but coming back to these guys, it really helps out, and I get to speak that language with them. Now this being my third World Baseball Classic, I feel comfortable with everybody. You know, I look forward to this every year. Q. Can you talk about your expectations for the future of Chinese baseball, as a whole, and also for yourself, now that you're one of the seniors on the team, what are your responsibilities, or do you feel responsibilities, and also the challenges obviously facing for the sport in China. RAY CHANG: Like I said before in the 2013 Classic, I always have high expectations. I always have high expectations for myself. I always have high expectations for my team. Now being part of this for the third time and seeing the unbelievable development and progress of Chinese baseball, I have really high expectations for 2017. And I think everybody else that's here on this podium and in the clubhouse, all the coaches, all the players. You know, being able to work with Chinese baseball in the past and the future, I'm really looking forward to seeing the growth of this game in the next five, ten years. You know, hopefully we can come out this year anything can happen. Who knows what the results will be. Hopefully we can come out with a strong performance, whether win or lose. Just put China on the map and have other people take us seriously, because a lot of these guys have put in extreme, extreme amounts of hard work. You can see it just by, from 2009 to 2013 to 2017, the growth and the progress of baseball here has been unbelievable. It's been exciting and I'm excited to see what will happen in the future. Q. Do you prefer to bat or to hit or to pitch? KWON JU: Will you repeat the question, please. Q. Which do you like more, to pitch or to hit, to bat? KWON JU: I like both, definitely to prepare well, to bat, you have a challenge, and the challenge is against the pitcher. When you are pitching, you have a challenge against the batter. So I like both. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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