Double play – an analysis of the sporting practice of Taiwanese professional baseball players

Abstract

This paper aims to demonstrate the process of Taiwanese professional baseball players' sporting practice and, further, to explain their forms of capital and their strategies in various fields. Semi-structured interviews with six elite professional baseball players were conducted during this research. The results show that these players are capable of managing their own subjectivity and mobility while pursuing their careers. They are aware of their advantages in terms of physical capital, and manage to transmit this into various other forms of capital. However, the benefits terms of economic status and education may ultimately impact adversely on their decision-making. In addition, the value of physical capital is associated with the ideology of the working class in Taiwan and, according to social norms, all species of capital derived from it are regarded as useless and without value. In order to assess the inputs of these players and the outcomes that follow, this study points to blind spots in both the education system and in government policy and proposes that early training programmes fail to contribute to ‘the game of life’, and cause both physical and other types of damage.

Keywords::

• Taiwan professional baseball
• habitus
• capital
• play