Season in review about nothing: Chin-Hui Tsao, ‘The Abstinence.’

Chin-Hui Tsao

After signing with the Dodgers, Chin-Hui Tsao appeared in 39 games (five in the majors) following six years away from organized baseball. (Getty Images)

This is Part 50 of a series in which every member of the 2015 Dodgers has his season juxtaposed with an episode of the greatest sitcom of all-time. Don’t take it too seriously.

Chin-Hui Tsao, RP

Key stats: 5 G, 8 ER in 7 innings while pitching; 1.000/1.000/2.000 slash line while batting.

Seinfeld episode: “The Abstinence” (Season 8, Episode 9)

Key quote: “I used to share that same outlook. But now, I have so many things to occupy my mind. For instance, the atom.”

Chin-Hui Tsao’s impact on the 2015 Dodgers was marginal. He started the season at Double-A, spent the majority of his season (30 of his 39 games) pitching in Triple-A, and appeared in five games out of the Dodgers’ bullpen in July. The last of those five appearances was an unqualified disaster (six runs in two-thirds of an inning at Citi Field), and Tsao was subsequently outrighted to Triple-A. He became a free agent after the season, and remains unsigned to my knowledge.

I say “to my knowledge” because there’s an air of mystery around Tsao that smells different from any other professional athlete you can think of.

Coming into the 2015 season, there was no way to gauge what to expect from Tsao. He was 33 years old when the Dodgers signed him to a minor-league contract. He hadn’t pitched for the Dodgers in 2007, and hadn’t pitched for any professional baseball team in North America since 2008. After throwing his final pitch for the Kansas City Royals’ Triple-A affiliate, he returned home to his native Taiwan.

There, Tsao continued to pitch until he was named in a match-fixing scandal and banned for life by the Chinese Professional Baseball League. The Australian League banned him, too. Forced out of baseball, Tsao opened a restaurant in Taiwan. He didn’t pitch competitively for four years.

Then, almost without warning, Tsao was back and throwing well for scouts. “We consulted Major League Baseball on it and we were cleared to pursue him,” Dodgers GM Farhan Zaidi said at the time. Given such a long layoff, and the strange events that preceded it, Tsao did well just to return to the majors at all — let alone finish the season with a 1.000 batting average.

In “The Abstinence,” a long layoff (from sex) serves George just as well. By extension, he’s able to help Derek Jeter iron out his swing. I mean, is it purely a coincidence that 3,270 of Jeter’s 3,465 career hits came after this episode aired?

 

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About J.P. Hoornstra

J.P. Hoornstra covers the Dodgers, Angels and Major League Baseball for the Orange County Register, Los Angeles Daily News, Long Beach Press-Telegram, Torrance Daily Breeze, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star-News, San Bernardino Sun, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Whittier Daily News and Redlands Daily Facts. Before taking the beat in 2012, J.P. covered the NHL for four years. UCLA gave him a degree once upon a time; when he graduated on schedule, he missed getting Arnold Schwarzenegger's autograph on his diploma by five months.