Chien-Ming Wang (Chinese: 王建民; pinyin: W�ng Ji�nm�n; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: �ng Ki�nb�n) born March 31, 1980 in Tainan City, Taiwan, is a starting pitcher for the New York Yankees in Major League Baseball. He was initially signed as an amateur free-agent for the 2000 season, playing for the Staten Island Yankees.

Taiwan

Wang pitched for the Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) national baseball team in the 2002 Asian Games. In 2004, as the apparent ace of the staff, Wang led the Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) team to the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Against Australia, he allowed just three hits with no walks, and at one point retired nine batters in row, to earn the win. He also limited Japan to just five hits in the first six innings; however, the Japanese rallied in the seventh inning against Wang to tie the game with three runs. Japan won the game, preventing Taiwan from advancing to the next round.

He is the third major leaguer from Taiwan, following Dodgers outfielder Chin-Feng Chen and Rockies pitcher Chin-Hui Tsao, and is by far the most successful. Since being called up to the majors, Wang has been idolized in his native country where all of his games are televised nationwide, many on big screens to large audiences. This is still true even though he decided not to pitch in the 2006 World Baseball Classic.

The Yankees

In 2005, Wang was called up from the Yankees' AAA affiliate, the Columbus Clippers. In the first season as a major league player, he earned 8 wins and 5 losses with a 4.02 ERA. In addition, he pitched for the first time in a post-season game against the Los Angeles Angels.

On September 19, 2005, Wang tied a record for assists in a game by a pitcher with nine.

On June 3, 2006, Wang recorded his first major league save in a win over the Baltimore Orioles. He recorded his first complete game on June 18, 2006 against the Washington Nationals, but it was a bittersweet accomplishment as he allowed a 1-out, 2-run, walk-off home run by Ryan Zimmerman to lose the game 3-2.

His first complete game win was on July 28, 2006, a 2-hit, 6-0 shutout of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays at Yankee Stadium. In his next start, he threw eight shutout innings against the Toronto Blue Jays, in which he got an outstanding 18 ground ball outs.

Wang posted a 19-6 record with a 3.63 ERA along with 76 strikeouts, 407 ground outs, and 2.84 ground outs/fly outs ratio in 2006 season. He limited batters to a .211 batting average while games were tied, and a .205 batting average in games that were late and close, and limited Tampa Bay to a .159 batting average while beating them 3 times in 4 starts. His 19 wins in 2006 broke the record for wins in a season by an Asian pitcher formerly held by Chan Ho Park. Along with Minnesota Twins ace Johan Santana, Wang led both leagues in wins. He did this while striking out the fewest batters per 9 innings of any major league pitcher (3.14), and giving up the fewest home runs per 9 innings (0.50), while leading the league in ground ball percentage (62.8%).

He also was the Yankees Game One starter going into the postseason as the unlikely ace. The first game of the 2006 postseason against the Detroit Tigers ended up with the score of 8-4. Wang earned his first career postseason win on October 3, 2006, with 6.2 innings of pitching allowing only 3 earned runs. Wang is the first ethnic Asian starting pitcher to have won a post season game. During the 2006 season, he surpassed his total innings pitched in any other season, including those in Major League Baseball and in Taiwan.

At the end of the season, Wang finished second to Santana in voting for the Cy Young award. Wang collected 15 second-place votes, and 51 points. He also received a ninth-place vote, good for two points, in the AL MVP balloting won by Justin Morneau. In the MLB's This Year in Baseball Awards, he was voted the top starter in 2006 season with more than 47% of voters.
Source : Wikipedia