By Ann Binlot Growing up as a child of Asian immigrants in California, I wasn’t exactly encouraged to be an athlete.  When I was young, my father enrolled me in piano lessons instead of having me join a t-ball or soccer team.  Most of the Asians that did play sports during my high school years stuck with activities like tennis or badminton instead of football, wrestling or basketball.  I didn’t play anything—mostly because my parents didn’t encourage it.  As a tomboy who collected baseball cards and watched basketball, I looked up to basketball players like Michael Jordan and my favorite baseball players were Mark McGwire and Rickey Henderson.  Not one of them was Asian like me.  Most of the Asian athletes I grew up with participated in more “delicate” sports—I’ll never forget French Open-winning tennis player Michael Chang with his “moon balls” and olympic gold medalist figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi’s triple triple combinations.  But when it came to the macho sports, an Asian presence was basically non-existent. Genetically speaking, Asians are known as the smallest and weakest race.  They aren’t known for the large muscles or athleticism.  Their Black, Caucasian and Hispanic counterparts have been dominant in America’s favorite sports—basketball, football, baseball—even NASCAR racing— for the as long as I can remember, but this month two Asian males proved that stereotype wrong, giving Asian children around the world role models. Hideki Matsui, a designated hitter for the Yankees, became the first Japanese man to win the World Series MVP for his record-tying six [More …]