Liu Kai

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This is a Chinese name; the family name is Liu.

Liu Kai (Simplified Chinese: 刘凯 born in 1988 in Tianjin, China) is a left-handed pitcher in the New York Yankees organization.

Liu began playing organized baseball at the age of 12, when he was enrolled in a sports school in China. At age 16, he became a professional baseball player when he began playing for the Guangdong Leopards of the China Baseball League. He has also participated as a member of the People's Republic of China National Team. ^[1]

Liu's best pitch is his fastball, topping out at 84 miles per hour. ^[2]

On June 18, 2007, became the first baseball player born in the People's Republic of China to sign a Major League Baseball contract with the prior permission of the China Baseball Association, along with Zhang Zhenwang, who also signed with the Yankees. ^[3] The first baseball player born in the People's Republic of China to sign with a Major League Baseball club was pitcher Wang Chao, who signed with the Seattle Mariners on August 9, 2001.