Voices

Time to catch up on the ball field

By Brad Webber (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-06 08:08

Umpires barked "batter up!" and box scores rolled in. Luminaries tossed ceremonial first pitches as professional baseball's opening day, an American ritual, got under way Monday.

For fans of Major League Baseball (MLB), which is also closely watched in Latin America, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan province, hope springs eternal in a game invented for optimists.

Consider the hapless Chicago Cubs, a team that hasn't won a World Series title since 1908: For a century fans have stood by their team, endearingly called the Lovable Losers, and blamed failure on a curse laid in 1945 by a tavern owner who was ejected from the ballpark for bringing along his beloved goat. Still, the Cubs and their devotees doggedly cling to their dreams.

Thousands of miles away, the 30 men on the roster of the Beijing Tigers professional team share that enduring patience as they strive for athletic excellence in a sport that is little understood, underpromoted and underfunded on the Chinese mainland.

Despite the challenges, hope springs eternal for them, too.

Few players anywhere on the globe embody the love of the game more than Tigers stars Wang Wei and Yang Yang, China's top catchers.

Wang heeded the call to play for his country, giving up a spot on a Seattle Mariners farm club to join Yang on China's team in the 2008 Olympics. Representing the host country, the squad got an automatic berth; though they finished last among eight teams, there were flashes of brilliance, as when they beat Chinese Taipei.

In an Olympics round against the US, Yang and Wang literally got plowed over by American base runners, leaving Wang with an injury that knocked him out of the 2009 season. Even though they were losing to the eventual bronze medal winners, Yang smacked a home run and emphatically stomped on the plate, delivering a punctuation mark for Team China.

"Believe! Believe!" Yang said after a Tigers workout last week, recalling his Olympics emotions in front of the home crowd.

My colleague Wang Chao and I visited Yang, 24, and Wang, 32 - mentor and acolyte - in the dorm room they share on a college campus in the Daxing district.

I first met Yang over dinner last summer with a mutual friend.

In a bit of horseplay Yang expertly smacked a peanut I lobbed his way, proving he's as dangerous with a chopstick as he is a Louisville Slugger.

The China Baseball League season opens on May 28 and the Tigers are primed to renew their crown against the likes of the Tianjin Lions, Sichuan Dragons, Henan Elephants and the Guangdong Leopards, among others.

In the Big Show, as fans call MLB, crowds in the upper tens of thousands fill the stands. The Tigers attract only a few hundred.

That's because the team depends on the General Administration of Sport of China for promotion. When it comes to baseball the organization has dropped the ball. There are no Beijing Tigers T-shirts, ball caps or pennants for sale, let alone the peanuts and Cracker Jack.

This is in stark contrast to a typical Western pro sports franchise, which derives a large percentage of its profits from merchandising. The goods burnish team logos into the hearts, minds and wallets of enthusiasts.

With the International Olympic Committee's decision to yank baseball from the 2012 and 2016 Games, more support from the sports authorities is unlikely.

"The strategy of Chinese sports is very Olympics-oriented," Wang said. "They will pay attention" if the sport is on the Games program.

I asked whether a mainland athlete landing in the starting rotation of a MLB team might bring more glory to the motherland than would an Olympic figure skating gold medal.

"Well, it should," said Wang.

Don't sound the death knell for baseball in China. MLB's leadership is champing at the bat, if you will, to develop the next Yao Ming for the sport.

In September the league opened a professional development center in Wuxi, west of Shanghai. Over the weekend, the American league set up a "MLB Baseball Park" for game skills at the Solana shopping and entertainment area.

In February it brought the New York Yankee's Tiffany and Co. World Series trophy to a Beijing mall.

For China, athletics has been a true zero-to-hero scenario. Two decades ago, who would have thought that a Chinese hurdler would be the world's best, or that the country's tennis players would be Grand Slam threats? That snowboarders would be high-flying competitors in snowboarding, for heaven's sake?

"The NBA spent 15 years to reach this level in China," said Wang. "Major League Baseball has only been here since 2007."

If only the authorities would show a little of the catchers' moxie and step up to the plate.