As an athlete (or at least having been an athlete in the past) and sports fan, one of the hard things about finding myself in an extended stay in Shanghai, China (establishing sporting goods manufacturing and other business contacts) is close isolation. of most American sports. Although basketball has, over the last ten years or so, become popular among the Chinese, baseball has yet to find its way into the sports culture here. While in every school or playground you’re likely to find a kid who aspires to be the next Yao Ming, mention the term “baseball” to most Chinese, even those who speak fairly good English, and chances are good. you may have to search through a phrase book to find the Chinese phrase for baseball: “bangqiu” (pronounced bong chi-o).
I had heard from some of the expats living in Shanghai that there was some sort of baseball team playing in the city, so I did a few Google searches to see if I could find any information on the team. I found some articles online about the Shanghai Eagles spring trip to the US to compete against college teams. Game summaries, published by reporters from some of the American schools the Eagles played against, described a team that had decent pitching but not much hitting. As can happen with that kind of team chemistry, the Shanghai club lost all seven of its exhibition games in the US.
I wasn’t expecting much when I went to see the team play, but I was excited to see a baseball field again, having been in China for a while, and wanted to experience the baseball atmosphere here. A Chinese friend of mine was looking for information on where the Shanghai Eagles were playing and what time, so I took my wife out on a Friday afternoon to the baseball field.
The old ball game had no peanuts or crackers, no hotdogs, no drinks, and no crowds. There was a mascot dressed in a chicken suit and although we had to look behind a few buildings to find it, surprisingly the course looked pretty standard. There were a total of probably fifty people present when the game started. People came and went as the game progressed. One thing that struck me was the sense that many of them were obviously baseball fans, the kind you’d expect to find catching foul balls in an MLB park. After quickly being seen as one of the only white people present, Dan Washburn, a news consultant who was writing a story for Baseball America, approached me. During my conversation with him, he told me that he met some older Chinese men at one of the games he had attended. He mentioned that when he asked them what brought them to the event, they told him that they played ball when they were much younger and were forced to leave the game when Mao Zedong ended American influence during the Cultural Revolution. As for the group of boisterous college-age enthusiasts, I was told that a group of them attended the local baseball college and were being trained to later become professionals. (In China, many children expressing a particular athletic ability are guided down a specialized path devoted in large part to the maximum development of their athletic abilities.) of one of the boys. I wanted them to practice English with me and my wife, and later the two boys asked me to play catch with them using the used, homemade-looking baseball that one of the boys brought to the game.
The area we used to play ball was the same area of grass outside the stadium that professional teams used to warm up their bullpen pitchers. I took the opportunity to get an idea of how well a professional pitcher throws in China. The one I saw was probably in the high 70s and low 80s. I saw him throw curveballs with good movement and changeups as well. His control was comparable to that of an average to good college pitcher.
The particular game we watched went into extra innings as the Eagles blew a big lead late in the game. Being distracted by people trying to practice English during the tenth and eleventh innings, it wasn’t until the twelfth that I noticed a strange twist to baseball as the Chinese play it. Probably for the sake of ending the game as soon as possible, they allow both teams to start extra innings with a runner on second base. One problem I saw with this approach was that it made the game boring, as the apparent lack of hitting confidence on the part of both teams turned the extra innings into a bunt fest. Finally, Tianjin opened up and won 9-5 in 12 innings.
During the game, I met some college baseball players who had taken an interest in baseball when they got to college. They do not attend the designated baseball college, so their educational involvement in baseball is extracurricular only. They invited me to play with them and I have participated in some of their practices and skirmishes.
On a Wednesday afternoon in May, I followed the instructions I was given to meet the team at the Shanghai Teachers University on Guilin Road. The field where the team practiced was not actually a baseball field. It was a general purpose field used primarily for soccer and track drills. I quickly realized that space limitations in Shanghai, similar to those in most of China, mean that facilities have to double their use. It was fun for me to see how we prepare for a fight. The areas where right and center field should be were filled with a mix of people, including some of our own who played those positions, and football players who weren’t the least bit interested in what we were doing, especially because they were fully engaged. his own game. As lofty balls fell between them, some of the soccer players picked them up and threw them back, while others, with a show of irritation, kicked them out of the way. Fortunately for the footballers, none of them were injured.
Many of the baseball players were not so lucky. A healthy fear of hard baseballs traveling at high speeds seems second nature to most Americans, as if we were born with the understanding that if a ball is pushed into someone’s face, at best cases will hurt a lot. Although most of them didn’t understand what I was saying, I tried many times to tell those watching the action to get away from the batter and catcher. During a ten minute interval, I saw three people get hit hard in the face or head by baseballs. Throughout the entire practice there were also constant near misses.
Deck beaters maintained the Chinese custom of preserving their place in line by piling up behind the person in front. That approach is fine for the local McDonald’s. In fact, if you don’t move forward in line, you’ll find yourself standing in one place for a long time, with person after person jumping in front of you. However, when the person at the front of the line is batting, a different set of rules must apply.
During the first practice with the college players, I was invited to pitch to the team as they played. It soon became apparent that there were various skill levels represented on the plate. I was reminded of something I saw in Little League (where kids are usually just beginning to learn how to react to balls being thrown at them) when a particularly nervous hitter accidentally stepped in front of home plate, opening up for the ball to hit. him directly in the stomach. Fortunately, he was only throwing around 70 mph, so there was no major damage, except that the player was probably quickly cured of any interest he had in the new American sport. After that incident, the other players warned me when he was throwing someone who was new, so he could slow down enough for them to take some solid cuts.
In a country where the sport has not yet caught on, I am surprised that these players respond so well to the difficulties of learning baseball. It is obvious that many of these people, both girls and boys, have developed a love and even a passion for the game. Before their season started in June, they practiced on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Most practice sessions last five hours or more. During the time that I have participated with them, I have seen their skills improve, increasing their arm strength and doing the same with their fielding and hitting abilities.
So when the Olympic Games come to Beijing in 2008, what can we expect from the Chinese team? Will it be something embarrassing, like the performance of the Greek team in 2004? Or will the home team get a chance to compete? My personal opinion is that the level of competition in China now does not exist for the national team to compete with teams like Japan, Taiwan, USA or Cuba. However, if they can get enough exposure by playing outside of China, they could get a medal. As for the long-term outlook for baseball in China, comments made by someone who has more experience with the system, as an investor and active supporter of baseball in China, give a very good insight into the matter. When I mentioned that I was considering opening a baseball store or batting cage in Shanghai, one of the CBL’s founders told me it wouldn’t be a bad idea if I didn’t mind starving for a couple of years. . In a few years, however, he said, a very different scenario is likely to exist, with baseball possibly becoming what it is in Taiwan.
