Baseball In Shanghai? Another American Sport Exported To China
By Richard Robbins, Thu Dec 8th

As an athlete (or at least having been an athlete in the past)and a sports fan, one of the difficult things about findingmyself on an extended stay in Shanghai, China (setting upsporting goods manufacturing and other business contacts) is thenear isolation from most American sports. Although basketball,over the past ten or so years, has become popular among theChinese people, baseball has yet to find its way into the sportsculture here. While at every school or playground it's likelyyou'll find some kid aspiring to become the next Yao Ming,mention the term "baseball" to most Chinese, even ones who speakpretty good English, and you'll likely find yourself having tosearch through a phrasebook to find the Chinese phrase forbaseball: "bangqiu" (pronounced bong chi-o).

I had heard from some of the expatriates living in Shanghai thatthere was some sort of baseball team playing in the city, so Idid some Google searches to see whether I could find informationabout the team. I found a few articles on the Internet about theShanghai Eagles' spring trip to the U.S. to compete againstjunior college teams. The game summaries, published by the newspeople at a few of the U.S. schools against which the Eaglesplayed, described a team that had decent pitching, but not muchhitting. As can happen with that kind of team chemistry, theShanghai club lost all seven of its exhibition games in the U.S.

I didn't expect much when I went to watch the team play, but Iwas excited to actually see a baseball field again, having beenin China for awhile, and I wanted to experience the baseballenvironment here. A Chinese friend of mine hunted downinformation about where the Shanghai Eagles played and at whattime, so I took my wife out for a Friday afternoon at thebaseball field.

The old ball game didn't have any peanuts or Cracker-Jacks, orhot dogs, or drinks, or very many spectators. There was a mascotdressed in a chicken suit, and, although we had to search behindsome buildings to find it, surprisingly the field looked prettystandard. There was a total of probably fifty people inattendance when the game began. People came and went as the gameprogressed. Something that struck me was the feeling that manythere were obviously hard-core baseball fans, the kind you wouldexpect to find catching foul balls at a MLB park. After quicklybeing spotted as one of the only white guys in attendance, I wasapproached by Dan Washburn, a news consultant doing a story forBaseball America. During my conversation with him, he told methat he met some older Chinese men at one of the games he'dattended. He mentioned that when he asked them what brought themout to the event, they told him they played ball when they weremuch younger, being forced to leave the game behind when MaoZedong did away with the American influence during the CulturalRevolution. As for the group of boisterous, college-agedenthusiasts, I was told that a group of them attended the localbaseball college, and they were being trained to later becomeprofessionals. (In China, many children who express a particularathletic skill are guided down a specialized path devotedlargely to the ultimate fulfillment of their athleticcapabilities.) There were some younger T-ball aged kids at thegame who were introduced to me by the uncle of one of the boys.He wanted them to practice English with me and my wife, andlater the two boys asked me to play catch with them using thehomemade-looking, well-used baseball one of the boys brought tothe game.

The area we used to play catch was the same grass area outsidethe stadium used by the professional teams to warm up theirbullpen pitchers. I used the opportunity to get a feel for howwell a professional pitcher in China throws. The one I saw wasprobably throwing in the high-70's to low 80's. I watched himthrow curve balls with some good movement and change ups aswell. His control was comparable to an average to good collegepitcher.

The particular game we watched went into extra innings as theEagles dropped a large lead late in the game. Being distractedby people attempting to practice English during the tenth andeleventh innings, it wasn't until the twelfth that I noticed astrange twist to baseball as the Chinese play it. Probably forthe sake of ending the game as soon as possible, they allow bothteams to start extra innings with a runner on second base. Oneproblem I saw with this approach is that it made the gameboring, as the apparent lack of confidence in hitting on thepart of both teams turned the extra innings into a bunt-fest.Finally Tianjin broke open and went on to win 9-5 in 12 innings.

During the game, I met some college baseball players who hadbecome interested in baseball when they came to college. Theydon't attend the designated baseball college, so theireducational involvement baseball is only extra-curricular. Theyinvited me to play with them, and I have participated in

some oftheir practices and scrimmages.

On a Wednesday afternoon in May I followed the directions givento me to meet the team at the Shanghai Teacher's University onGuilin Road. The field where the team practiced wasn't actuallya baseball field. It was a general-purpose field used mainly forsoccer and track exercises. I have quickly come to understandthat the space limitations in Shanghai, similar to most parts ofChina, make it so that facilities have to double up on theirusage. It was amusing to me to watch as we set up for ascrimmage. The areas where right and center field should be wasfilled with a mix of people, including a few of our peopleplaying those positions, and soccer players who were not in theleast interested in what we were doing, especially since theywere fully engaged in their own game. As fly balls dropped amongthem, some of the soccer players would pick the balls up andtoss them back, while others would, with a demonstration ofirritation, kick them out of the way. Fortunately for the soccerplayers, none of them were hit.

Many of the baseball players were not so lucky. A healthy fearof hard baseballs traveling at high speeds seems to be secondnature for most Americans, as if we are born with anunderstanding that if a ball is fouled off into someone's face,it's going to hurt like heck at best. Although most of themdidn't understand what I was saying, I attempted many times totell those watching the action to back away from the batter andcatcher. During one ten-minute interval, I saw three people gethit hard in the face or head by baseballs. Throughout the wholepractice there were constant near-misses as well.

On-deck hitters kept with the Chinese custom for preservingone's place in line by crowding behind the person in front. Thatapproach is okay for the local McDonald's. In fact, if you don'tpush your way up in line, you will find yourself standing in thesame place for a long time, with person after person jumping infront of you. However, when the person at the front of the lineis swinging a bat, a different set of rules should apply.

During the first practice with the college players, I wasinvited to pitch to the team as they scrimmaged. It soon becameapparent that there were various skill levels represented at theplate. I was reminded of something I saw in Little League (wherekids are usually just beginning to learn how to react to ballsthrown towards them) when a particularly nervous batteraccidentally stepped in front of the plate, opening up towardsthe ball so that it hit him directly in the stomach. FortunatelyI was only throwing about 70 mph, so no major damage was done,except that the player was likely quickly cured of any interesthe had in the new American sport. After that incident the otherplayers warned me when I was pitching to someone who was new, soI could slow it down enough for them to take some solid cuts.

In a country where the sport hasn't really caught on yet, itamazes me that these players respond so well to the difficultiesof learning baseball. It is obvious that many of these people,girls and guys alike, have developed a love and even a passionfor the game. Before their season started in June, theypracticed on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Most practice sessionslast five hours or longer. During the time I have participatedwith them, I have seen their skills improve, with arm strengthincreasing and fielding and batting capabilities doing the same.

So when the Olympics come to Beijing in 2008, what can we expectfrom the Chinese team? Will it be somewhat of an embarrassment,like the Greek team's performance in 2004? Or will the home teamhave a chance to compete? My personal opinion is that thecompetition level doesn't exist in China now for the nationalteam to compete with the likes of Japan, Taiwan, the U.S., orCuba. However, if they can get enough exposure by playingoutside of China, they might just pull off a medal. As for thelong-term outlook on baseball in China, comments made by someonewho has more experience with the system, as an investor andactive baseball supporter in China, give a pretty good take onthe subject. When I mentioned to him that I was consideringopening a baseball retail store or batting cage in Shanghai, oneof the founders of the CBL told me that it wouldn't be a badidea if I didn't mind starving for a couple of years. A fewyears from now however, he said, a much different scenario islikely to exist, with baseball possibly becoming what it is inTaiwan.

[This article, written by Richard Robbins, was originallypublished online at http://www.robbinssports.com/articles.]

About the author:Richard Robbins is a former athlete and a sports entrepreneur.He is an owner of RobbinsSports.com, an onlinesporting goods retail store and Robbins International,an importing and exporting company specializing in supplyingproducts from China to U.S. companies.