Perched on the Great Wall of China, Trevor Hoffman gazed over the slick cobblestones and through the watchtowers to survey a barrier to invading armies that once stretched thousands of kilometers.
This weekend, the Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers are playing two exhibition games in China. They will be Major League Baseball's first games there, and the Padres relief pitcher and the team's 100-person delegation began baseball's pitch on Thursday on a stretch of the famous monument just north of Beijing.
Hoffman mugged for TV, stretched his arms wide as if he were about to soar off the wall, and answered questions from local reporters with a faint grasp of the game, which is called bangqiu -- stick ball -- in Chinese.
PHOTO: AP
"Look at the view," Hoffman said. "Take a look. It's unbelievable, isn't it? I think I'd feel pretty safe on this wall in the day when Mongolia was coming after 'em."
Selling baseball in China will be tough, where the game has few roots and players. However, MLB can see the potential in a country with 1.3 billion people, where incomes are rising and the NBA and European soccer teams have already shown the way.
"One day we'll look back on this -- maybe a landmark event -- and say it was the start of many great years of baseball history in China," Hoffman said. "You think of all the emperors and dynasties they've had. This had a beginning. I'm sure building the wall felt equally daunting when they started."
Getting attention on Thursday was easy. Chinese TV stations attended the event, Chinese tourists snapped photos of some of the unknown players, and young girls ran by giggling "hello" and "xie, xie."
Sellouts over the weekend would help baseball's reputation. The game will not be played in the 2012 Olympics in London but could be reinstated for 2016.
Cen Wei was asked what he knew about the American pastime, and the 24-year-old Chinese tourist responded by waving a rolled up newspaper he was carrying -- more like swinging an ax than a bat -- and said he'd like to see a game.
"It's good for eyesight, flexibility speed and teamwork," he said. "I'm interested, but I don't think I can see it on TV."
Padres manager Bud Black described the goodwill trip as a chance for MLB to "sew a few seeds," saying the games themselves were of little importance. Both teams have brought just a handful of starters, leaving most of their top pitchers in the US.
"The popularity of basketball here just went off the charts when Yao Ming got to the NBA," Black said. "That's what baseball is looking for."
Traipsing to the apex of the twisting wall was a test of fitness. Becky Moores, wife of Padres team owner John Moores, made it to the highest rampart. After arriving several days ago in the polluted air of Beijing, she welcomed the clean air of the countryside.
"Now I can breathe, my chest is open," she said.
Sandy Alderson, the Padres CEO, predicted a Chinese-born player might make the major leagues in three years, but he said it was more likely a "six-to eight-year project."
"The games will put us on the map a little bit but, look, it's a big photo op," he said.
"This is really going to take time, money and personnel. You can't develop the sport over night when we have three or four people in China compared to the NBA with several hundred," he said.
The qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is to be held at the Taipei Dome between Feb. 21 and 25, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today. Taiwan’s group also includes Spain, Nicaragua and South Africa, with two of the four teams advancing onto the 2026 WBC. Taiwan, currently ranked second in the world in the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, are favorites to come out of the group, the MLB said in an article announcing the matchups. Last year, Taiwan finished in a five-way tie in their group with two wins and two losses, but finished last on tiebreakers after giving
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
RSS