Baseball in China, Part 2: Dodgers, Padres Settle Into Beijing

Five Pine Trees

After the opening of the new No. 5 subway line in Beijing, the city decided to lower ticket prices in an effort to get some cars off the roads. The new price is 2RMB (about 30 cents) no matter how far you ride any of the subway lines.

The result: Same amount of cars on the road—and a subway system that couldn't get any more saturated with cheap commuters.  But it also has instructional videos of baseball rules.

Wukesong Stadium—Wukesong means “Five Pine Trees” in English—is on line No. 1. Coming from the east side of Beijing, I rode past Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, and through the crowds to Wukesong station. 

The Olympic baseball venue isn't hard to spot. It's actually three ballparks—two competition fields and a practice field. The giant “MLB Series 2008” banners hanging from the outside of the main stadium make it stick out quite obviously.

Sadly, all three temporary stadiums will be torn down after the Olympics. 

In front of the stadium, the setting is not unlike that at any typical Chinese sporting complex. A group of elderly women dances with drums, another group practices Tai Qi, and a couple of old men are sitting with their caged birds.

When asked if they know what this weekends' events are all about, the old men say confidently, “bangqiu”, the Chinese word for baseball, and then continue discussing their birds.

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