The baseball gods were smiling on Beijing on March 15.
The skies were clear and blue, which is a lot to ask from China’s capital city. Besides running out of hot dogs in the bottom of the second inning, the first game of the China Series went off without a hitch.
Fans witnessed the first MLB home run, pickle, and broken bat in Chinese history as the Dodgers and Padres battled to a 3-3 tie.
The Gwynn twins
While Matt Kemp and Andruw Jones launched batting practice balls over the right field bleachers, fans started to file into the park as early as possible. The line outside the gate bent down the street—and in a clear effort to practice for the Summer Olympics, a time-consuming security check caused hundreds of fans to miss the first inning after an hour wait.
Frank and Barbara Glenski have been to every Padres game since 1978. As they entered Wukesong Stadium in matching Tony Gwynn jerseys, it was clear that a trip to Beijing wasn't going to stop the streak.
But they seemed less concerned with the historic significance of the first MLB game in China than just seeing their Padres play baseball.
In addition to these San Diego diehards, fans ranged from Japanese and South Korean baseball enthusiasts to Beijing Little League and high school teams in full uniform, plus a number of Americans wearing an array of NL and AL caps.
Chinese people are great baseball fans. When the American ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, accompanied by the VP of the Beijing Olympic Committee, threw out the first pitch, the crowd went crazy. When Padres right fielder Drew Macias threw a ball into the bleachers between innings, they cheered. The first ball lifted into the air was a sky-high pop foul down the left field line—and they cheered louder.
Chinese fans might not understand all the intricate rules of baseball yet, but for the most part, they watch every pitch and applaud, well, everything.
Plus, they have fun translations for baseball lingo, including “double murder,” meaning double play.
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Bud Black was right when he admitted that Beijing might favor the Dodgers because of their three Asian players. Every time Taiwanese shortstop Chin-Lung Hu came to bat, he received hearty support from the bleachers.
He also committed the first-ever MLB error in China and lined into a bases-loaded double play—but Beijing was proud to have a Taiwanese brother on the field with the mighty Dodgers.
In the top of the third inning, fans were given a real opportunity to cheer. Justin Germano surrendered a solo bomb to George Lombard that sailed into the right field bleachers—where it was caught by the same guy who caught the ball tossed by Macias earlier in the game.
Of the 12,000 people in attendance, he was one of a handful who'd brought a glove—and it paid off for him. The crowd loved it.
4 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
Steve Yodz about 1 year ago
Sounds like a pretty cool game to attend. I'm a little surprised with the lack of support for the game, I would have expected it to be stronger. Hopefully it won't be long before there is the same global recognition of MLB players like the NBA has now. Good article.
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Jeff Swiryn about 1 year ago
It's hard to get a city of 20 million to focus on one thing. Unfortunately, the newspapers in Beijing only had a little blurb on an inside page about this event. Maybe next time it will be as big of a deal for China as it was for MLB this time. Seems like MLB wants to do a China Series 2009.
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Anonymous about 1 year ago
Well, let me give the perspective of someone who was at the game and lives in China:
1. Much of the city knew the game was going on and was excited about it. I talked to countless taxi drivers and random people about the game. It was on all of the Chinese news stories. It's not like the town ignored the games, they were very glad it came about.
2. The park was probably 80% Asian, and at least half Chinese. The first day there were more Koreans due to Chan Ho Park pitching, but on the second day there were many Chinese. The pessimistic line in the article by Mr. Wu saying that only a third were Chinese was dead wrong.
3. Baseball is becoming popular, but it will take a Chinese player to make it real popular in the mainland. Wang, Hu, etc. are all from Taiwan, and people from the mainland don't think that counts as a true Chinese player. Speaking of Wang and Hu, they alone have made baseball the most popular sport in Taiwan. Yao Ming alone made basketball huge here, so I'm assuming the same could happen with a good Chinese baseball player. One of the best parts of my trip was getting to the game about two hours early and watching Chinese friends and dads and sons playing catch in the parking lot, and after getting into the game.
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Jeff Swiryn about 1 year ago
Interesting perspective. I too live in China, and was at the game. I think Mr. Wu probably underestimated the number of Chinese people in the crowd, but by the time we were talking in the 9th inning, a lot of fans had left already.
Also, baseball has been huge in Taiwan since before Wang and Hu - Hu isn't even in the big leagues yet...I was in Taiwan in 2004 before Wang was pitching for the Yanks, and there was already a big baseball culture there. But, I do agree that mainland China needs a solid big leaguer before this country will obsess like they do for basketball.
Finally, I guess we talked to different cab drivers - most of the ones I talked to didn't know much about what was going on. I never meant to say that the series was a failure. The point is, reviews were mixed and baseball is not very popular in China yet, but its popularity is growing quickly.
If Beijing cared as much about pushing baseball in Chin as the MLB does, they would not tear down Wukesong Stadium. Technically the stadium's fate is still undecided, but it is a good bet that the ballpark will be gone after the Olympics.
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