MLB China Series 2008: Dodgers, Padres Tie in Game One

In the top of the fourth inning, a foreigner-induced wave overtook most of the stadium. That's when you knew baseball had truly arrived in China.

After five innings, "Hell's Bells" rang loudly over the loudspeaker, and Beijing welcomed baseball's all-time saves leader to his first Chinese mound.

Trevor Hoffman made fairly quick work of the Dodgers in the top of the sixth.

An inning later, the announcer came on the PA system to lead the stadium in "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Before the singing started, he welcomed all who didn’t know the words to "turn to page 16 of your programs, where you’ll find the lyrics to a traditional American baseball song."

Double Murder

The Dodgers and Padres traded runs to leave the score tied at three heading into the top of the ninth. With Chin-Lung Hu due up again, the fans were up out of their seats.

Sitting in the right field bleachers was a local man who obviously knew the intricacies of the game, as his cheering was on point and his yelling at the Taiwanese shortstop seemed like second nature.

His name was Wu Ling. I decided to ask him the question of the weekend: “Are you cheering for the Dodgers because this Taiwanese guy is on their team?”

“I was,” he said, “but he seems to commit double murder more often than he gets on base.”

Mr. Wu has been a baseball fan since he was in middle school. Though he didn’t really understand the game until high school, he explained that baseball had always intrigued him as a kid—an interesting fact given the lack of baseball in China when Mr. Wu was a boy.

Sitting next to him was his son, and the duo reminded me of a typical father-son fan combo in the bleachers at any American game.

As Mr. Wu seemed to be about the closest thing to diehard a baseball fan I was going to find in Beijing, I asked him a few more questions.

“To tell you the truth, I think Beijing will have a hard time accepting baseball anytime soon,” he said when asked about the game's future in China. “There are not enough fans, it’s hard to watch a game here, and it’s rarely on TV.”

Bummer, I thought. 

Mr. Wu went on to talk about the lack of Chinese talent, and then pointed to the crowd, which was beginning to thin out.

“Look around,” he said. “Maybe a third of these fans are Chinese. It will be a while before we can fill a stadium with Chinese people.”

I guess the instructional video on the subway trains about the rules of baseball hadn’t quite reached the masses yet. But even though nobody won the first MLB game in China, it happened.

Baseball was here. It was historic.

And it beat the NFL to Beijing.

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?