MLB in China
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In the past year, CCTV has broadcasted high-profile MLB games, such as the 2009 World Series and the 2010 Opening Day game between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. Marone said the Opening Day game fell on the Qingming Festival, a holiday in which the Chinese pay respect to the dead. This allowed many Chinese, who had the day off from work, to watch the game that began at 8 a.m. local time.
The ability to watch games draws fans, but MLB hopes to create a generation of players. In 2007, MLB launched Play Ball!, a program that has incorporated baseball into physical education classes in 120 elementary schools in five cities throughout China. Play Ball! isn't confined to gym classes, though.
"After school, we have the P.E. teacher have his own baseball team," Marone said. "For MLB, right now, one of the most important things to do is to get people aware and playing."
In 2009, MLB opened a development center to cultivate talent and educate young Chinese baseball players. Located in east China at Dongbeitang High School in Xishan District, Wuxi, the development center teaches baseball and academic skills. The program, which does not charge tuition, has a steady enrollment of 60 students, 10 in each class from seventh to 12th grade. MLB recruits students from around China and uses a series of tests, such as a 30-yard dash, broad jump and ball throw, to help determine the best candidates for the program. But it's not about only the physical.
"You've got to get people who are prepared academically to be successful," said Rick Dell, the director of baseball development in Asia for MLB. "Our seventh-grade class of players has a 92 average in English. That's pretty good."
Dell said while MLB's aim is to expand baseball's reach throughout the country, one area embraces baseball most. Beijing is ripe for baseball, a sport that generally thrives in warm climates.
"Beijing seems to have, even though it's probably the northernmost city with baseball, the best baseball culture that I've been exposed to here," Dell said from his Beijing office. "The Beijing team seems to have a different level of awareness about the game. And I'm talking about the younger players."
Despite the acumen and enthusiasm that Dell sees in Beijing, baseball has a long way to go. Less than a year after MLB staged exhibition games between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres at Beijing's Wukesong Sports Center, plans to demolish the 15,000-seat stadium, a temporary venue created for the 2008 Olympics, and turn it into a shopping mall had developed.
Besides the lack of fields, baseball has another hurdle to hop before becoming popular in China: not being an Olympic sport. China generally focuses its efforts on Olympic sports, and baseball will not be at the 2012 or 2016 Olympics. Marone said, though, that could be overcome.
"The Chinese need to see a Chinese face for developing the sport," Marone said. "With the nature of sport in general, you get really happy when your team, your side or your player wins. That's the way sports work."
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