Baseball’s Yankees Headed to China
The New York Yankees are sending a “delegation” to Beijing next week that might lead to the establishment of a baseball academy in China, reports the Washington Post.
The team is sending its top brass in what would appear to be an effort to woo Chinese leaders in advance of the 2008 Olympics. Yankees President Randy Levine and General Manager Brian Cashman will head up the party.
“Everybody thinks that that is a great place to grow the sport of baseball,” Levine said. “There’s a real appetite for it. The Chinese want to move forward and expand their talents in the game and really make it a well-known, very active sport.”
Major League Baseball, along with every other major sports league, would love to make its sport the next big thing among China’s 1.3 billion consumers. Just don’t expect China to become a pipeline of talent to the MLB a la the Dominican Republican or even Japan. China got wailed on in last year’s Baseball World Series, going 0-3 in losses to Japan (18-2), South Korea (10-1) and Taiwan (12-3).
On other China sports front news, Houston Rockets All-Star center Yao Ming likely will not begin on-court workouts until after the February 16-18 NBA All-Star game after fracturing his tibia in late December. Yao, who is averaging 26 points per game in the best season of his career, still managed to lead all NBA players in all-star voting.
January 29, 2007 at 2:38 am
I wonder what, if any, role the Red Sox signing Daisuke had in the Yankee’s decision. That said, since China is sensitive to invasion by imperial powers, somebody might want to warn Beijing that they are about to do business with the ultimate “Evil Empire.”
January 29, 2007 at 4:00 am
Well said. There’s something vaguely humorous about the Yankees sending its “delegation” of top brass to China. Do you think they send the same group to Valenzuela or Puerto Rico when they cut ribbon at a new baseball academy or sign some players? But the Yankees insist this visit to China has nothing to do with politics.