Left Coast Leaner

After spending a day playing at the Great Wall with the Padres, the rest of the weekend involved trekking all the way out to west Beijing to the Wukesong Baseball Field. (Here is the first part of the story.)

I popped into some press conferences, lingered around as stars were swarmed by media types, and took in a few innings of baseball.

During one of the batting practice sessions I had a somewhat informative conversation with one of the Padres' management types. Some of us were wondering if there was going to be a designated hitter in either game since both clubs are National League sides. There was a DH, both games, and I said how I dislike the DH and that I think it's a less pure form of baseball. The Padres guy agreed completely, but he told me that international baseball rules use a DH. News to me.

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was at a press conference when Padres manager (and former Giant) Bud Black answered a question about whether anyone would cheer for San Diego since they didn't have any Asian players on the roster (compared to the Dodgers who had Chan Ho Park and two Taiwanese guys). He admitted that people probably wouldn't cheer quite as loudly for them, only for Padres President (and former A's GM) Sandy Alderson to chime in with my favorite quote of the weekend:

"We fully expect Asian fans to cheer for the Dodgers, but we expect anyone from the US to boo the Dodgers."

Duck the fodgers, I say (and so did a clever sign I displayed at a Giants game all those years ago).

The games themselves were entertaining enough (although, for whatever reason, I didn't attend the second game). Fans were into it, clapping those obnoxious thundersticks at every opportunity. They don't do that at ballgames in the States do they? There was also a squad a cheerleaders that came out in between innings. I guess they decided to give the games the full Western treatment. The first game ended in a 3-3 tie, and when it was announced that it would not go into extra innings, the crowd booed.

But the action on the field was not nearly as compelling as the action off. The first game on Saturday was delayed for a while because the Chinese authorities were trying to get a handle on the madness that they thought might be brewing on the baseball diamond. This was, of course, hours after news broke about the goings on in Tibet, so the authorities didn't want any funny business at this international event they still had some control over.

What I heard was all second hand because, well, I guess I wasn't paying attention. But apparently at 11 am, two hours before the first pitch, all the foreign journalists at the game had their credentials stripped and were forced to get new ones. Why, it's tough to say. Meanwhile, a big group of Chinese Cub Scouts who were trying to get into the gates denied entry for several minutes until someone in the know intervened. I guess the guards worried a bunch of uniformed kiddies could only be up to no good.

There was also an incident after the game in which a throng of Korean fans were waiting outside the clubhouse for Dodgers starting pitcher Chan Ho Park to emerge. When he did, the crowd rushed towards him and the Chinese guards forcefully intervened. Apparently, I missed this fracas by about 30 seconds because I saw the crowd, walked into the post-game press conference and then heard a ruckus. But according to other accounts, Park was pissed because he wanted honor the wishes of his Korean fans who just wanted his autograph. He said he would not get on the team bus until he signed his name for every one of his fans, but then someone from the Dodgers said "no dice" and he had to leave them all hanging. Such is the security situation in China at the moment.