take me out to the bangqiu bisai
if you’re a fan of mediocre baseball — yes, i mean you, pittsburgh pirates fans — you’re just going to love the china baseball league. baseball, huge in japan and taiwan, has never really caught on here in china. for evidence of this, just look at the CBL (the only pro league in a country of 1.3 billion), which could only scrounge up four teams.
this is the CBL’s third season, and last friday i was there for opening day: shanghai eagles vs. beijing tigers. shanghai’s congbei stadium in pudong is not conveniently located — the nearest subway stop is a 22 kuai cab ride away — but that didn’t stop shanghai’s baseball fans from coming out in droves.
when my contingent arrived 20 minutes before game time, there wasn’t an unoccupied seat in the house. it was a standing-room-only crowd of more than 3,000. and if you didn’t know any better, you would have thought that all the fans were decked out in the colors of their favorite CBL teams.
but …
then you’d say to yourself, “hmmm. these fans look strangely similar to school children in school uniforms.” and then you’d start asking some questions. and you’d find out that for about 95 percent of the spectators, attendance was mandatory. after about four-and-a-half innings — at about the time school would be letting out — big blocks of fans started exiting the stadium en masse. by the middle of the fifth, we were down to around 50 fans … and i could sit wherever the hell i wanted. (the turnout was even worse the following day: when it started to drizzle, all — i repeat, all — of the fans in attendance could fit in the VIP section to take cover … with plenty of room to spare.)
but this is live baseball. and frankly, after about a year-and-a-half in china, i’ll take what i can get. i was somewhat surprised that more americans in shanghai didn’t feel the same way. at both games, the only westerners in attendance were the ones who arrived with me (except for a guy with his kids at the saturday game … but he doesn’t count because he split the moment it started to rain). the lack of westerners in attendance likely has much to do with the fact that information about the CBL (in english, at least) is scarce at best. i had to do some digging. and as a service to all of you baseball fans out there, i have included the shanghai eagles schedule at the bottom of this post.
it’s a shame you missed the opening day festivities, however. there were no hot dogs, no crackerjacks. but there were dragons and confetti, birds and balloons. the league mascot was there, the famous monkey king. he tried to throw souvenir balls into the stands, but his arm wasn’t strong enough to chuck them over the fence. shanghai’s mascot was there, too, but it looked more like a chicken than an eagle. i have no scouting report on his throwing arm.
the baseball, though, was baseball, if a little bit rough around the edges. people i went with compared it to below-average college ball or pretty good high school ball in the states. not sure if china is going to pose much of a threat in the 2008 beijing olympics, which was a main impetus for getting the CBL started three years ago. (of course the US probably won’t even qualify a team for the 2008 games. they didn’t this year. inexcusable. i blame bush.)
but maybe the 2020 games will be a different story for china. one of the more bizarre aspects of congbei stadium is that it also houses a preschool. seriously. it’s underneath the stands on the third-base side. you have to walk through the damn thing to enter the stadium. today’s congbei preschoolers are tomorrow’s CBL all-stars.
related: photos from opening day
china baseball league (CBL)2004 shanghai eagles schedule
date :: time :: opponent :: result
(ALL CAPS = home game)04.02 :: 15.00 :: BEIJING :: L, 1-0
04.03 :: 15.00 :: BEIJING :: W, 5-4
04.04 :: 10.00 :: BEIJING :: L, 8-0
04.09 :: 15.00 :: TIANJIN ::
04.10 :: 15.00 :: TIANJIN ::
04.11 :: 10.00 :: TIANJIN :: shanghai TV
04.16 :: 15.00 :: at beijing
04.17 :: 09.00 :: at beijing :: beijing TV
04.18 :: 10.00 :: at beijing
04.23 :: 15.00 :: at tianjin
04.24 :: 15.00 :: at tianjin :: tianjin TV
04.25 :: 10.00 :: at tianjin
04.30 :: 15.00 :: GUANGDONG :: shanghai TV
05.01 :: 15.00 :: GUANGDONG
05.02 :: 10.00 :: GUANGDONG
05.07 :: 18.30 :: at guangdong
05.08 :: 18.30 :: at guangdong
05.09 :: 18.30 :: at guangdong :: guangdong TV
05.15 :: tba :: china baseball festival
05.16 :: tba :: CBL all-star game
05.21 :: 15.00 :: BEIJING
05.22 :: 15.00 :: BEIJING
05.23 :: 15.00 :: BEIJING :: shanghai TV
05.28 :: 15.00 :: TIANJIN :: shanghai TV
05.29 :: 15.00 :: TIANJIN
05.30 :: 10.00 :: TIANJIN
06.04 :: 15.00 :: at beijing
06.05 :: 09.00 :: at beijing
06.06 :: 14.30 :: at beijing
06.11 :: 18.30 :: at tianjin
06.12 :: 18.30 :: at tianjin
06.13 :: 10.00 :: at tianjin
06.18 :: 18.30 :: at guangdong
06.19 :: 18.30 :: at guangdong
06.20 :: 10.00 :: at guangdong :: guangdong TV
06.25 :: 15.00 :: GUANGDONG
06.26 :: 15.00 :: GUANGDONG
06.27 :: 10.00 :: GUANGDONG :: shanghai TV
07.02 :: tba :: playoffs
07.03 :: tba :: playoffs
07.09 :: tba :: playoffs
07.10 :: tba :: playoffs
07.11 :: tba :: playoffs
directions to congbei stadium: it is located at yunlian lu and qihe lu in pudong. you could just take a taxi there. or you could take the subway (line 2) to either the dongchang lu or dongfang lu station. and then take a cab. if you are a bus person, i have no info for you. i hate the bus.
04.08.2004, 3:06 PM · Observations, Sports
4 Comments
Hi Dan: Glad you find the new fun in Shanghai. People in Shanghai was never big into base ball. However, maybe you can show them how enthused Americans are with this sports. Shhh.. if I were u, I’d keep quiet about hanging out with Shanghai high school girls, people here in the US might get the wrong idea. :-D
sounds interesting. we have a softball team at highschool,guess one of the best in China…
One thing I moved from shanghai to Beijing only after one month I was in Shanghai——because of the baseball. Now I could go to watch baseball games every Saturday, sometimes play between Japanese teams, sometimes play between Korean and Japanese teams. Its good because finally even girls could talk with yankees’s games and all star like that….:-)
FYI, quite a few ex-Taiwanese pro players go to CHN to help deveop baseball teams both in SH and BJ. In fact, China’s performance in international games is getting better, esp. when matching w/ Taiwan. There is a rumor that BJ is considering drop baseball off 2008 Olympic games for its disadvantage in this sport. Since baseball is Taiwan’s pride, I don’t hope this realizes.