People often marvel at Chinese athletes who are record-holders and Olympic medalists, but I admire those who play the loneliest sport in China: baseball players. I admire them not because of their skills. In fact, their pitching and batting could hardly compete with the top ranking countries. I support them for their persistence on the great game of baseball.
I am a staunch baseball fan and I follow baseball all year round. Though I mostly watch Major League Baseball, I also root for China’s baseball team—once every four years because that is when they are able to play in the World Baseball Classic. The last time China participated in a tournament was the 2009 WBC, and the last win for China was a 4-1 victory over Chinese Taipei in that tournament.
In early March when China closer Lu Jiangang struck out Brazil’s last batter, sealing the 5-2 victory for China in this year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC), team China started a celebration that matched the fervor of the World Series Champions…in an almost empty stadium. Although China would not advance to the next round because of losses to Japan and Cuba, the win over Brazil automatically grants a spot for China in the WBC tournament in 2017.
Winning, however, is bittersweet for China’s baseball team. Most of the players on this year’s roster will not make it to the next tournament. What’s more disconcerting is that no one can predict what team China will look like in 2017.
Before this year’s WBC, it shocked me quite a bit that I could not find the roster of China’s 2013 WBC team on any Chinese website. There was an official roster in Chinese Pinyin on the World Baseball Classic website, but I had no way of knowing the Chinese names of the players. After all, they are the national team, representing a whole country, and they at least deserved a mention on a Chinese sports website.
Actually, the temperature for baseball in China dropped below freezing point as soon as baseball was declared out of the London Olympics. The most bittersweet win was the victory in the 2008 Beijing Olympics over Chinese Taipei, in which China used a five-run rally in the 12th inning to win 8-7. After a brief and emotional celebration, Chinese baseball fell into a deep crisis. Because it was no longer an Olympic sport, its funding from the Sports Bureau saw a freefall and people paid less and less attention to it.
Hardest hit were the players. After the budget cut on baseball in 2009, many received salaries a little above the minimum wage. The highest-paid Beijing player reportedly receiving 2200 RMB (about $350) a month. The budget was so tight that they had to cover part of their own travel expenses in competitions and they could not get funding to make new uniforms. The young players inherited uniforms from the retired ones, and the older players wore uniforms that were full of stitches.
Nearly all of these baseball players in China had to give up school to become professionals, and now they were caught between their baseball dreams and the harsh reality of an unpopular sport. Many decided to quit and get a new start in life, which was difficult but well worth the risk. Still, a few remained on the team, just for the love of the game.
Those that remained on the team persisted because they knew someone had to stay and because they wanted baseball, a game they love so much, to survive in China. They have few reasons to be optimistic, but pessimism is not in their vocabulary. What they have been doing since the Beijing Olympics is to wait—wait for whatever opportunities they could find to win and to shine.
Their patience finally paid off in the eighth inning of their last game against Brazil in this year’s WBC. They waited for the opponents to throw four balls, they waited for the right pitch to hit, and they waited four years in all to win the game. After the win, however, there is still a long and uncertain wait ahead until the 2017 WBC.
In life, those who succeed are surely enviable. But what about those who wait and hope for their dreams, even though they know deep in their hearts that there is little to wait and hope for? Like the Chinese baseball players, these dreamers deserve our attention and respect.