Eric's Beijing Diary

Took the subway to Wukesong station today to watch the Los Angeles Dodgers play the Padres. I'm not much of a baseball fan, but I have never been to a major league ball game before, and I suppose everybody needs to do it once. If you are a baseball fan, you may not be that interested in what I have to say, because it doesn't have that much to do with China. It has much more to do with the comparison between professional sports, and the kind I am used to. Although I have never been an athlete, I have been to many ball games in my life. In high school, I went to most of the home games, and signed up most of the time to ride the bus to games that were held in other places.

When I was a country school teacher, I attended many of the games played by my students. I was never a team coach, but I taught in a self-contained classroom, so I did teach P.E. Throughout the school year, I focused on four sports: football, soccer, basketball and softball. On the prairies of North Dakota, it was not unusual to have very cold winter days: twenty below and a strong wind. But we were out there every day, at least for a few minutes. So I just couldn't help comparing what I saw today with the kinds of games I am more accustomed to watching.

Professional baseball seems so sterile to me. For one thing, the cheerleaders aren't really cheerleaders. They are just professional dancers. They trot out on the field, do their dance routine, and then leave. That's not cheer leading. I don't know...some of them might have been singing or something; I was too far away to see. But I didn't hear any of them saying, "Come on, you guys, yell!!"

And the players. Clearly, they like the game, or they wouldn't be doing it. But I didn't hear them cheering each other on like you would at a city league softball game. The game was actually quiet, except for the occasional blaring of the advertisements. Pro ball is really not about competition and sportsmanship. It's about money. I certainly wouldn't take it away from those who are inclined to this sort of thing, and I must say the field (which was clearly built for the Olympics) was actually quite impressive. But personally, I would much rather watch kids play. That's where the real fun is.