Covering, as it does, 3.7 million square miles, China ought to be big enough for the Dodgers \o7and \f7the New York Yankees.
Populated, as it is, by more than 1.3 billion people, the country should provide ample opportunity for more than one team to teach baseball and, perhaps, someday reap the benefit of developing a major league player.
Dodgers executives reminded themselves of these points to assuage the irritation they felt when Major League Baseball trumpeted the visit of several Yankees executives to Beijing on Jan. 30 as some sort of groundbreaking venture. The New York Times proclaimed that "Vasco da Gama and Magellan had nothing on" the Yankees' brass.
It turns out, the Yankees have nothing on the Dodgers, whose relationship with the China Baseball Assn. began in 1980, so long ago that the Yankees lineup at the time included Lou Piniella and the Dodgers' infield was Garvey, Lopes, Russell and Cey.
Four years later, Dodgers coaches were sent to Kunming, China, for a two-week clinic with the country's novice coaches, an exchange program that has continued periodically to this day. Four players from the Chinese national team will train this spring with Dodgers minor leaguers at Vero Beach, Fla.
In 1986 -- a year before the Dodgers opened their renowned Campo Las Palmas facility in the Dominican Republic -- team owner Peter O'Malley paid for construction of the first Chinese stadium devoted entirely to baseball. Located 75 miles southeast of Beijing in the coastal city of Tianjin, it is named Dodger Stadium and is home to the Tianjin Lions of the six-team CBA.
"We were trying to spread baseball throughout the world," said O'Malley, who has remained active promoting baseball internationally since selling the Dodgers in 1998. "Developing the game in China was a natural progression from our efforts in Japan."
The Dodgers' Asian presence remains unsurpassed. They have working agreements with teams in the Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese professional leagues, and this spring three players from Taiwan -- pitchers Hong-Chih Kuo and Chin-hui Tsao and shortstop Chin Lung Hu -- and one from Japan, closer Takashi Saito, will be at major league camp.
Tom Lasorda has made dozens of trips to Asia on behalf of the team and owner Frank McCourt has pledged to "continue cultivating those relationships."
