Dodgers and Padres to play in Beijing's new Olympic Baseball Stadium

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre, left, and Vice President of San Diego Padres Dave Winfield pose together during a press conference in Beijing, China Thursday, Jan. 24, 2008. The press conference announced the first ever Major League Baseball exhibition game played in China between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Beijing Wukesong Sports Center Baseball Field

Baseball Makes Its Pitch in China

By STEPHEN WADE (AP)

The Dodgers and Padres will play exhibition games on March 15 and 16 at the baseball venue for the 2008 Olympics.

Baseball — like soccer, American football and basketball — is eager to crack the market in China, which has a population of 1.3 billion with a swelling consumer class keen to spend on foreign brands.

Gene Orza, chief operating officer of the MLB Players Association, said his members seemed enthusiastic about making the long trip to China.

"I haven't heard any players on the Dodgers or Padres — unlike any other international event I've been involved in — say they didn't want to come and play in China," Orza said. "The players back in the States realize this is truly a start — a first step — in globalizing the sport.

"It's only obviously a first step. It's a long way to go. But every long journey requires a first step."

With the sport set to be excluded from the Olympics after 2008, baseball is trying to make sure it doesn't leave China.

Unlike soccer and basketball, baseball and American football are invisible on playgrounds in China and absent from TV coverage.

"Hopefully, we can help you develop a love for the game as we love it in the United States," Winfield said.

The two exhibitions and the Olympics in Beijing give baseball a chance to show its appeal, with the sport dropped from the 2012 London Olympics but looking to return in 2016.

"There is personal disappointment that baseball won't be part of the Olympics in 2012," Winfield added. "We'll do everything we can to keep baseball on the agenda and on your minds and keep making it part of the world, our gift to the rest of the world."

Torre and Winfield promised that many of their top players would make the trip to Beijing. Both teams have concurrent spring training games in the U.S.

"We're making an effort to make it pretty equal — leaving back and bringing here," Torre said. "Pitching is going to be the toughest consideration. You're going to be playing two games here and you are going to be playing six or seven games in Florida. But you are going to see front-line players."