In 2019, MLB estimated that there were around 21 million active baseball fans in China, with most of them having started following baseball in recent years. [1] [2]
In 2019, MLB estimated that there were around 21 million active baseball fans in China, with most of them having started following baseball in recent years. [1] [2]
Baseball was first introduced to China in 1864 with the establishment of the Shanghai Baseball Club by American medical missionary Henry William Boone. [3] The Qing dynasty then began sending Chinese students to America to learn more about the game. [4] Organized baseball games were established with a game between the St. Johns University and the Shanghai MCA baseball club in 1905. In 1915, China placed second to the Philippines in a Greater Asia tournament. [5] In the 1940s, Communist forces began using baseball as a way to cultivate discipline and to become better at throwing grenades. [4]
In 1959, a nationwide baseball competition began. [6] However, in the same year, Mao Zedong disbanded all the teams and outlawed baseball and other Western-origin influences as part of the Cultural Revolution. [3] After the Cultural Revolution ended, baseball activities restarted, and the China Baseball Association formed in 1974. [7] In 2002, the China Baseball League was formed and in 2019 China National Baseball League. China participates in the World Baseball Classic. Defeats of the national team to Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea may help change the trend as Chinese become more aware of the game's internationalization. [8]
Variations of baseball, such as slow-pitch softball and Baseball5, have helped power the growth of the sport in China. [1] Major League Baseball has put significant effort into spreading the sport in China, such as by starting the Play Ball initiative that has reached over 5 million school children since 2008. [8]
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding team, called the pitcher, throws a ball that a player on the batting team, called the batter, tries to hit with a bat. The objective of the offensive team is to hit the ball into the field of play, away from the other team's players, allowing its players to run the bases, having them advance counter-clockwise around four bases to score what are called "runs". The objective of the defensive team is to prevent batters from becoming runners, and to prevent runners' advance around the bases. A run is scored when a runner legally advances around the bases in order and touches home plate.
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league and the highest level of organized baseball in the United States and Canada. One of the big four major leagues, MLB comprises 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. Formed in 1876 and 1901, respectively, the NL and AL cemented their cooperation with the National Agreement in 1903, making MLB the oldest major professional sports league in the world. They remained legally separate entities until 2000, when they merged into a single organization led by the Commissioner of Baseball. MLB is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan.
Today, baseball is a popular sport around the world with numerous countries practicing it at amateur and professional levels.
Nippon Professional Baseball is a professional baseball league and the highest level of baseball in Japan. Locally, it is often called Puro Yakyū (プロ野球), meaning simply Professional Baseball; outside of Japan, NPB is often referred to as "Japanese baseball."
The history of baseball can be broken down into various aspects: by era, by locale, by organizational-type, game evolution, as well as by political and cultural influence. The game evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th century. This game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed. By the late 19th century, baseball was widely recognized as the national sport of the United States. Baseball is popular in North America and parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, and East Asia, particularly in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
A baseball is the ball used in the sport of baseball. It consists of a rubber or cork center wrapped in yarn and covered with white natural horsehide or cowhide, or a synthetic composite leather. A regulation baseball is 9 to 9.25 inches in circumference i.e. 2.86 to 2.94 inches in diameter, with a weight of 5 to 5.25 ounces.
Shanghai Shenhua Football Club is a Chinese professional football club based in Shanghai, that competes in the Chinese Super League, the top tier of Chinese football. Shanghai Shenhua plays its home matches at the Shanghai Stadium, located within Xuhui District. The owner of Shanghai Shenhua F.C. is Shanghai Jiushi Group, a state-owned cultural and sports operation company in Shanghai. Shanghai Shenhua is one of the four clubs to have never been relegated from the Chinese top-flight since the Chinese Super League's foundation in 2004. The term shen hua literally translates as "the Flower of Shanghai" in English – shen is one of the alternative names for Shanghai and hua means flower in Chinese.
Sports in China consists of a variety of competitive sports. Traditional Chinese culture regards physical fitness as an important characteristic. China has its own national quadrennial multi-sport event similar to the Olympic Games called the National Games.
Baseball was popularized in Cuba by Nemesio Guillot, who founded the first major baseball club in the country. It became the most played sport in the country in the 1870s, before the period of American intervention.
Wang Dalei is a Chinese professional footballer who currently plays for Chinese Super League club Shandong Taishan and the China national team.
Akinori Iwamura is a former Japanese baseball infielder, who currently is a manager for the Fukushima Red Hopes in Japan's Baseball Challenge League. He made his Major League debut with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2007.
Chin-Lung Hu is a Taiwanese professional baseball shortstop for the Fubon Guardians of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL). He previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets. He was the fifth player — and first infielder — from Taiwan to play in MLB. His last name is the shortest in MLB history.
Giovanni Andrés Moreno Cardona is a Colombian former footballer who used to play for club Atlético Nacional where he primarily operated as an attacking midfielder.
Rugby union in China is a growing sport; however, it is still not overly popular. China became affiliated to the International Rugby Board in 1997 and as of 1 July 2019, its women's XV side was ranked 24th and its men's XV side 80th in the world. Neither the women's team nor the men's team has yet qualified for a Women's Rugby World Cup or a men's Rugby World Cup. However, China has hopes of one day hosting the men's event, and World Rugby has indicated it supports taking the event there.
Events in the year 2008 in China.
Zhang Lu is a Chinese former footballer who played as a right winger or right-back for Henan Jianye and Shanghai Shenhua.
Baseball is believed to have been introduced to Korea in 1905 by American missionaries during the Korean Empire, after which it gradually attained prominence. After the division of the Korean Peninsula into North Korea and South Korea in 1945 and the further destabilisation of the Korean War from 1950–53, baseball has become one of the most popular sports in South Korea. North Korea, under isolationist leadership, does not have the same level of investment in baseball as South Korea. There are 10 professional teams in South Korea's KBO League. Baseball season runs from March to October.
Liaoning Football Club, officially known as Liaoning Hongyun, was a professional association football club with a long history in Chinese football. The club can predate their formation to 1953, when Shenyang government sports body joined existing club Northeast China to play in the Chinese national football league. By 1956, the league was gradually expanded and regional sports institutes' own representatives were allowed, which eventually formed Liaoning Football Club. The club won several titles as well as the 1989–90 Asian Club Championship when they beat Nissan Yokohama in the final, making Liaoning FC the first Chinese club to win an Asian club championship trophy. Since February 26, 1994, the team was established as a full professional football club to play in the 1994 Chinese Jia-A League season, making them one of the founding members of the first fully professionalized top-tier league in China.
The MLB Taiwan All-Star Series was an end-of-the-season tour of Taiwan made by an All-Star team from Major League Baseball (MLB) after 2011 MLB season, contested in a best-of format against the Chinese Taipei national baseball team.
Baseball5 (B5) is an internationally played safe haven game with many of the same rules as baseball and softball, which is governed alongside those sports by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC).
Baseball around the world | ||
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