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WINFIELD; TORRE MAKE PITCH FOR BASEBALL IN CHINA WITH DODGERS - PADRES EXHIBITION
Associated Press Updated: January 24, 2008, 10:36 AM EST
BEIJING (AP) - With the sport set to disappear from the Olympics after 2008, baseball is trying to make sure it doesn't leave China.
Major League Baseball games are coming to China for the first time, with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres to 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. 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," San Diego Padres vice president Dave Winfield said at
Thursday's announcement in central Beijing, which was also attended by new Dodgers manager Joe Torre.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 your are going to be playing six or seven games in Florida. But you are going to see front-line players."
Added Winfield: "We're not going to give you a bum roster."
Torre and Winfield acknowledged that baseball needs to repair its image, sullied by allegations of widespread drug use in the game.
"Our success in Major League Baseball is based on the trust of the people," Torre said. "And it is our job to regain that trust. And whatever it takes for
us to do that, we have to be willing to do it."
Added Winfield: "It would be in the players' best interest not to be involved in them (drugs) any more." He said baseball was "on the right track now. You
will see that. Guaranteed."
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."
Associated Press Updated: January 24, 2008, 10:36 AM EST
BEIJING (AP) - With the sport set to disappear from the Olympics after 2008, baseball is trying to make sure it doesn't leave China.
Major League Baseball games are coming to China for the first time, with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres to 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. 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," San Diego Padres vice president Dave Winfield said at
Thursday's announcement in central Beijing, which was also attended by new Dodgers manager Joe Torre.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 your are going to be playing six or seven games in Florida. But you are going to see front-line players."
Added Winfield: "We're not going to give you a bum roster."
Torre and Winfield acknowledged that baseball needs to repair its image, sullied by allegations of widespread drug use in the game.
"Our success in Major League Baseball is based on the trust of the people," Torre said. "And it is our job to regain that trust. And whatever it takes for
us to do that, we have to be willing to do it."
Added Winfield: "It would be in the players' best interest not to be involved in them (drugs) any more." He said baseball was "on the right track now. You
will see that. Guaranteed."
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."
DAVE WINFIELD'S BRAINCHILD THRILLS NEGRO LEAGUERS
By Tim Brown, Yahoo! Sports Jun 4, 7:43 pm EDT
Emilio “Millito” Navarro boarded a jet in San Juan on Wednesday morning, three months before his 103rd birthday.
He was bound for Orlando, Fla., bound for Major League Baseball’s amateur draft, bound for the New York Yankees, his favorite team. And Robinson
Cano had better break out of that slump.
“Now that I’ve been drafted,” Navarro said, “I’m ready right now to play second base. I might take his job.”
In Memphis, somebody ought to fetch one of those low-hanging, welt-raising switches, because Joe B. Scott is fixing to be a ballplayer again. He’s 87.
“I love baseball,” he said. “I used to get a whipping for playing it. My mother used to whip me on Thursdays and Sundays. Those were my whipping days
because she knew I was on the ballfield. But I didn’t cry when she whipped me.”
He’ll be selected by the Milwaukee Brewers in the draft. Held, of course, on a Thursday.
In San Diego, Neale “Bobo” Henderson packed for Orlando. He’ll be 78 in three weeks. Sadly, his wife, Annie, is ill and won’t accompany him. But he’s
waited the better part of a lifetime for this, to be draft-day eligible, draft-day worthy, draft-day remembered. So he’ll leave Annie behind for a few days,
report for duty 60 years coming, dust himself off again and get on with it. He’ll be drafted by the Los Angeles Angels.
Rogers Hornsby, a minor league manager and occasional scout in the 1940s, watched Henderson play a few games. Henderson said the Hall-of-Fame
second baseman called him “The California Comet.”
“I was known for my head-first slides,” he said. “Rogers Hornsby really liked my head-first slides.”
Yes, he’ll dust himself off one more time.
Navarro, Scott, Henderson and 27 other former Negro Leaguers will be drafted in a pre-draft ceremony, a tribute formulated by Hall-of-Famer Dave
Winfield and embraced by Major League Baseball.Aging men (and one woman, Mamie “Peanut” Johnson) who once were denied access to the big
leagues but not the national pastime, who abided the rules of a narrow-minded era, who made do in a separate-and-not-equal game, smiled gently and
accepted with true graciousness.
Navarro, the first Puerto Rican to play in the Negro Leagues, is the oldest living professional ballplayer. Scott played 20 years in the Negro Leagues,
some of them alongside Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell. Henderson was a bat boy for the Kansas City Monarchs, wore No. 3 as a high schooler to
honor Babe Ruth, and once met Ruth himself. A framed photo of that moment hangs in his home, Henderson’s team surrounding The Babe, Henderson
shaking Ruth’s hand. Then he grew up to play for those Monarchs.
They have stories, lives that went on without the game, careers stunted by circumstance. Navarro ran a ballpark in Puerto Rico, then taught school. Scott
drove a truck. Henderson evangelized on the game in neighborhoods like the ones in which he was raised.
“I’m not bitter,” Henderson said. “God has been good to me. I put all the prejudice aside.”
The shame of that time, it belongs to somebody else. It is not their burden.
“If that’s your door and it’s closed, I don’t have any regrets about that,” Scott said. “Let that door be closed. Nope, I don’t have no regrets myself.”
Winfield sat recently in a dining room just off Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. This was his dream, or close enough to it. In a career that spanned 22
seasons and resulted in some wall space in Cooperstown, Winfield came to know and admire many of the old Negro Leaguers. In 1982, his second
season with the Yankees, Winfield’s phone rang in his Kansas City hotel room. It was Satchel Paige. He told Winfield he liked the way he played. He told
him he wanted to get together. The Yankees were playing that day, however, and then leaving town.
“You know what,” Winfield told Paige, “it’s going to have to be the next time we come through, in September. We’re going to have lunch or dinner or
whatever.”
Paige died three weeks later, on June 8.“So,” Winfield said, “I never got to meet him in person. But, he called me. Sure did.”
As the years passed, and his own career ended, and the living roster of former Negro Leaguers grew thin, Winfield felt a rising urgency to do right by the
ballplayers who’d come before him. He’d seen what a day at the ballpark ndash; the San Diego Padres, for whom he works as a vice president, honor the
Negro Leagues annually – did for the spirits of men who believed they were forgotten, or never known. And in 2006 he was in San Diego when 17 Negro
Leaguers were elected to the Hall of Fame, and Buck O’Neil was not. He drove back to Los Angeles in silence that day.
By the time he arrived home, he’d come up with a plan to draft Negro Leaguers, give them a new identity and a bond to today’s game.
“I kept thinking we should have done something for Buck,” Winfield said. “We should have made him a major leaguer. We should have made him a part of
our roster, our family, our team. Because he had never been those things. He had been a Negro League player and manager, coach, scout,
ambassador. Then he passed away later that year. So even though there’s not a lot of big names left, there’s a lot of good people.”
People such as Bobo Henderson and Joe Scott, “Prince” Joe Henry and Charley Pride, “Mule” Miles and ‘Li’l Catch’ Bailey. Maybe they would have been
big leaguers, maybe they wouldn’t have. At the time, all they knew was that they couldn’t have.
“This is about letting them share,” Winfield said. “They’re on the fringes of the baseball family. Bring them in a little closer. Let them share in what the
game has become. You have to build a platform and let people know that these guys are important. These guys were their heritage. Their connection to
the sport is important. That’s what it’s about, why they’re still alive.
“The main thing is I’m happy that we’re doing something this year. You wait too long and there’d be nobody left. I think we have one chance to do
something really good. It’ll be a great day.”
So, they readied themselves in San Juan and Memphis and San Diego, and they recalled people and events and laughter amid the darkness. They once
bunked in high school gymnasiums and in preachers’ guestrooms, but when they awoke they got to play again, and the game was worth it. Now they’ll
share a day with future major leaguers, among former major leaguers. They’ll be a part of it.
“Dave Winfield is an angel sent from heaven,” Henderson said. “That man has really worked hard for us. We are like Major League baseball players now.
This is God’s work. I hear it’s supposed to rain, but He’s going to make sure it’s going to be a sunny day down in Orlando.”
By Tim Brown, Yahoo! Sports Jun 4, 7:43 pm EDT
Emilio “Millito” Navarro boarded a jet in San Juan on Wednesday morning, three months before his 103rd birthday.
He was bound for Orlando, Fla., bound for Major League Baseball’s amateur draft, bound for the New York Yankees, his favorite team. And Robinson
Cano had better break out of that slump.
“Now that I’ve been drafted,” Navarro said, “I’m ready right now to play second base. I might take his job.”
In Memphis, somebody ought to fetch one of those low-hanging, welt-raising switches, because Joe B. Scott is fixing to be a ballplayer again. He’s 87.
“I love baseball,” he said. “I used to get a whipping for playing it. My mother used to whip me on Thursdays and Sundays. Those were my whipping days
because she knew I was on the ballfield. But I didn’t cry when she whipped me.”
He’ll be selected by the Milwaukee Brewers in the draft. Held, of course, on a Thursday.
In San Diego, Neale “Bobo” Henderson packed for Orlando. He’ll be 78 in three weeks. Sadly, his wife, Annie, is ill and won’t accompany him. But he’s
waited the better part of a lifetime for this, to be draft-day eligible, draft-day worthy, draft-day remembered. So he’ll leave Annie behind for a few days,
report for duty 60 years coming, dust himself off again and get on with it. He’ll be drafted by the Los Angeles Angels.
Rogers Hornsby, a minor league manager and occasional scout in the 1940s, watched Henderson play a few games. Henderson said the Hall-of-Fame
second baseman called him “The California Comet.”
“I was known for my head-first slides,” he said. “Rogers Hornsby really liked my head-first slides.”
Yes, he’ll dust himself off one more time.
Navarro, Scott, Henderson and 27 other former Negro Leaguers will be drafted in a pre-draft ceremony, a tribute formulated by Hall-of-Famer Dave
Winfield and embraced by Major League Baseball.Aging men (and one woman, Mamie “Peanut” Johnson) who once were denied access to the big
leagues but not the national pastime, who abided the rules of a narrow-minded era, who made do in a separate-and-not-equal game, smiled gently and
accepted with true graciousness.
Navarro, the first Puerto Rican to play in the Negro Leagues, is the oldest living professional ballplayer. Scott played 20 years in the Negro Leagues,
some of them alongside Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell. Henderson was a bat boy for the Kansas City Monarchs, wore No. 3 as a high schooler to
honor Babe Ruth, and once met Ruth himself. A framed photo of that moment hangs in his home, Henderson’s team surrounding The Babe, Henderson
shaking Ruth’s hand. Then he grew up to play for those Monarchs.
They have stories, lives that went on without the game, careers stunted by circumstance. Navarro ran a ballpark in Puerto Rico, then taught school. Scott
drove a truck. Henderson evangelized on the game in neighborhoods like the ones in which he was raised.
“I’m not bitter,” Henderson said. “God has been good to me. I put all the prejudice aside.”
The shame of that time, it belongs to somebody else. It is not their burden.
“If that’s your door and it’s closed, I don’t have any regrets about that,” Scott said. “Let that door be closed. Nope, I don’t have no regrets myself.”
Winfield sat recently in a dining room just off Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. This was his dream, or close enough to it. In a career that spanned 22
seasons and resulted in some wall space in Cooperstown, Winfield came to know and admire many of the old Negro Leaguers. In 1982, his second
season with the Yankees, Winfield’s phone rang in his Kansas City hotel room. It was Satchel Paige. He told Winfield he liked the way he played. He told
him he wanted to get together. The Yankees were playing that day, however, and then leaving town.
“You know what,” Winfield told Paige, “it’s going to have to be the next time we come through, in September. We’re going to have lunch or dinner or
whatever.”
Paige died three weeks later, on June 8.“So,” Winfield said, “I never got to meet him in person. But, he called me. Sure did.”
As the years passed, and his own career ended, and the living roster of former Negro Leaguers grew thin, Winfield felt a rising urgency to do right by the
ballplayers who’d come before him. He’d seen what a day at the ballpark ndash; the San Diego Padres, for whom he works as a vice president, honor the
Negro Leagues annually – did for the spirits of men who believed they were forgotten, or never known. And in 2006 he was in San Diego when 17 Negro
Leaguers were elected to the Hall of Fame, and Buck O’Neil was not. He drove back to Los Angeles in silence that day.
By the time he arrived home, he’d come up with a plan to draft Negro Leaguers, give them a new identity and a bond to today’s game.
“I kept thinking we should have done something for Buck,” Winfield said. “We should have made him a major leaguer. We should have made him a part of
our roster, our family, our team. Because he had never been those things. He had been a Negro League player and manager, coach, scout,
ambassador. Then he passed away later that year. So even though there’s not a lot of big names left, there’s a lot of good people.”
People such as Bobo Henderson and Joe Scott, “Prince” Joe Henry and Charley Pride, “Mule” Miles and ‘Li’l Catch’ Bailey. Maybe they would have been
big leaguers, maybe they wouldn’t have. At the time, all they knew was that they couldn’t have.
“This is about letting them share,” Winfield said. “They’re on the fringes of the baseball family. Bring them in a little closer. Let them share in what the
game has become. You have to build a platform and let people know that these guys are important. These guys were their heritage. Their connection to
the sport is important. That’s what it’s about, why they’re still alive.
“The main thing is I’m happy that we’re doing something this year. You wait too long and there’d be nobody left. I think we have one chance to do
something really good. It’ll be a great day.”
So, they readied themselves in San Juan and Memphis and San Diego, and they recalled people and events and laughter amid the darkness. They once
bunked in high school gymnasiums and in preachers’ guestrooms, but when they awoke they got to play again, and the game was worth it. Now they’ll
share a day with future major leaguers, among former major leaguers. They’ll be a part of it.
“Dave Winfield is an angel sent from heaven,” Henderson said. “That man has really worked hard for us. We are like Major League baseball players now.
This is God’s work. I hear it’s supposed to rain, but He’s going to make sure it’s going to be a sunny day down in Orlando.”