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BEIJING — Watching the Cuban national team take infield before a game is baseball's version of rhythmic gymnastics, all grace and power, and if they're in the mood a little sleight of hand, too.
But the magic must wait on this night: four Olympic volunteers are s-l-o-w-l-y raking the infield dirt, oblivious to the fact that Los Campeones are in position, coach Luis Jova standing at home plate swinging his bat.
The Olympic baseball competition began Wednesday morning, the product of an uneasy relationship between the International Baseball Federation, the International Olympic Committee and BOCOG, the Beijing organizing committee.
There have been missteps along the way, some a product of cultural differences, others a product of turf wars between competing groups that likely won't need each other after next week. One story is that BOCOG didn't want facility operators to play the song YMCA during breaks between innings because of the reference to 'Young Men's Christian Association.' Concessions are a rumour. Another is that when BOCOG was asked to leave aside tickets for scouts from Major League teams who would be in attendance, the tickets were down the baselines.
South Korean players celebrate the game-winning run by Lee Taekkuen off a hit by Lee Jongwook in the bottom of the ninth to lead Korea to a come from behind 8-7 victory over the U.S. on Wednesday. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)
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"I told BOCOG that there's no way the scouts could sit anywhere but there," Tom Valcke said, pointing to the scouts regular seats. "I told them 'That's their office.' That's where they do their work. They have to sit behind home plate . . . they can't be down the lines."
Valcke, the director of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Mary's, Ont., is the IBF's technical commissioner for the Olympic tournament. He won that argument with BOCOG. Where they wouldn't relent, given the enhanced security, was on the use of radar guns.
"So," Valcke said, "I've got a box where I locked them away so they don't have to bring them back and forth everyday. I mean, I guess you can see it. President [George W.] Bush, after all, was here for a game. And it's tough these days to even travel through an airport with one of those things. You can't even call it a radar gun. You have to call it a 'pitching velocity detector' or something."
Baseball will not be part of the 2012 London Games and it started its last dalliance with a player failing a drug test — the 'Taiwanese Barry Bonds' no less, Tai-San Chang; the Koreans beating the United States 8-7 after which all but one or two players on the U.S. team walked by reporters in the mixed zone without stopping for interviews; and Cuba beating Japan and ace Yu Darvish, 4-2.
There is no public seating in the grandstand between third base and second base at Wukesong Field's main complex. It's an outdoor 'press tribune' and also has seats reserved for the 'Olympic Family.'
When Yao Ming and the Chinese men's basketball team played the U.S., last week, it was a national celebration. When China's women's soccer team opened the Games beating Sweden 2-1 in Tianjin on a goal by the resplendent Han Duan, the atmosphere was almost politically charged — all red flags and chants. By comparison, China's entry into Olympic baseball was under-whelming.
Earlier on the main field, the mercy rule was invoked as Canada unapologetically beat the hosts 10-0, and afterward Canadian manager Terry Puhl said: "The atmosphere wasn't quite what we expected but when it gets down to playing international games, you play a lot of them in that fashion.
"But," he added, "it's strange not having any fans behind home plate," Puhl acknowledged.
But as random as this place seems, it's a small miracle considering what existed here two years ago. And the field passed muster earlier this year when the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers played exhibition games in March. That there is a baseball field here at all is due in no small measure to Murray Cook, president of Brickman Sports Turf Services, a company that designs, maintains and runs baseball fields, and is a consultant to Major League Baseball.
"Three months ago this place looked like a dirt lot," Valcke said. "The grass seed they'd brought over died over the winter and they kept saying 'We'll get to it, we'll get to it,' but they kept working on parking lots and all that stuff. I told them: 'I know there are other venues, but we need Mother Nature here. We can't wait until there's a week before the games and, you know, roll out a carpet.'"
