Nineteen-year-old Xu Guiyuan was trained at the MBL development center in Wuxi. (Photo : China Daily)
Recently, Chinese outfielder Xu Guiyuan made headlines as he became the first player from the Major League Baseball (MLB)'s development centers in the country to have been signed with an MLB club, the Baltimore Orioles.
However, the group's plan to foray into the world's most populous nation, which has been a focal point of global sports associations eyeing worldwide expansion, commenced over a decade ago.
The MLB first signed a development agreement with the Chinese Baseball Association in 2003, the group said. The deal allowed the organization to scout and sign players from the country, and staff U.S. baseball icons like Bruce Hurst and Jim Lefebvre on China's national team.
Fast forward to more than 10 years, MLB now has three development centers in the country's mainland: in Wuxi, Nanjing and Changzhou.
According to Wuxi Center head coach Rob Palmer, the goal of the development hubs is to bring the organization closer to Chinese baseball fans.
"Baseball is very, very big all through Asia, Japan and Korea and Taiwan, so a lot of our players grew up watching a lot of Japanese baseball. They watch a lot of baseball from Taiwan, so they grew up looking at those players as role models, and we start to expose them a little more to baseball in United States as well," Palmer shared.
"They started to learn more about Major League Baseball teams and starts to become fans of the game," he added.
So far, a total of 85 Chinese players are being trained at the centers.
The 19-year-old Xu is an enrolee at the MLB development center in Jiangsu Province's Wuxi.
For the center's assistant coach, Zhang Xiaotian, Chinese players have a potential in faring well in America, saying that "a lot of young Chinese player are very willing to play baseball, especially play baseball in America."
"I believe this is the dream of every baseball players in China, because America has the biggest baseball league in the world. Baseball players around the world all would like to play there," Zhang further remarked.
Apart from the development hubs, MLB has also initiated broadcast and merchandise deals, exchanges between American and Chinese teams, and youth and grassroot school programs.
