BEIJING — When Jim Lefebvre was asked to set the foundation for a national baseball program in China, there was never any doubt it was just a temporary job.
“It was a one-shot deal,” the former Los Angeles Dodgers infielder said.
That was five years ago. And Lefebvre has spent so much time in China since, he has learned to speak the language.
“Well, one year led to the next year. And now I’m their Olympic coach,” Lefebvre explained. “It’s been a tremendous challenge.”
That challenge comes to a head Monday night here when the upstart Chinese, already the surprise of the Beijing baseball tournament, take on a struggling U.S. squad that needs a win to have any shot at advancing to the medal round.
For the Chinese, who have already beaten Taiwan and held unbeaten Korea scoreless through 10 innings Sunday night before falling, 1-0, the goal wasn’t as much to win a medal as it was to prove their mettle.
“What we’re trying to do is build a future, the future of baseball in China, by going to the Olympics, getting exposure,” said Lefebvre, a former National League rookie of the year. “And hopefully if we play well, then we’re going to jump start the sport.”
And if that happens, it won’t be long before there will be more than enough gold to go around. That’s because many in Major League Baseball, which sent Lefebvre to China in the first place, believe the world’s most populous country will soon be a rich source of baseball talent.
More than a year ago the New York Yankees began an exchange program with the Chinese Baseball Association and signed a sponsorship deal with a dairy company in China, hoping to foster the kind of relationship there that the Dodgers established in the Dominican Republic when they became the first team to plant a flag in that baseball hotbed.
Plus last year, the Yankees and Seattle Mariners each signed a pair of Chinese players while the Dodgers have been dabbling in China for more than two decades, staging clinics and building fields before playing a series of exhibitions in Beijing last spring.
“Baseball is still a young sport in China,” said Lefebvre, who compares the talent level on his team to a high Class-A minor league. “And the more they learn about it, the more that they become successful, when it catches fire it’s going to be big.
“They have great athletes. They saw the enormous impact that one man, Yao Ming, had on basketball. And now they want to do the same thing in baseball.”
It’s unlikely that man will come off this Olympic team, although Lefebvre, who managed three big league clubs and was a coach for four others, is high on power-hitting catcher Wei Wang and hard-throwing left-hander Tao Bu. Both played in the World Baseball Classic, where China was routed.
But while the Olympic roster has many of the same names, this isn’t the same team.
“They have come a long way,” said Randy Smith, director of international scouting for the San Diego Padres. “But (they) still have miles to go.”
Although Lefebvre had to start his program essentially from scratch, baseball’s roots in China run deep, dating nearly a century and a half to the founding of the Shanghai Baseball Club by American medical missionary Henry William Boone. And though Communist revolutionaries’ love for the game sparked a huge rise in popularity during the People’s Republic’s first decade, baseball was eliminated during the Cultural Revolution that followed, when all sports were seen as an unnecessary extravagance.
“When they talked about bringing Team China back from the Dark Ages up into the 21st century to be somewhat competitive (as) the host team of the ‘08 Olympics, we thought that Lefebvre would be the right guy,” said MLB executive Bob Watson, who grew up near Lefebvre in Los Angeles, coached on the same major league staff with him and then recommended him for the job in China. “He has the patience. He has the love of the game. And he wanted to take on that challenge.”
And now, with that challenge almost met, Lefebvre, 66, is preparing to return to his job as a minor league hitting instructor with the Padres. But he’s leaving quite a legacy behind — one that will grow tenfold with a win Monday.
“The greatest compliment I can have is to know that someday China will be a power, which I think they will be,” he said. “When they put their mind to something, they can do almost anything. To know that you had an impact obviously makes you feel really good.”
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