Am I the only one that thinks the Padres shouldn't be going to China? What's a good reason? Don't tell me that they are going to give us ten million Chinese women, because we could have had that years ago if we wanted.
If the big reason for going is making partnerships with Chinese teams to funnel their players into the Major Leagues, why not just bring some of their execs and star players over to the U.S. to let them see a real game. Wouldn't that be better than sending over a bunch of minor leaguers and a few stars that are hungry for some Chinese Food? Meaningless games don't need to be played to foster relationships. I'd rather see one of the MLB clubs playing a Chinese team than the Dodgers.
You know what's going to happen? Players who go are going to be under performing during the regular season and blame it on this trip. The same thing happened when players played in the World Baseball Classic. They'll blame it on the fact that they didn't get a full Spring Training or that they got the bird flu. We don't need anymore of that.
When the Padres traveled to Monterrey, Mexico back in the day at least then you could make the argument that you might make the Padres popular with our friends to the south. Plus it was a regular season game and it meant something, besides scoring some food.
There are only going to be two every day players from the Padres squad going to China and it promises to be the most half-assed game since the All Star game. Nobody is even in shape yet and most of the players will probably be full.
If it's baseball they want then they should just send the Portland Beavers over there and you'd probably get a better baseball game.
Every player quote I've read mentions nothing about Baseball. Everyone is treating it like a vacation. They want to take their families and be tourists. The most popular reason to go is to get Chinese Food.
"I want to eat some Chinese food," Bell said Wednesday. "My wife's Chinese, so she's going to tag along, but I also want to see what real Chinese food is like. Two, I thought it would be cool to play in China."
Okay, Heath wants to play baseball in China because it's cool, but it came in a distant second to the food. He'd probably be just as happy to hit some Pick Up Stix or Panda Express.
I'm glad Adrian Gonzalez is going because he'll annoy everyone:
"Over there it's not called Chinese food. It's called food," he said. "Like when I go to Mexico, it's not Mexican food anymore. It's food."
Ugh.
The article suggests that the trip will be worth it but the players reasons seem personal:
Yeah, so it's a vacation. I'm sure it will be fun for you, but what's it doing for the Padres, Major League Baseball or America? You just had an entire off season to go travel on your Major League Salary, go experience different cultures then.
It sounds like everybody just wants a chance to travel on MLB's bill. What a bunch of free loaders!
I can't think of one good reason to send over two Major League teams, their families and a bunch of employees.
Shouldn't the MLB also be concerned about the message it's sending with China's poor Human Rights record. Nah, I guess not because they have food and it'll be fun.
I'm boycotting these games!