A Homerun for The Disadvantaged

One man hopes to change the lives of a group of orphans through baseball By Yuan Yuan

GIVE IT A GO: Kids from Li Wei’s baseball club at a training session on November 18

W ith a cigarette between his fingers, 40-year-old Li Wei crouches among a group of children on a soccer field behind Dacheng School,located outside the West Fourth Ring Road of Beijing. But the children, aged 8 to 14, are not equipped for soccer practice, but for baseball.

Li appears tired, but his words carry fi erce energy: “What’s on your mind? If you can’t play well, get the hell back to the orphanage!”he howls at the youngsters, but the seeming ferocity of his words belies a charitable nature.

Li’s methods and manners may be reminiscent of Morris Buttermaker of the 1976 baseball filmBad News Bears, minus the substance abuse. But this is Beijing, not California. Baseball is not China’s national pastime, and Li’s players are not suburban brats. They are considerably worse-off than the Bears.

Of more than 40 children on the team,over 10 were selected by Li from orphanages and poor families all over the country.

“I have to trigger their fi ghting spirit so that they can learn how to compete like wolves in both the field and harsh society,” said Li, who believes acquiring baseball skills will help less fortunate children succeed in life.

Li lives with his pack of wolf cubs in an old gray low-rise dormitory behind the school. Rusty staircase railings have stained the exterior wall yellow.

“We have to take every small expense into account,” said Li, who has put 700,000 yuan ($112,352)from his own pocket into a fund for the club. Li even hired a cook because food at the school canteen is too expensive for some of his players.

“It is much more dif fi cult than I thought,but I won’t give up,” Li said.

At all costs

Li’s baseball career began at a primary school in Beijing’s Fengtai District. “The team provided free sneakers, which was the only motivation for me to join,” he said. In the 1980s when the country was just beginning its economic ascent, a free pair of sneakers was a major incentive for athletic participation.

With much hard work and sweat, Li earned a place on the National Junior Baseball Team, but was eventually dismissed for fi ghting with teammates.

Li then became a peddler of clothes, fruits and vegetables. “I almost tried every possible way to make money,” said Li, who went to the United States in the late 1990s, where he started a small business and worked a series of odd jobs.

Li’s American dream ended when he awoke one day with baseball fever. “The memory of playing baseball with teammates killed my business life. Those carefree and happy days were always on my mind and in my dreams until one day. I decided to form my own club,” said Li, who then came back to China after a four-year stint in America and founded the Xinxing Longren Baseball Club.

In June 2004, Li went to Hohhot, capital of north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, to recruit children for his club.Eleven-year-old Yang Yanyong caught his attention. Yang had a major advantage in that he ran much faster than his peers.

When Li asked Yang how tall his parents were, trying to estimate how tall he might grow,the boy just hung his head. He didn’t know.Yang is an orphan and had started lessons at the school just a few days before Li arrived.

Li brought 14 children to Beijing for training camp. In the end, Yang and two others decided to stay and join Li’s club.

The three children from Inner Mongolia,together with six others recruited from elsewhere in China, formed the Xinxing Longren club’s fi rst team.

Like his mentor, Yang’s initial reason for playing was not a pure love of the sport, but tragic necessity. “He ran away at least three times because he couldn’t get used to life here and couldn’t bear my strict training methods,but he came back every time for food,” Li said. “If a pair of free sneakers was my reason for playing this sport, Yang’s reason is to have enough food to eat.”

After half a year, Yang stopped trying to escape and put all his attention into training,but Li’s harsh methods remained relentless.“He is the one I punished most frequently in the whole team but he is also the one who made the greatest progress,” Li said.

In April 2007, Li’s club surprisingly won a silver medal in the Beijing Junior Baseball Championships after only seven months of intense training. In that tournament, Yang was the team’s most valuable player.

Together with seven other players from Li’s club, 16-year-old Yang signed with the Shanghai Eagles in the Chinese Baseball League in 2009.

Li brought Yang and five other children to visit Yankee Stadium in New York City in September 2010 to see the fi eld of dreams in reality. Yang remarked that his dream felt much nearer after the experience. In 2011,Yang was recruited by the National Baseball Team.

Yang’s achievements inspired Li to recruit more children from poor backgrounds.

“It is not for charity. It is to provide them an opportunity to change their lives,” said Li.

The course reinforced Li’s beliefs by showing how baseball can change the lives of troubled teenagers. He is going all out in his search for talent among orphans and the children of migrant workers.

Hao Jiaqi, one of Li’s recruits from a village near Langfang in northern Hebei Province, joined Li’s club in 2009. Hao’s father was sentenced to death on criminal charges before the boy was even born and his mother left him to his disabled grandparents. Hao lived meagerly on food donated by neighbors and ate his fi ll for the fi rst time after Li recruited him into the club.

“I can help you. I can’t help your family. But you can,” Li told Hao, who has since grown to be another star player.

The single spark

“I hope in the future I could be like coach Li, helping poor children as much as I can,”said Bstan Dzin, an orphan from Tibet Autonomous Region. Dzin’s idol is Ichiro Suzuki, who holds a number of major league batting records. The Japanese MLB player spent 12 seasons with the Seattle Mariners before becoming a free agent in 2012 and joining the New York Yankees. For Dzin, this big name might be a bit distant, but Li has con fi dence in every player on the team.

In August 2010, Li’s club won the gold medal at the 28th Boys Nankyu Baseball World Championships in Japan, the first time a Chinese team has won the tournament in 11 years. The coach of the Japanese team visited Li’s club and their rough accommodation and Spartan living conditions left an impression. Before leaving, the Japanese coach said to Li, “A single spark can start a prairie fi re.”

“I think this sentence properly describes the condition of baseball in China,” said Li.“The sport has been developing in China for about 40 years. As long as we don’t give up and make effort, I believe the future of baseball is very promising in this country.”

“The Xinxing Longren club is unique. Li Wei is so dedicated and the boys work really hard. If there were more people like him, it would be much easier to develop the sport in China,” said Shen Wei, head of the Chinese Baseball Association.

Li still can’t make ends meet for the club. Only 11 students pay the full fees of nearly 20,000 yuan ($3,210)per year, which includes equipment, room and board as well as enrollment at Dacheng School, where the players keep up with a typical curriculum.These payments only meet half the expenses. Some of the parents who are fi nancially able donated several air conditioners and a bus.

But the lack of fi nances has not deterred those who believe in Li’s crusade. Four other coaches have joined him, including volunteers who receive a meager stipend of only 500 yuan ($80)a month.

Although the Chinese Baseball Association does not offer the club fi nancial aid, it does supply secondhand bats, gloves and balls.

“We don’t expect everybody to grow up to be a baseball star, but we hope this experience can help the children to build a competitive spirit and teamwork, which are useful even after they leave the playground,”Tian said.

The club’s achievements earned Li an invitation from two schools in eastern Jiangsu Province’s Wuxi City to set up another base for the club. Li plans to bring more poor children to the base in Wuxi.

“I am glad to create this opportunity for children from poor backgrounds,” said Li. “I hope my players can also make a difference there one day.”