Yankees Officials Head to China to 'Grow the Sport'

New York Yankees President Randy Levine and General Manager Brian Cashman will head a delegation traveling to Beijing next week for meetings that could lead to Major League Baseball establishing an academy in China.

"Everybody thinks that that is a great place to grow the sport of baseball," Levine said. "There's a real appetite for it. The Chinese want to move forward and expand their talents in the game and really make it a well-known, very active sport."

Beijing is host to the 2008 Olympics, the last one scheduled to include baseball. China went 0-3 last year at the inaugural World Baseball Classic, losing to Japan, 18-2; to South Korea, 10-1; and to Taiwan, 12-3.

The Yankees' delegation also will include assistant general manager Jean Afterman and Michael Tusiani, the team's vice president of corporate sales and sponsorships.

The team hopes to establish an agreement in which it would send coaches, scouts and player development staff to China, and have representatives of the Chinese Baseball Association come to New York and the team's spring training complex in Tampa.

Levine said that baseball in China is in the "infancy stages" and that the Yankees had been talking with the CBA for six months and were invited to make the trip.

China's communist government won't be an obstacle, he said.

"We're about baseball. We're not about politics," Levine said. "We leave the politics to the diplomats and the world leaders."

-- From News Services