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of Educational and Cultural Affairs Department of State in Conjunction with Ripken Baseball and Major League Baseball Introduces Chinese Sports Visitors to American Baseball
Department of State in conjunction with Ripken Baseball and Major Leagues Baseball introduces Chinese Sports Visitors to American Baseball The six men and six women started at the Major Leagues Baseball’s Urban Youth Academy in Compton, California. They saw first hand the emphasis placed by American coaches on positive re-enforcement as a training approach. For the group, the positive coaching style was an eye opener that contrasted with their emphasis on harsh criticism and physical punishment as a motivational technique. After completing a week of rigorous instruction, the group moved on to Aberdeen, Maryland for a four week program at the Ripken Baseball Academy. During their first day, the group had a surprise lunch with Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, Cal Ripken Jr., who welcomed the group to his facility. The sports visitors spent their time at this facility learning to play and coach baseball the “Ripken” way. Again, they were struck by the positive, upbeat approach used by the American coaches. One of the women in the group noted that youth baseball in the U.S. was as much about having fun as it was about winning games. She hoped that she could use this approach when she returned to China to keep Chinese youth interested in the game.
The final week of their program included participating in the Ripken World Series and using their newly learned skills to run the activity area for the youth players who were not on the field. The visitors were treated as celebrities by teenagers and posed for 100s of pictures with the American players and their parents. Besides spending hours each day on the diamond, the group was able to attend LA Dodgers, Washington National’s and Baltimore Orioles games as well as travel to North Carolina to watch the Chinese National team play the U.S. and Russian Men’s National teams. The group also spent a day sightseeing in Washington and another in Philadelphia that focused on American history and culture. The highlight of the group’s time in the U.S. was their attendance at Secretary of State Rice’s announcement of Cal Ripken, Jr. as an American Public Diplomacy Envoy. Ripken announced that his first trip as an American Public Diplomacy Envoy would be to China where he intended to work with the twelve Chinese coaches to invigorate the love of baseball among Chinese youth.
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