International Play
Since 1986, a team of Major League Baseball All-Stars has made a biennial end-of-the-season tour of Japan, playing exhibition games against the Nippon Professional Baseball All-Stars in the MLB Japan All-Star Series. Starting in 1992 and continuing intermittently, several Major League Baseball teams have played exhibition games against Japanese teams.
In 2008, Major League Baseball played the MLB China Series in the People's Republic of China. It was a series of two spring-training games played by the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers. The games were an effort to popularize baseball in China.
In November 2011, Major League Baseball played the MLB Taiwan Series in Taiwan. It was a series of five exhibition games played by a team made up of MLB players called the MLB All-Stars and the Chinese Taipei National Team. The MLB All-Stars swept the series, five games to zero.
At the end of the 2011 season, it was announced that the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland Athletics would play their season openers in Japan.
Read more about this topic: Major League Baseball
Famous quotes containing the word play:
“The child knows only that he engages in play because it is enjoyable. He isn’t aware of his need to play—a need which has its source in the pressure of unsolved problems. Nor does he know that his pleasure in playing comes from a deep sense of well-being that is the direct result of feeling in control of things, in contrast to the rest of his life, which is managed by his parents or other adults.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)