Dupuy says search for baseball's Yao Ming is on

TOKYO (Reuters) -- China could soon emulate Japan by hosting Major League Baseball games -- half a century after the sport was banned in the country by Chairman Mao.

MLB officials are anxious to unearth baseball's version of Yao Ming before China hosts the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

"Our goal is to open the season in China -- with regular-season games -- in the very near future," MLB president Bob DuPuy told Reuters on Thursday.

"We think that China provides enormous opportunity to us and that in a very short period of time China can do for Major League Baseball what Japan has done for Major League Baseball."

MLB's marketing strategists are looking to strike while the iron is hot in the build-up to Beijing and have sent a delegation to China to explore the possibility of regular-season games.

"We have a party visiting China while we are here for the all-star tournament," DuPuy said on the sidelines of a five-game exhibition series between MLB and Japanese all-stars in Japan.

"China hosting the Olympics and what is, at least for the moment, the last appearance of baseball in the Olympics, makes it that much more imperative that we establish a beachhead there as soon as possible."

DuPuy added: "We're trying to develop something in China similar to the relationship we have now with Japan."

Japan hosted MLB season openers in 2000 and 2004 while two games between Seattle and Oakland scheduled for 2003 were moved back to the United States because of the war in Iraq.

Japanese players such as Seattle Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki and New York Yankees slugger Hideki Matsui have also made a successful transition to life in the majors.

South Korea has likewise produced top-class players of the calibre of San Diego Padres pitcher Chan-Ho Park while Taiwan's Chien-Ming Wang currently pitches for the Yankees.

Chairman Mao banned baseball in China in the 1960s, calling it a bourgeois indulgence of the rich, but DuPuy said it was only a matter of time before a Chinese player blazed a path to the majors.

"If you're one in a million in China there's 1,300 of you," he smiled. "So there have to be very talented baseball players in China and very talented athletes who will be able to showcase their baseball skills."

Copyright 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.