Faces of Wuxi Series, vol. 3 – Xiao Dong
Wuxi resident Bradley Johnson here.
I love exploring and getting to know all kinds of wonderful people in this city.
Let me tell you about Zhu Xudong, aka "Xiao Dong."
The premise for a club
The purpose of this story is to recruit new members to the No. 51 Fan Club. Two different groups of people are eligible for membership — people who love baseball, and people who appreciate tough, determined, and likeable humans.
Whether you fall under just one of the above categories or both, you should be able to get a feel for the kind of human my friend Zhu Xudong (朱旭东) is from the following two video clips:
#1 - Jersey number 51 in orange, taking a beating doing his job at a tournament in Chengdu:
[Video used with permission from the Weifeng Baseball (威风棒球) Douyin account, the official broadcaster of the Chinese Baseball Association]
You may have noticed that, yes, I took these videos pointing my phone at the TV as I watched. And YES, it hurts a lot to get whacked in the forearm by a compact, rock-solid ball traveling at 133 kilometers per hour (you can see the speed recorded in the upper right-hand corner).
#2 - Number 51 again — referred to henceforth as Xiao Dong (xiao meaning little) — just a couple minutes after suffering the painful forearm injury, sprinting all out and scoring a run, the baseball term for a point, for his team:
[Video used with permission from the Weifeng Baseball (威风棒球) Douyin account, the official broadcaster of the Chinese Baseball Association]
The moment after getting that big thumbs up from me, Xiao Dong was taken out of the game for a medical examination. As noted in the first video, the inspiration for the No. 51 Fan Club sustained three separate injuries in five days, yet he continues to play even right now, as this article is being written, during the Chengdu leg (May 18 to May 28) of the 2024 Chinese Baseball regular season. Xiao Dong plays hard, and he plays with guts.
Born and raised in Wuxi, Jiangsu, the owner of those guts got into baseball by chance back in 2018 because his sport of choice, the long jump, was too saturated with stars at his sports-focused high school. It took him a couple of years to establish himself, let alone develop a passion for the strange American sport he had grown up with exactly zero exposure to. Yet today, he is a star left fielder playing on a 10-year contract for the Jiangsu Huge Horses (江苏钜马 Jiangsu Juma) with a solid shot of making and starting for this year's national under-23 team.
Zhu Xudong (third from right) with teammates and coaches after an interview at Wuxi Radio & TV Station. [Photo provided to wuxi.gov.cn]
Some extra context
Real quick, let me jump back to 2016, to explain why it's so fun for me to be friends with Xiao Dong and why I hope to inspire my Wuxi and Jiangsu friends to jump on the Huge Horse bandwagon (and join the No. 51 Fan Club, of course!).
If you had asked me in 2016 for the odds of ever even seeing a baseball in China, let alone having a surreal and life-altering baseball experience, I would have said about 1.7 percent.
Nevertheless, on a spectacularly sunny day in late spring of that year, those odds were defied as I found myself playing in a friendly hardball scrimmage along with a random assortment of foreigners living in Xining, Qinghai province, against the Qinghai Normal University baseball team.
That's right! The QNU baseball team! Coached by two South Koreans and entirely composed of Tibetan students! In Qinghai! China! In 2016!
The QNU team smoked us with a final score along the lines of 13-2. Those students were awesome and well-coached. While I was a major defensive liability out in left field, I did manage a lucky play or two on offense. The whole experience was life-changingly fun. I truly love baseball, and I never thought I would see it as long as I was living in China.
Meeting Xiao Dong
Fast forward to 2024. With the QNU game eight years in the past, my internal "You're about to have another life-changing baseball experience" radar was by no means picking up any active signals.
On April 20, however, the opportunity came out of nowhere for me to attend and write about the opening ceremony and first match of a friendly China-Russia baseball tournament hosted right here in Wuxi. (Read about it here: Wuxi hosts exciting opening to friendly China-Russia baseball tournament)
Who knew? Baseball in Wuxi! China! In 2024!
I had a blast and especially loved seeing the dozens of young kids in their own team uniforms watching their heroes in action and being yelled at by their parents for running wildly after foul balls in the stands at the Wuxi Professional Sports Team Management Center. I was also struck by just how high the level of play was. By professional ball players! In Wuxi!
After the game, I wandered into the Jiangsu team dugout (locker room) to try and catch at least one of the three standout players I had in mind for a quick interview. It was a wild scene of celebrating players, coaches, family, and friends, but I managed to pick out the left fielder who had hit a key run-scoring triple — number 51.
Zhu Xudong was gracious with his time and gave smart, simple answers to my questions. I didn't think of it then with all the chaos, but fortunately I saw him outside the stadium a couple minutes later and was able to add him on WeChat. Everyone knows adding someone you just met on WeChat means you're destined to be best friends forever, right?
Snapped a quick pic after our first interview. [Photo provided to wuxi.gov.cn]
OK maybe not, but Zhu Xudong-->Xiao Dong and I nevertheless became good friends fast. Frankly, I was going to be a fan of the baseball team from my resident province and a great player like number 51 no matter what, but he turned out to be a really cool guy. And it was just plain thrilling for me to talk about baseball in China with someone who lived and breathed the sport.
Xiao Dong on the field
Xiao Dong told me at one point that his favorite player is Ichiro Suzuki, who played mostly for the Seattle Mariners in Major League Baseball in the early 2000s. As soon as he mentioned his Ichiro fanship to me, I blurted out, "Ah! You're right! You're Ichiro!"
You see, Xiao Dong wears the Japanese legend's number 51, also plays in the outfield, shares the same dangerous speed on the basepaths, and regularly "shows bunt" — basically a way of saying to the opposing defense: I'm fast and you should be scared — on the first pitch of his at-bats, even in non-bunting situations; just like Ichiro was famous for.
He loved that I picked up on all that, but he also clarified to me in a later discussion, "I used to imitate players when I was younger, but now I combine techniques that work for me. I play my own game."
So, about that game of his, here is another compilation of some Xiao Dong highlights with some great descriptions of No. 51 from the Weifeng Baseball play-by-play announcers:
[Video used with permission from the Weifeng Baseball (威风棒球) Douyin account, the official broadcaster of the Chinese Baseball Association]
If you're still not interested in joining the No. 51 Fan Club at this point, there's not much more I can do. Actually, I'll just try one more thing. Here's a GIF of his reaction after the bat flew out of his hands during a big swing at a recent tournament in Shandong. He told me it was the first time this had happened to him in his whole life, and his little moment of shock was pretty hilarious:
I asked another well-established member of the club, Xiao Dong's girlfriend Han Zhuwei (韩朱薇) about how it feels to watch him play. "The first few times I watched, it felt very surreal because I had never experienced having my boyfriend appear in a live broadcast," she said with a laugh. "Now I'm used to it and just watch it as a game, but I feel happier when he plays well."
Don't you want to feel happy, too? Join the No. 51 Fan Club!
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How to prove your fan club membership and follow the action
Xiao Dong was extremely helpful to me both as I prepared my initial news story and also getting me caught up on baseball in China in general, telling me, unprovoked, "Whatever you need to know about China baseball, our team, or anything else, I'm your guy. Just ask."
So, I did. Here's some key info:
If you've got a Douyin account, Jiangsu is playing Sichuan in Chengdu at 11:30 am this Sunday, May 26, on Weifeng Baseball (search for 威风棒球 in the app). They also play first-place Beijing at 9 am on Monday, May 27.
Even more important for those of us in Jiangsu, the Wuxi leg of this year's season will be from July 6 to July 16, with multiple games each day at the Wuxi Professional Sports Team Management Center (search for 无锡棒球训练基地 on a map). I'll be there at as many games as possible. Feel free to email me at facesofwuxi@outlook.com to make sure we are able to meet up.
In addition to Weifeng Baseball (威风棒球) on Douyin, I recommend following the "中国棒球ChineseBaseball" official WeChat account for updates, tournament schedules, and results.
Chinese Baseball Association 2024 Tournament Info:
Teams: Jiangsu, Guangdong, Shanghai, Sichuan, Tianjin, Beijing, Shandong, Henan, Fujian
2024 Season: April 27 to Aug 2
Weihai: April 27 to May 7
Chengdu: May 18 to May 28
Wuxi: July 6 to July 16
Tianjin: July 19 to July 29
Finals (Tianjin): July 31 to Aug 2
Scoring for each of the four tournaments (Place – Points): First – 11; Second – 9; Third – 7; Fourth – 6; Fifth – 5; Sixth – 4; Seventh – 3; Eighth – 2; Ninth – 1
*The two teams with the highest point totals from all four tournaments will face off in a best of three final series. Third- and fourth-place teams will play a one-game third-place match.
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Wuxi friends! Is there someone you think readers would like to see featured in the Faces of Wuxi series? Hit me up! facesofwuxi@outlook.com
