I’d never been to Chick-Fil-A before.  Is it always like this?  

A giant bird in a baseball uniform danced around me, while the Chinese National Team sat adjacent to my table and a Dodger legend munched on a salad in the next booth over.

This is weird – even for a semi-professional baseball team.

But the event marked an important turning point for the Long Beach Armada.  Now in their fourth year of existence, the team more known for its gimmicky announcements and fan events (see: last year’s Michael Vick Animal Awareness Day) is rolling towards its May 22 season debut in St. George, Utah with nothing but winning on their minds.  General Manager Steve Bash leapt at the chance to play host for a two-game weekend exhibition series against China, as the team’s first warmup before beginning the 2008 season, and expectations are high after several important offseason signings and the hiring of LA Dodger legend Steve Yeager as manager.

Halfway through the shockingly short training period, Yeager is enthused by his young squad.

“We’re flying by the seat of our pants here,” he said, with four days down and four to go in the Armada’s Spring Training.  “I can only go off of what I’ve seen so far, but we’ve got some guys that can really play.”

Yeager and his squad will need to keep their focus on the field against the Chinese squad, because God knows there are a slew of off-field stories surrounding the weekend.  Protests have marred proceedings leading to the 2008 Summer Olympics to be held in Beijing, China, and some Armada representatives expect that demonstrators will gather at Blair Field this weekend to make their presence known.

Then, of course, came the earthquake.

An 8.7-magnitude quake rattled nearly all of China just this week, leaving unfathomable damage and some estimates as high as 50,000 dead.  Bash and the Armada will donate 25% of all the weekend’s proceeds to the American Red Cross to benefit those in need.

“As soon as we found out,” Bash said, “We immediately started doing whatever we could to help out.”

Silent auctions will be held on both days of the weekend series featuring an impressive gathering of local memorabilia including an autographed bat from Angel Torii Hunter, a soccer ball signed by the entire Los Angeles Galaxy and a luxury suite to a Chivas USA game.

“I know you play with heavy hearts this weekend,” Bash said to the visitors through an interpreter.

GM Steve Bash has made a push to put the Armada at the top of the Golden Baseball League this season.

But it may be the Armada that gets the most out of the weekend’s contests.  Yeager will need to see how his newly assembled team works together on the field to prepare for a season-opening, three-week road swing before finally debuting at home on June 13.  The Armada hope to rid themselves of the gimmick stigma and get down to playing good baseball, something that will hopefully draw the kind of local fan support that the team sought when it debuted in 2005, and that Bash was never quite able to find when he worked for the now defunct Ice Dogs.

But that success can wait, and in all likelihood, will come as the season progresses.  With Yeager at the helm, talented hometown boys like slugger Steve Bueller and pitcher Nick Bierbrodt in the lineup and a winning attitude in the office, Long Beach will see its team succeed early and often.  

With recent events in mind, this weekend is about something more.

The Chinese National Team has traveled here with incredible strain on their souls, extra weight added to a program struggling to find its feet.  The nation has never been a strong baseball contender (though rumors are that some of their pitchers toss at or around 97mph), and Major League Baseball has made recent strides to assist their progression.  Yeager predicts that MLB backing will be paramount to the team’s chances of making noise in the Summer games, as well as the upcoming World Baseball Classic in 2009.  

Whether or not you are against the actions of China’s government, you’ve got to be rooting for their baseball players to beat the seemingly insurmountable odds against them.

“If you win the Gold in Beijing,” Bash said, “Then you’ll know that the Armada helped get you there.”

No one at Chick-Fil-A could argue that.