One of my first jobs overseas was working as a camp counselor in a summer camp on Long Island just outside New York. It was my first trip to the United States, the job teaching kids to sail was tough – not – and it was a wonderful summer. Long Island is almost part of New York City, it’s that close. But as with Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, they might be close, but they are miles apart. I wanted to go to watch a baseball game but my Long Island friends thought I was crazy – a white guy heading into the Bronx (the area has changed massively since that time) on his own to visit the house that Babe built, the great Yankee Stadium… I went, sat in the centerfield bleachers, a lone white guy surrounded by blacks and Latinos who became instant friends, and some still are, when they found out I was English. As I fried in the summer sun, we drank gallons of ice-cold beer, ate hotdogs and I learned about America’s pastime – baseball. The game, the history, their passion for the Yankees. A truly magical afternoon that became a night-long party…

My love of baseball started that sweaty day in the Bronx, though I ultimately ended up a Cleveland Indians fan I still have a fondness for the men in pinstripes. The closest parallel I can draw locally is the fans of Cantopop artists who will go to amazing lengths to see, buy and watch their idol - yet this ever-more transient, fickle excitement for the next-big-star can’t live with the passion of the baseball and football fans who are willing to go anywhere and endure almost anything for their team – a devotion that lasts a lifetime and often crosses generations.

The old Yankee Stadium was noisy, intimidating and became very much an ‘extra man’, the atmosphere lifting players when they were down, forcing errors from opposing teams… But it was old and a brand new behemoth was built next door. I wondered how the atmosphere would survive, how would the fans find it? A trip to New York for Opening Day to discover fans’ reactions to their new stadium would offer a nice postscript to a planned article on sporting passions. The city was alive, the anticipation thick amidst the subway cars crammed with fans. On the way, I met four generations of one family (all in the pinstripe replica shirts of their heroes) who were fascinated that I’d travelled from Hong Kong to write a story on their temple...

Yet less fascinated was the Japanese-Yankees media relations representative whose first comment to me was, ‘Hong Kong is nothing, nothing, we’re not interested in Hong Kong. You can apply many times, still I say no. I don’t care about Hong Kong, you are nothing!’ I can honestly say it’s the first time I’ve been racially abused for being a Hong Konger. The man was barely civil to two Korean TV reporters ahead of me in the queue before flinging his name card contemptuously across the counter in the manner seen around Asia as profoundly insulting, before screaming at the top of his voice, ‘I hate Hong Kong! I hate you! You are Nothing, I hate Hong Kong!’

In my years working in the media, never have I seen anyone behave this absurdly. I retreated to the Hard Rock Café in the stadium, and had a wonderful afternoon with some very friendly ticketless fans – capped off when I ‘called’ Grady Sizemore’s grand slam home run, which sent the Yankees to defeat in the first game at their new temple. Nothing can take away the memories of my first baseball experience, and the Yankee fans are still wonderful, friendly and oh so passionate in support of their team. But they deserve better than to be represented to the international community by anyone as unapologetically racist as the media officer entrusted to greet the Asian press.