Korean Pro Baseball: The Greatest Show on Earth

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2008 Gold medal in the Beijing Olympics… 2nd place in the 2009 World Baseball Championships. OK, so the Koreans can play, and enthusiasms is high for the sport of baseball in one of the most prideful places known to man, but our preconceived notions of ‘what a day at the park’ truly is, were flipped upside-down on Saturday, as soon as we emerged from the subway outside Olympic Park Stadium to see the Twins play the Tigers.

Yes, the Twins were playing the Tigers, but this wasn’t a matchup of AL Central (quasi) powers in the Motor City or the Twinkie Dome. This was a standing room only extravaganza that only Korea could put together. Oh, and apparently there was a baseball game too!

Before we left, we were warned that it would be a popular game, a rivalry of sorts, that we may not get a ticket for. That may have been an understatement, or just a warning of the adventure we were about to embark on. We got to the stadium about 3 hours before the game, and things were already well underway at that point.

Scalpers offering us some shady looking tickets (nearly handwritten) were lurking in front of the dried squid and beer stalls. We passed, on all but the beer, and got into a line to get our tickets. A beautiful day outside a baseball stadium, a beer in hand, and I was almost transported to the parking lots of Miller Park. It doesn’t get much better than that- I guess a grilled Johnsonville brat in my hand could have made this a bit better.

Cass and I couldn’t help but buy the ubiquitous ‘bangy’ plastic blowup sticks everyone had, making us choose a side- we were LG Twins fans… for the moment. All the teams here are owned, or sold naming rights to the companies of the Korea (LG, Samsung, Kia, Hyundai, a construction company called Doosan, a department store called Lotte, cell phone company named SK, and I’m forgetting a few), which is a little different at first until you figure the MLB sells the rights to absolutely everything but the team name. The pride in Korea’s products and exports is comparable to the city pride capitalized by the teams back home, so it’s a wash, really.

We got into the stadium and made our way to the top section where we found out that finding any open seat would be impossible, let alone the 7 that we needed. Apparently, sold out means selling thirteen thousand more tickets than seats, so, claiming stupid foreigner, we went down to the ‘red’ reserved section and all sat together until we got booted. It was those two innings in the red seats that were the true experience.

Just in front and to the right of us was a stage about three rows wide and maybe fifteen seats long. On it was a microphone, speakers, and what we would call a ‘superfan.’ This guy ran around the stage, starting cheers with the crowd, danced, basically anything to get people as crazy as they could. In between innings, the dance team hopped up there and performed as if it were halftime at the NBA finals. Ajumma’s with a rack of chips on their heads squirting through the people sitting in the aisles and the beer vendors had baby keg backpacks to fill your cup on the fly. It was non stop madness, the obnoxious bangy sticks were in out in force, utilized in full on, screaming, rehearsed, riotous cheers that sounded something like ‘We want some vodka’ or ‘We want salami’… what they were or meant is anyone’s guess, but we joined in as best we could! If anyone out there knows what they scream when the pitcher checks the runner at first base, please share, I’m sure it’s funny!

When we left the seats, the game was 2-0 in favor of Kia, so, we headed to the Kia side of the stadium (it is divided into two definite fan sections). We soon discovered the vast number of fans sitting in the aisles, two or three deep around the outside wall of the stadium, finally, we found a spot to stand near the Hite beer stand, and took in the rest of the game. The pandemonium never stopped, during at bats, when things would normally settle down, were just as crazy, in between innings was constant rowdiness, as if all in attendance just bought their tickets in order to scream their heads off for three straight hours, regardless of what was happening on field. Kia ended up winning 5-0. Go Tigers! I never thought I’d say that after they got rid of the strikeout king Rob Deer…

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