Opening Day 2015

The 2015 KBO baseball season got underway yesterday, and I was there. In fact, I have attended Opening Day every year since I have been in Korea, so this was my seventh. I went to Mok-dong Stadium to support my team, the Nexen Heroes. The Heroes mascot is the best in the league, in my opinion, Mr. Stone Jaw, 턱돌이:


There are 10 teams in the league this year, which has sparked some changes in the rules, as well as an increase in the schedule to 144 games. You can read a pretty decent pre-season round-up at the JoongAng Daily.

One "new thing" I noticed was a concern about "safety" in the stadium, which seemed mainly to be expressed by these stickers put up all over everywhere:


However, at Mok-dong, at least, they still have the Smoking Area:


Baseball is, of course, an American invention, and food favorites at the ballpark include such traditional American fare as hot dogs and fried chicken. This is the case in Korea, too. But other favorites include dried squid, mandu (Korean filled dumplings), kimbap, and new to the stadium this year, "Ciao Chips". "From Italy!"


No visit to the ballpark is complete, at least for the adults, without a beer or two. And Koreans do enjoy themselves some beer. Within a few steps of my gate to the seats were three places to get beer:


There are two new rules this year regarding alcohol, at least theoretically. First, no bottles or cans allowed in the stadium, so the lines are substantially longer as the clerks have to pour the beer into plastic cups (a FIFA rule for ages):


Second is a rule prohibiting its sale after the seventh inning. This was certainly not the case at Mok-dong on Opening Day.as i bought a beer in the tenth inning.

Okay, fans, we have our food, we have our beer. Just one more stop before we go to our seats: we need to fill up our noisemaker things with air. There are several air pumps on the mezzanine with free air:


Time to find our seats. Well, actually, I had general admission tickets, 13,000 W (an Opening Day discount of 4,000 W) so I staked my claim with plastic bags slid over the back of the seats before I went out and took the photos above. Andy van Hekken throws the first pitch at 2:01, a swing and a miss, for the first strike of the season:


The game itself was very exciting. The Heroes, second place last year in both the regular season and in the post-seasonm fell behind the Eagles (perennial bottom-dwellers) 2 - 1 by the bottom of the third, and gave up two more runs by the sixth. But through it all, the fans kept up their high level of cheering, led by cheerleaders and cheer-dudes.


In addition to general team cheers, each batter has his own cheer or song, which the fans know off by heart. Some of them are chants, but others are tunes from pop culture sources, including this year, ABBA--"Waterloo" for, if I remember, 이택근, Ee Taek-geun. But Waterloo has three syllables, so you could use it for virtually any Korean.

Anyway, the Heroes fought their way back into the game with two in the bottom of No. 7, and the leveler in the eighth. They have always had strong offense, but quality defense was a long time coming. They still slip back into those patterns, as, for example, what would have been a nice sliding catch by the left fielder popped out of his glove. A couple innings later, SS and 3B performed a textbook Alphonse and Gaston, wherein they collided over a pop fly, the short stop knocking the ball from the third baseman's glove. Both were costly errors, though typically, neither was counted as such by the official scorer.

The game went to extra innings, and the supporters kept up their constant singing/chanting/cheering.


This was the first extra-inning game of the season, ad it went the distance, as twelve innings is the max in KBO rules. Finally, with one out in the bottom, Seo Geon-chang 서건창 soloed a walk-off homer. He is Nexen's lead-off hitter and was last year's KBO MVP, the first player to break the 200-hit barrier, with 201.

Here is my hero, 턱돌이, cheating on me with some other fans in celebrating the 5 - 4 win!


And finally, a shot of the scoreboard:

Baseball's Opening Day, 2012 Edition

On Saturday, I joined a number of friends at Jamsil Stadium in Gangnam for Doosan Bears vs. Nexen Heroes, my fourth consecutive Korean stickball inaugural:


I started from my local subway stop, making my way to Sports Complex on the Green (#2) Line. As one comes out exit 5, collect a free tip guide and fishwrapper:





There is a wide plaza in front of the stadium filled with vendors, hawking snacks like dried squid and kimbap, beer, chicken and donuts:





There is an election coming up on Wednesday, so the Seoul election council or something was out in force to remind us to vote.


They even had some variety of election mascot on hand for photo ops:


And someone else urging us to Go to Hell, or something:


Opening Day is a legitimate local newsstory, and I snapped a reporter interviewing some young fans:


Before going in, I got a shot of my friend Sally, posed in front of the stadium, and a pair of policemen, showing what a nice day it was for a game:


Our seats were in the reserved section (10,000 W) behind home plate. You can see a fine view and a fine day, but a field which needs some work:


One of the features of a Korean stadium is the availability and price of food and beer, which is the same inside the stadium as out:


In the actual game, Doosan went up by a run in the second, but the Heroes fought back, going up 2 - 1 in the top of the fifth. Here is the go-ahead run being scored off a base hit by DH Oh Jae-il:


The Heroes scored three more in the sixth. Here I am taking a potty break during the sixth when I encountered the Bears mascot. I had gotten a score update on my iPhone app for KBO. I'm smiling because I just told him, "I'm a Heroes fan, and we're kicking your bear ass 5 to 1, ha ha!" He's smiling because he's a mascot, and because he didn't understand anything I said:


Final score: Doosan Bears 2, Nexen Heroes 6.

Lions and Dragons at Halloween

I went to a huge gathering on Monday night--Halloween; but oddly, not many people were dressed in costumes. I did get one good shot with somebody dressed as a lioness:


I went to the Korean Championship game five, SK Wyverns vs Samsung Lions; it turned out to be the last game of the series, as Samsung eked out a 1 - 0 victory to take the 4 - 1 set. It was their fifth championship title.

The atmosphere in Jamsil Stadium was terrific, and the crowd was loud and non-stop--so was the Samsung PA, located about 20 m. from my right ear.


The Lions' starting pitcher kept posting up zeroes and they got the only offense they would need in the bottom of the fourth off a solo homer to left-center by the left fielder, who gave a nonchalant wave as he came out to field afterward.

The Samsung people kept circulating with freebies to keep the crowd motivated, building momentum to the eighth inning sparklers:


Here I am with the gang, Nick, Brendan, the foul pole, and Kelly near the end:


And of course, at the end, there were fireworks! Happy Halloween!

I Like Sports!

Recently I attended a baseball game at Munhak Stadium in incheon where my Heroes faced off aganst the SK Wyverns. The scores are best left unmentioned but the idea that diversity shines here was less than illustrated by the guy that said to Nick, in passing, "Yankee go home." (Well, okay, Nexen lost 3 - 6 but had a really good shot at it in the seventh.) The original plan was the outlay of extra cash--usual price for a ticket 8,000 to 12,000 W--for the "table seats" but Nick gathered a sufficient crowd (10) to order up a "SkyBox", a long ways down a creepy hall: ...with only six seats outside to serve ten people. It's not like we invented the idea that this SkyBox was for ten people, it says so on the ticket (350,000 / 10 people = 35,000 W). We were--all ten of us--good sports about it, and the rest of the crew posed magnanimously for this photograph on my new iPhone:

I cannot recommend going this route, however: 1) it's too small for ten people; 2) the view of the game is fine but not amazingly spectacular; 3) the idea you get freebies in your SkyBox is all wrong; 4) even when you try to order out for food and beer the phone DOESN'T WORK. I guess I'm glad i had the experience but it wasn't all that. Though they did have a special "Wyverns" beer:

...but it turns out it was only Hite with a decal wrapped around it!


On Sunday, I went to Sangam World Cup Stadium to watch FC Seoul host Busan I'Park. This is a great arena in which to watch a match. Alas, the team has done so well of late (winning the title last year) that many Seoulites have jumped on the bandwagon. The upshot is that it's much harder to find a good seat in general admission than it used to be. Still, I got an aisle seat (next to some English speakers) at the bottom of the upper deck. The view was basically like this:

The game, as FC Seoul games usually are, was awesome! Busan scored just before halftime despite FCS's overwhelming possession; Seoul evened up on a corner kick batted around in the box and then earned the 2 - 1 win in the 90th minute. Two of three goals, if I even have to say it, Big Five ones! Anyway, I apologize for continuing to be such a poor blogger, at least in terms of frequency .... I hope the quality at least has not suffered.

For Better Your Life

After two weeks of vacation time, during Chuseok and my Shanghai trip, I came back to school and had one day of exams (where I do nothing for three hours then go home), followed by one day of class (last Tuesday), which was then followed by three days with all my students gone on a class trip--three hours of desk warming each day there, too.

So, teaching two full days of class yesterday and today has been more tiring than usual, simply from being out of practce. Also, this is the first lesson of a new unit, introducing a lot of vocabulary, so I'm talking more than I am used to.

Add to that that I went with Nick &co. to the Bears-Lions game last night and got home a bit past midnight ... PLUS the fact that we could not find seats and had to stand up for about five hours, it's just as well I didn't get tickets to tonight's soccer friendly at Sangam between Japan and Korea. I'm tired.

But not too tired to share a delightful "mul tissue"--wet nap--I got somewhere or other recently, for better your life:

KIA Tigers vs Nexen Heroes

"Best baseball game ever," was the verdict of fellow traveler to Mok-dong Stadium Andy, who attended last Friday's match along with me, Nick and Jeremy. Chris and Max begged off--a big mistake! You will see why.

The game itself was exciting, as it was the first extra-innings game I can recall going to (2 - 2), and so therefore it was the first extra-innings game in which both teams scored in the added time.

The game was between cellar-dwellers Nexen (aka Seoul Heroes, Woori Heroes, Hyundai Unicorns, Taepyungyang Dolphins, Chongbo Pintos, Sammi Superstars, et al.) and the league's reigning champion KIA Tigers, so the result was unexpected. In the top half of the tenth, the visitors scored, but the Heroes pulled even in the bottom. Nexen reliever Son Seung-rok sat the KIA batters down in a hurry, and the Tigers' closer Lee Dong-hyeon started throwing a little wild, with passed balls allowing the winning run to advance to third then scamper home.


Nexen won 4 - 3, but not only that, they whitewashed KIA for the three game series to leap over Lotte into seventh place in the standings. This is all good, but it is not why "best game ever." This is:


We found seats, led by Jeremy, in the third row, right next to the Heroes cheerleaders. We had an up-close view of the action, in more ways than one (if you know what I mean, har har).




So, Mok-dong Stadium is awesome, and its amenities are very nice, as well. On the one hand, it is practically the only stadium that does any kind of security check; but on the other hand, it is the only stadium I've been to with the 1000 cc beer bottles for 6000 W! One full liter, that's big! How big? Look, it's the same size as Hyperion Tower, the tallest building in Korea!


ADDENDUM: My friend Mr Hwang tells me that he saw me cheering at the end of the game--he watched his Samsung Lions play Doosan via streaming video on naver, then switched over in time to catch the last of our game. And there I was.