Ya-gu

"For it's root, root, root for the Giants, if they don't win it's a shame..."

Being from southern California and cheering for the Padres and Dodgers my entire life, it's tough to bring myself to root for the Giants. Here in Pusan though, rooting for the home team Lotte Giants is easy. Yesterday I spent my first day out at the ballpark and I'm going to be making a habit of it.

Baseball (ya-gu) is extremely popular here in Korea and the Korean national team had a stunning outing in the World Baseball Classic, going undeafeated for six games before dropping the semi-final to Japan. The
Korean Baseball Association has 8 teams all of which are sponsored by local businesses, Kia, Hyundae, LG, Samsung, etc. The Giants are sponsored by Lotte, a huge Asian corporation bent on world domination. The Giants, however, haven't dominated anything as of late and have been low in the KBO standings for years.

They had a good showing on Sunday against the Unicorns however. Yup, that's right. One of the KBO teams is called the Unicorns and apparently they suck. Spotty picthing all day by the Unicorns gave way to a 9-1 route. Such a lopsided game led more to drinking than to actually watching the game.

Tickets cost $5 and you can bring in as much food and drink as you can carry. We took them up on that offer and brought in a case of beer. Thoroughly drunk by the 5th, we applied ourselves to learning the Korean chants and songs that were constantly sang by the near capacity crowd. They cheer and chant for every player and every play. Yelling "No, we don't like it" when a pitcher checks the runner at first and "Give it to a kid" when a ball slices foul into the stands. I picked up quite a bit of Korean with the help of two Korean teachers that went to the game with us. My friend Todd also helped this learning experience, but not in a way I appreciated.

"Try this one," he told me. "She-bal. It means 'way to go, good job'. Try it." I did try it. Yelled it, in fact, right after the next good play. When Todd started laughing hysterically and I was hit on the shoulder by the Korean teachers we were with, I knew something was up. I hadn't yelled "good job" but rather the Korean equivalent of "son of a bitch". I spent the next five minutes punching Todd as hard as I could and calling him a son of a bitch in English.

Great times at the ballpark. The Korean fans are so much more into the game than are Americans and with a smaller stadium it feels much more personal. Like I said, I'm going to try to get out there as often as I can. I'm spending next weekend on Geoje-do, an island an hour from here. I'm going with Sarah and I think we're going to have a great time. I'll have pictures to post and a description next week. Take care.