Take Me Out To The Ballgame

(Why is this man frowning? Read on)

The Major League Baseball regular season officially ended yesterday and my team, the Boston Red Sox, failed to make the playoffs (their season was, for all intents and pruposes, over in August), hence the picture of me above looking sad while remembering better days. The season started out quite promising for my favorite bunch of idiots, but everything fell apart after the All-Star break (ill-timed injuries, bad front office decisions, primadonna players) and the Boston Massacre Part II sealed their fate. However, if there is a silver lining, it's that everything is back to normal for Red Sox fans. The World Series victory in 2004 was a wonderfully cathartic experience, but it did destroy the self-pity that Red Sox fans enjoy wallowing in. So now we can all get back to whining, and everything is right again in the universe.

Koreans like baseball, too, not as much as they like soccer, but it does seem to be fairly popular. As I mentioned previously, Ulsan does not have a baseball team, so I get my fix by watching games on television. American games are actually broadcast live, so I am usually able to catch one before going to work. As with other sports, the Koreans love to follow their own international superstars, and so the majority of the MLB games that are televised here involve teams that have Korean players, none of whom I knew before moving here. Thus, I have seen a lot of the Colorado Rockies (pitcher Kim Byung-Hyun), Tampa Bay Devil Rays (pitcher Seo Jae-Weong), Seattle Mariners (pitcher Baek Cha-Seung), and the Cleveland Indians (outfielder Choo Shin-Soo). All of these teams have one thing in common: none of them were even remotely contenders this season, so a lot of these games were some of the worst displays of baseball I've ever seen. Yet on occasion, there was a Red Sox game, including a game a few weeks ago when the Sox exacted some revenge against the Evil Empire (Yankees), which made my day.

I have also seen a few Japanese and Korean league games. A few things standout for me. First, the stadiums are almost always near empty, which leads me to think that the leagues aren't very profitable. Second, the games are usually great examples of small ball strategy, which is nice because I'm a fan of small ball. Finally, the names of the teams are, from my perspective, hilarious. There are a few, like the Yomiuri Giants (Japanese) or the LG Twins (Seoul, Korea) that borrow their names from American teams. But then there are others like the SK Wyverns (Inchon, Korea), the Hiroshima Toyo Carp (Japanese) and my personal favorite the Hyundai Unicorns (Suwon, Korea) which are named after animals that I would never associate with sports. Baseball has been relatively popular in Japan since its introduction in the 19th century and the establishment of the professional league in 1920 (and again in 1934), and it has become a home away from home for washed-up American players as well as a source of talent for the MLB, most notably Ichiro Suzuki. Professional baseball in Korea has a much shorter history, with the league beginning in 1982. All of Korea's eight professional teams are named for the corporations that own them, and aren't primarily associated with their home stadium. Korea does have one true baseball superstar who plays in Japan for the Yomiuri Giants, Lee Seung-Yeop, whose unofficial moniker is the "Lion King." He is also promoted by Korean television as the Asian home run king, and to his credit he is the youngest player in the world (United States included) to have hit 300 home runs (take that A-Rod!).

As far as the Red Sox are concerned, they'll be back to disappoint us in April 2007. Like a true fan, I'll be rooting for whoever the Yankees are playing against in the playoffs this October.