Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Last night I went to a Korean Baseball game to watch the LG Twins play the Hanwha Eagles. I fear the words I attempt to use in this post will not come anywhere close to the experience of last night, but I will do my best. To set the tone let's start off with the first thing I saw.

I know. The camera on my phone does not have a zoom. Sorry. Here are two links that give you a better idea of what baseball dancers do. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K62gnhG2jf0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jBchZac8bs&feature=related

Ok, so now that we are in the right frame of mind, let's talk a little about the baseball. The cost of the ticket was 10,000 won ($10). We sat about 20 rows from 3rd base in the Hanwha cheering section. Hanwha was the visiting team; they are about an hour and a half away. In the Korean Baseball League there are only 8 teams. Since there are 12 million people in Seoul, every team no matter how far away has a significant fan base that goes to away games.

The baseball was pretty good. My friend that got me the ticket claims that Korean baseball is on level with triple A ball in the States. I'm not sure about that. There was some amazing defense, but there was not a pitch that reached 90 mph. They throw a lot of junk in the low 70's. From my limited sampling, they play a lot of small ball. For instance, the night before this game with two outs in the bottom of the ninth a player was caught trying to steal home to tie the game.

Okay, back to the atmosphere. The picture above is of the visiting cheering section. The home cheering section was even larger. When your team is at bat, a cheerleader leads the crowd in chants and songs. This was absolutely hysterical to me because the fight song for the Hanwha Eagles used the music from Karma Chameleon (Boy George would be so proud) which was out done by the LG Twins fight song music, Dancing Queen from ABBA (each side has its own sound system). I have no idea what the Korean lyrics were but hearing half the stadium singing something to Dancing Queen is quite an experience.

Koreans stretch in the middle of the 5th inning. And when I say stretch, I mean an intermediate yoga exercise. Interlocking arms with trunk twist and toe touching were part of the stretching. A moment of foreshadowing: this stretching is important for later in the game.

The main cheerleader is a very charismatic guy that is constantly blowing his whistle. Here is an example:

One cheer I particularly liked was whenever a pitcher would throw over to first base the crowd would chant (in Korean of course): "What?! What?! What are you doing? For shame, shame, shame." That is a close enough translation. It doesn't matter how many times in a row the pitcher checks the runner; each time gets another enthusiastic rendition.

No matter the festive atmosphere of the ballpark, nothing prepared me for the cheer with Hanwha up 4-1 in the eighth. "Stand up. Cross your hands behind your back. And..."

Oh, my favorite! The Pelvic Thrust cheer. When you play that again (which I hope you will) listen to the chant. It sounds something like, "Tres gone, Han wha." That means Hanwha is strongest (in Korean the sentence structure is reversed). It makes sense that the pelvic thrust is the motion that goes with that cheer. What other motion could convey such meaning? It's a good thing I had stretched.