Korean Baseball Game

On Tuesday I got to attend a baseball game here in Seoul.  The Korea University ISC staff arranged for the professors to attend the evening game between the Dusan Bears (the home team) and the Lotte Giants who are from Yeongmi's hometown of Busan.  Our seats were on the 10th row or so, in the 3rd-base section with all the Giants fans.  We were in the lower section, right below the stage set up for the Giants cheerleaders.  Yes, they have baseball cheerleaders.  And yes, they need a stage.

Panorama Taken Early in the Game

Cheering at the game is a highly organized activity in Korea.  When the team is batting the fans all sing and chant various ditties that are customized for each player.  Many of these are recognizable pop songs.  For example one player's was the melody from "We're Not Gonna Take It" by Quiet Riot.  And as Tom noted, since almost every player has a name with three syllables, it is quite easy to rotate a new player's name into the song when he rotates into the batting order. 

The Giants Cheerleader

The cheerleaders were behind us, so I didn't see them very much, but I certainly heard them.  There was a male cheerleader who led the singing and chanting and bounced around very energetically on the stage, but there was also a back up band of sorts, with lots of drums and noise-making equipment.  This included a loud PA system with preprogrammed melodies for the chants.  There was also a team of four women who danced around between innings and who looked like they got lots of exercise.

Cheering was always quite positive.  The chanting was always some variant of "Player X ...  Our Team...  Home Run!"  There was never anything derogatory about the opposing team, like you might expect in the US.  Everyone seemed very good-natured, if passionate in some cases, even the more inebriated.  Everyone participated in the singing, chanting and other activities, at least in our section.  And there were clearly rules for when this was allowed.  We never sang when the other team was up to bat; that time was reserved for their cheerleading squad over in the 1st-base section .

The extra activities included distributing bright orange Lotte Department Store shopping bags during the 5th inning which we all inflated, tied off, and then wore on our heads with the handles attached to our ears so they wouldn't fall off.  Diehard fans wore these until the end of the game.  Apparently, this is a Lotte Giants thing that only their fans do.  We also sang some more extended songs toward the end of the game.  The only one I recognized was "Come Back to Pusan Harbor," which I sang along with.

A whole section of bag-heads

 A True Lotte Giants Fan

Another Diehard Fan

The game was fun to watch.  The Giants won in the 10th inning.  They were up 3-1 in the bottom of the 9th and the relief pitcher gave up a two-run homer to send the game into the 10th.  The Giants managed 2 runs at the top of the 10th and won the game when the Bears got no hits in their final at bat.  The crowd loved it, at least on our side of the field.  Things did get very quite in the bottom of the 9th in our half of the stadium, but the noise in the 10th made up for that.

Stadium after the Lights Came Up

Video Footage of the Game