baseball

It was a nice spring day today, a perfect day to take in a baseball game. So that's what I did.

Teams here are sponsored by large companies, so the local team isn't called the Daejeon Eagles, they are the Hanwha Eagles. The opponent today was the Korean Baseball Organization powerhouse that is the SK Wyverns. Dictionary.com tells me that a wyvern is: a two-legged winged dragon having the hinder part of a serpent with a barbed tail. Aw, shit.

We got to the stadium about 30 minutes before the first pitch to make sure we could get a ticket. We got general admission tickets, which only cost 6,000 won. Upon entering the stadium (which holds about 10,000) we were treated to the pregame festivities, which consisted of a couple dozen kids doing a Tae Kwon Do routine.

After this we made our way to our seats. Having bought cheap general admission tickets I wasn't expecting much, but was pleasantly surprised to discover a 6 dollar ticket can get you a spot 8 rows back in left field.
The SK Wyverns jumped out early, and didn't look back. After a first inning double, single, a couple of walks and 3-run bomb that landed a few rows in front of me, SK had a 4-0 lead before Hanwha even saw a pitch. So it was pretty similar to every Phillies first inning so far this year.

After a couple of innings I was ready for some food. One thing I took note of that is a far cry from seeing an MLB game was the fact that people were allowed to bring their own food and beer into the game. Regretting not knowing this sooner, I was prepared to shell out a decent chunk of change for the standard accoutrements for a baseball game. Another pleasant surprise awaited me though; a hot dog, popcorn, and two beers cost me a grand total of 7 (!) bucks.

The atmosphere is also quite different from a game in the States. The fans are constantly cheering. They chant songs and clap those wondersticks or whatever the hell they are called that you'd normally see at a basketball game. At an MLB game the fans are more reactive, something good happens and then they cheer; here they are more active, they cheer wildly for something to happen, and when it does, even if it's just a simple basehit, they lose their shit. By the seventh inning SK had built an 8-0 lead while Hanwha had managed only 2 hits, yet a 1 out double with nobody on sent the crowd into hysterics. When a groundout a few batters later scored Hanwha's first (and only) run, the crowd once again went wild.

So for my first Hanwha Eagles game I was treated to a loss. We'll be back, though. Don't ever count out Hanwha.