A Chance Run-In at a Baseball Game

Nexen Heroes (Seoul) vs. NC Dinos (Changwon) at the Mokdong Baseball Stadium, Nexen's home base.

Last weekend, one of my classmates invited me to a baseball game in Seoul. She's a fan of Seoul's team, the Nexen Heroes, and she knew that I was a fan of Changwon's team, the NC Dinos¹. We went with other exchange students as well as my friend's homestay family, which included a teenage son, SW, who is crazy about baseball! All of us got seats in a section of the stadium heavy with Nexen fans, and SW was very enthusiastically using his pink thunder sticks to cheer on his team, so much that his parents kept telling him to sit down and be quieter.

Unfortunately for SW, the Nexen Heroes suffered a devastating (and, to be honest, embarrassing) loss against the NC Dinos, who are one of the best teams in the league this year despite being only two years old. The NC Dinos were leading by a few runs in every inning, which I pointed out gleefully to my rather disgruntled classmate. I took a quick selfie and posted it to Facebook, with the caption, "서울에서 넥센과 NC 다이노스 야구 경기를 보는데 다이노스를 혼자 응원해서 좀 쓸쓸하다 ㅋㅋ" (I'm watching a Nexen/NC baseball game in Seoul, but because I'm the only Dinos fan [in this section], it's kind of lonely, lol).

Then, in the sixth inning, something happened that made the Heroes commit error after error after error... maybe it was the fact that it had begun to drizzle? In any case, the Dinos were able to score ten runs at the top of the sixth, bringing the score to 16-5. Ten runs. What baseball team can score ten runs in a single inning?! The scoreboard couldn't even show double digits for runs, so after the tenth run, the numeral "9" was changed to an "A".

I stopped goading my classmate after that because I felt bad about how my team was trampling hers underfoot. Poor SW resorted to praying for a miracle beside me. On the other side of the stadium, however, the devout NC fans were singing and having a whopping good time. I have always been impressed with NC's fans -- I was once told that the Changwon team's fans all had to jump ship from the Busan team (Lotte Giants) when the Dinos were formed in 2012, and then they worked extra hard to build up their fan base in opposition to their neighboring city. As a result, the NC Dinos fans are among the most ardent in the country. I mean, this was a game held in Seoul (5 hours from Changwon), yet enough fans showed up in their section to hold their own against a stadium full of Nexen supporters and their sound systems, mascots, and cheerleaders.

One of my former students (from Changwon Science High School) is one of these die-hard Dinos fans. How did I find this out? Well, it was quite an unexpected and serendipitous meeting. Shortly after I posted the aforementioned photo to Facebook, she saw it pop up on her Facebook newsfeed. (We weren't friends on Facebook, but another one of my former students Liked the photo, and she saw that.) Realizing that we were both at the same game, she walked over to the other side of the stadium, judging by the background she could see in the photo, and then found me!

I was extremely taken aback when I saw her. This is a student who graduated in fall of 2012. I had only taught her for one semester and hadn't seen her (online or anywhere) for two and a half years! The first thing she said to me was (in Korean): "Teacher! Do you remember me?" It took me a moment because her hairstyle was different, and she definitely looked like a third-year college student, not a high schooler. But I remembered her name. In fact, I remember the exact conversation we had, nearly three years ago, when she explained why her name was rather unique among Koreans because it came from a native Korean word that had no hanja (Chinese character) counterpart -- her name means "sunset"².

When I told her that I remembered her, she was so happy she didn't even know what to say next. Also, as it turned out, she hadn't kept up with her English studies, so she was very much speechless. She told me that she loved the Dinos and was even wearing a jersey that had been signed by the team. I was just amazed at this coincidental reunion. I wished my student best of luck in school, told her that we ought to meet up again sometime, and took another selfie before she went back to join her fellow fans. Later, during that improbable sixth inning, I texted her, saying, "WE'RE WINNING!" and she replied, in English, "Perfect!" plus a lot of emojis.

You know, I can't remember all of my former student's names. I can't even remember all of my current Korean friends' names -- it's just harder for me to mentally store and retrieve Korean names, compared to English ones. But I will never forget a student's face. And I'm glad my student didn't forget mine.

That night, I was thrilled that my team won, but what really made my day had nothing to do with the game at all. It had something to do, I believe, with the sunset.

- - -

¹In Korea, professional sports teams are literally named after their corporate sponsors. Nexen Tire Corporation is a Korean tire manufacturing company. Its name is a portmanteau of "next century". The NC Dinos are owned by NCSOFT, a video game development company. Thus, I know many names of Korean sports teams, but I rarely know what city they are meant to represent.

²Okay, her name doesn't actually mean sunset. It actually refers to the glow of the sun at sunset or sunrise, which is... what, Rayleigh scattering? Or just... red sky (in the morning, sailors take warning...)

Stray Observations from My First Korean Baseball Game

NC Dinos Stadium in Masan.

I went to my first baseball game in Korea yesterday: the NC Dinos (of Changwon) versus the Lotte Giants (of Busan). I went with teachers from my school in an organized outing that replaced our weekly soccer game. Here are some things I learned or noticed about Korean baseball:

1. The nine major league baseball teams in Korea are all owned and sponsored by big companies like Lotte, LG, Samsung, and Hanhwa. The Dinos are sponsored by NC, a video game company. So, my city's team is not the Changwon Dinos, but the NC Dinos. I find that odd but not surprising.

Everyone who sat in the section directly behind these girls (and the dino mascots!)... probably didn't see much of the game.

2. Korean baseball fans are very much into their sport, and their cheering is as important as the game itself. Often, the cheerleaders (yes, there are cheerleaders, both to dance and actually to lead cheers) get the crowd so pumped up that they ignore what's actually happening on the field.

All of the songs and cheers for the NC Dinos batters. The song for #09 김종호 was set to The Pussycat Dolls' "Don't Cha".

3. Lotte Giants fans are particularly known for their devotion to their team and the unique style of their cheers and songs. It was difficult to counter that with the cheers for the NC Dinos, since nobody was really familiar with them yet. NC Dinos are playing in the major league for the first time this year. In fact, the game I attended was their second game in the big leagues, period. (Yesterday they played their first game of three against the Giants and lost.) So, the fans were given free posters (that could be fashioned into bullhorns) and fliers that taught everyone the cheers and songs made up for the batters and the team, and the cheerleaders spent every spare minute teaching the crowd the chants and slogans and proper hand motions. It was all highly amusing.

Two of my fellow teachers with chicken and beer. No popcorn, cotton candy, garlic fries, or cracker jack here.

4. Lots of Koreans go to baseball games for the fried chicken and beer. My fellow teachers and I arrived at the game an hour before it started simply so that we could picnic on tons of junk food. I filled myself up with fried chicken, sausages, sushi, dried squid, and Pringles. It was pricey, but it was delicious. All of this instead of exercising with the other teachers? Sure, why not?

#39, Charlie Shirek. I did a double-take when I first saw him, before I knew that Korean baseball teams could have foreigners.

5. There are a handful of Americans on many Korean major league baseball teams. NC Dinos actually has three Americans, and their starting pitcher is one of them. His name is Charlie (찰리), and he is from North Dakota. I cheered for him as loud as I could, and got all of my fellow teachers to say, "Come on, Char-lay!" Hehe.

안타! 안타! 안타!

6. Some baseball-related vocabulary:
야구 (yagu): baseball. 야 actually means "field", not base.
쌔리다 (ssaelida): to hit (a ball). This is Gyeongsang dialect; in standard Korean it is 때리다.
외야, 내야 (weiya, naeya): outfield, infield.
안타치다 (antachida): to make a base hit. Fans chant "안타! 안타! 안타!" when they're at bat.
삼진 (samjin): strikeout. Also chanted over and over again, at a team's pitcher.
죽인다 (jukinda): Awesome! Literally, this means something along the lines of "It killed me!", but in slang, it has a positive connotation. I think this was part of a celebratory cheer for a run scored.

Lastly, this article from Changwonderful does a great job selling the NC Dinos and explaining the ins and outs of Korean baseball.

You know, I got more into the game than I expected to. The ninth inning was especially intense: 2-2, bottom of the inning and the Dinos are at bat with one out and a runner on third. The batter hits a pop fly into left field, it gets caught, no big deal if the runner on third makes it home... and he does! And the crowd goes nuts! And then... and then the umpire calls it out! What the heck? I didn't even see the ball get thrown back to home plate, but the call is clear. And wow... crushing disappointment. I felt it right alongside everyone else in the stadium. I left the game shortly thereafter, but I heard on the radio and from my fellow teachers later that the Dinos went on to lose their momentum and were defeated 3-2 in the tenth inning.

Haha, so I really enjoyed the game, even though I thought I was going more out of curiosity and a sense of duty and 정-building with my school. I've been to just a handful of baseball games in the US, and I don't think that Korean games are really much different! They might even be more fun, what with the crazy cheers and all. I just might go to another game this season and support my new team... NC Dinos!

P.S. I'll be out of town this weekend. Fulbright has a weekend conference on the Korean island of Jeju (제주도)! It's been favorably compared to Hawaii. Although the forecast calls for rain on Saturday, I'm going to make the most of it and am looking forward to a great time. Cheers!