The First Baseball Game of 2009

After our trip around Children's Grand Park to enjoy the cherry blossoms, we decided to spontaneously hop on the subway and catch a 5:00 baseball game. I was surprised to see a line for tickets that went on for a few hundred feet. On our way to the back of the line, we came across an old fidgety man with a bunch of tickets and a handful of cash. My instincts from catching so many games at Wrigley were to get some tickets from this obvious scalper, paying the extra few thousand Won to avoid the hour long wait in line.

Many things are not necessarily legal in Korea, but the police often turn a blind eye towards a lot of shady activity here. While approaching the man, he grumbled in Korean the price of the tickets to another buyer. I quickly got out my money to make the purchase. In a matter of seconds, I had two tickets in my hand and he had 20,000 won. Instinctively, I said thank you in Korean and prepared to bow, forgetting that this was a shady business exchange. The old man looked at me like I was crazy, gave me a shove, and shooed me away. It was a crazy 20 seconds. I guess that scalping may be one of the few money making schemes that can actually be punished in Korea. I see bootleg DVD's everywhere, gray market electronics flood the halls of Yongsan, and not a single one of my students has ever paid for a single song they've downloaded. I wonder what makes scalping tickets so different.

That's just one of millions of examples that show the contradicting culture here.

Back to baseball-

Games here are very different and at the same time very similar to games back home. Old ladies outside of the game will sell you beer, soju, snacks, or anything else that you want and you are allowed to bring it in. My backpack wasn't searched for contraband, meaning I could have snuck in just about anything I didn't want to pay for. Back home, there is no way you would be allowed to bring in anything that would be on sale at the stadium for a huge markup.

Our tickets were for general admission. This meant that it was a free-for-all when it came to finding seats. This was frustrating at first, but I soon felt right at home when we wandered into left field and found a couple of seats that aren't far from where I would usually sit at Wrigley. The fans in the outfield are more offensively vocal than other fans, which also made it feel a little more at home.

From Chicago Trip 2008

Wrigley

From Baseball Game

Our seats at last weekend's game

Cheering at a game is way more organized than back home. Here, a male MC coordinates the crowd to make sure they clap their thundersticks and cheer in unison. It's quite a sight.

From Baseball Game

From Baseball Game

Here's an example of the cheers.

From Baseball Game

It was a great day. I hope this is the first of many games we catch this year. By the way, the Doosan Bears (the team we've adopted as our favorite) won that day. That felt a little bit different than a Cubs game.