Here’s what Korean baseball is all about ahead of MLB’s 1st season-opening matches in Seoul
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — For most fans around the world, Shohei Ohtani’s debut in Dodger blue is the story to watch as Major League Baseball opens its season this week with games between Los Angeles and the San Diego Pades in Seoul.
In South Korea, the opener means something else: the world’s top league has finally come to the baseball-loving Asian nation.
South Korea’s 42-year-old domestic league is most known for its rock concert-like cheering culture, with fans collectively singing personalized fight songs for each batter as cheerleaders dance. Sports cable TVs still frequently re-air the national team’s gold medal winning performance at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and a landmark run to the finals of the 2009 World Baseball Classic.
Here is what you need to know about baseball in South Korea ahead of the two Dodgers-Padres games in Gocheok Sky Dome on March 20-21.
BASEBALL IN KOREA
Baseball was reportedly introduced to the Korean Peninsula in 1905 by American missionary Phillip Gillet. But some observers say the sport was played here far earlier than that.
During the 1910-45 Japanese occupation period, the colonial rulers tried to promote baseball in a bid to better assimilate Koreans into their culture. Those efforts hindered because many Koreans viewed baseball as a noble sport and harbored anti-Japan sentiments, experts say.
After the peninsula was divided into a U.S.-backed, capitalistic South Korea and a Soviet-supported, communist North Korea at the end of the Japanese rule, baseball gradually gained popularity in the South but was largely ignored in North Korea as it was considered a capitalistic-style sport.
In the 1970s, high school baseball tournaments expanded in popularity in South Korea, with the results of finals making frontpage news and winning teams given car parades in their hometowns.
In 1982, the country’s professional Korean Baseball Organization league was launched by strongman Chun Doo-hwan, who critics say attempted to divert public attention from politics following his bloody crackdowns on a pro-democracy uprising in 1980.
Michy Batshuayi reacts after spin-kick on fan goes viral in Trabzonspor-Fenerbahce riot
Fenerbahce star Michy Batshuayi may have hoped to have gone viral for his late winner in Sunday’s dramatic Turkish Super Lig match against Trabzonspor.
However, the footage of the former Chelsea striker that has instead been shared around the world is of his attempt to kick a fan in the face after opposition supporters stormed the pitch at full-time.
There have been calls for an investigation after the five-goal encounter descended into farce, following Bathsuayi’s 87th-minute winner which came after ex-Manchester United midfielder Fred’s brace was cancelled out by goals from Trabzonspor pair Enis Bardhi and Trezeguet.
Objects had already been thrown on the pitch at the visiting players as they celebrated Batshuayi’s late strike.
Fenerbahce players then celebrated together at the final whistle but were quickly forced to defend themselves after hundreds of home fans violently invaded the pitch at Papara Park in Trabzon.
Bright Osayi-Samuel, formerly of QPR and Blackpool, was seen tussling with one fan while TV cameras spotted Batshuayi aiming a spin-kick at another pitch invader, who then threw a punch at goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic before running off.
The away team escaped the pitch without serious injury despite pictures showing them being targeted with projectiles – and one Trabzonspor fan using the spiked end of the corner flag as a weapon – before they were kept safe in the dressing room by security forces.
Turkish politicians have ordered an investigation into the disgraceful scenes, which were just the latest in a string of sorry episodes to impact top-flight football in the country. One such occasion saw the referee Halil Umut Meler punched in the face by the club president of Ankaragucu, Faruk Koca, after he angrily stormed the pitch at full-time of a game with Rizespor.
Turkey’s Interior Minister, Ali Yerlikaya, stated: “It is never acceptable for violence to take place on football pitches – above all, sport is gentlemanship.
