Discovery of the week: Baseball

Being from the Uk means that baseball isn’t a part of my life. It’s a thing I’d seen in goofy cartoons or films. Mainly I knew that it wasn’t cricket. But since arriving in Korea I have been very intrigued at the idea of going to a baseball match.

I have been trying for weeks to plan an outing and finally, on a rainy Friday afternoon we got to see what all the fuss was about.

I was over the moon. I sang ‘Take me out to the ballgame’ non stop for about an hour as well as the Ferris Buller chant of ‘Hey badda badda Schwing badda!’. I was hooked!

I ran to the gift shop the second we arrived and bought myself a proper Samsung Lions jersey. Samsung Lions are Daegu’s team (and also head of the league). We were donned in white and blue and trying to learn the rules. Luckily we had our favourite Americans on hand to teach us the ways of the game.

The beauty of the baseball was that it’s the perfect social sport. You can take your own food and drink (although a lot is sold on site at a great price) so we had our beer, chicken and soju to entertain us for 4 hours.

The game itself wasn’t really the part I was looking forward to. This sounds crazy but I wanted to experience the atmosphere of a real sports match but it turned out that the baseball was really entertaining. By the 3^rd batter I was heavenly invested in our team and using the minimal Korean I know to make up chants. (If you translated my chants it would be “Not amazing, not amazing”. I didn’t say it was a good chant)

The stadium is split into zones. We were in the party zone which means we get the dancers and music. 4 hours flew by and I could have stayed longer. Even in the rain it was one of my favourite nights out here in Daegu. We lost horribly but I am still a Samsung Lions girl through and through.

I can’t wait to go again.

GO LIONS!

The night was also a mini leaving do for this man. We will miss you!