At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday the Lotte Giants will begin a best of five set with the Samsung Lions. The KBO set a new attendance record in 2008 drawing over five million fans this season. The fact that the Giants drew 1.38 million fans during the season is a testament to the rabid fan base the franchise enjoys. The Florida Marlins finished last in Major League Baseball Attendance this season drawing 1.33 million fans.

However, in the KBO teams play just 63 home games. The Marlins played 79, averaging 16,688 fans per game. The Lotte Giants, however, averaged 22,258 fans per game, which in major league team average terms would put them even with the Tampa Bay Rays, who averaged one more fan per game than the Giants.

The above picture was taken Tuesday afternoon in Busan as fans began to lineup for general admission tickets to Game 1 of the series. You can bet fans will be singing the team’s adopted theme song, Busan Kalmegi (Busan Seagull — that’s a seagull in the top photo), start to finish.

Here’s a video of  what that looks and sounds like:

As is customary before each playoff series the managers and team captains held a joint press conference. Above is Samsung manager Sun Dong-yul and Giants manager Jerry Royster. Below are the managers with the team captains — Samsung’s catcher Jin Kap-yeong and Lotte infielder Soh Sung-hwan.

The starting pitchers tomorrow night will be Song Sung-joon (12-7, 3.76 ERA)  going for Lotte and Yun Sung-hwan (10-11, 3.92 ERA)  for Samsung.

And of course no Samsung/Lotte series preview can be complete without a look back at one of the most amazing games in KBO history, which just so happens to be the last time Lotte and Samsung matched up in the playoffs. The year was 1999, the guy throwing the bat at the obnoxious people of Daegu  is Lotte’s Felix Jose.