Or so says Bronx Banter in a well-written first-person account of going to the new Yankee Stadium for the first time. I don’t think about it much and I’ve never written it here, but for a brief time I worked right next to Yankee Stadium, at a relatively horrific publishing house called H.W. Wilson.

Even though I’ve disliked the Yankees for a long time, I did sometimes get swept up in walking by the Stadium every morning on my way to my cubicle. It’s not that I was moved to tears, but l suppose there are worse things to walk by on your way to work. When I first moved to Korea and would walk to my first teaching job, I would pass a garage filled with pigs legs that two women used to burn the hair off with hand-held blow torches.

The overall impression I got was that this place is a mall featuring a baseball field. I spoke with some people who think it feels bigger than the old park, but it seemed smaller to me, because of the restaurant, but chiefly because of the mammoth HD TV that is the centerpiece of the scoreboard section high above center field. The TV is so captivating, so impossibly clear, that it virtually overshadows the field and serves to shorten the space between home plate and center field. I had a hard time turning away.

But it is not only the TV, which cuts to live action as a Yankee player circles the bases after hitting a home run (what to watch, the player running around the bases or the TV?). It is all the other billboards, one brighter than the other—Delta, Pepsi, Bank of America, Dunkin Donuts (I wonder how it will play during the afternoon).  And there are several scoreboards.  The entire area is so busy, so insistent, it was difficult for me to focus on the field of play.  And I didn’t exactly know where to look.  My eyes were overwhelmed and I felt lost.

I’d love to check out the new Yankee Stadium, but this makes it sound like an Orwellian hell. And what’s up with the Hard Rock Cafe built into the stadium? Didn’t that chain go under around the time Vaurnet t-shirts and VW emblems did?

I know it’s baseball. It’s not life or death. But if you are American, and you would just as soon see the American team put a product on the field that’s worth your time, I have to ask you…

Are you satisfied?

If you don’t like Team USA you are most definitely satisfied. The team is now 2-2 and on the edge of being knocked out of the WBC early in the second round for the second straight time. I doubt the team will lose to The Netherlands, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.

Are you disappointed in the U.S. team?

There are plenty of baseball fans who don’t care about the WBC. I’m not asking them. And there are a number of people, including a lot of Americans, that are perfectly happy simply watching an international baseball tournament they consider to be an exhibition. They’d just as soon the Americans win, but might also enjoy seeing Puerto Rico or an underdog winning.

But I’m sure they’re are a lot of people who want the American team to win. If you’re American and like baseball you’ve probably been in this group at one time or another. Of course it’s easier to flee this group than to be dissatisfied or be (lazily) labelled a patriot or nationalistic. 

Look me in the eyes and tell me…are you satisfied?

Hey, this post turned into a a classic Replacements song. Now that the parameters for this discussion are set, please ask yourself the question found in the title once more. Are you satisfied with the American team’s performance? Do you think the team was well-prepared to play Saturday’s game against Puerto Rico? Do you think the manager arriving during the second inning had any effect on the outcome? Are you bothered by the fact that a number of the players, upon losing by mercy rule, had no idea the game was even over? Do you think the players are bothered by the losing?

Again, this is the WBC. I don’t mean to make it sound like life and death. But if you’ve spent any of your life watching or following this stuff you can’t be satisfied. In fact, you might feel somewhat cheated. And if you live in another country, a country where this sort of stuff can somehow be both directly and indirectly held as being representative of your culture, your history, your desire, your ego, and your being…well, then, you’re probably somewhat ticked off.

The tabloid applies the term “camp followers” to predatory women who travel to the southern chain of islands for the purpose of seducing pro baseball players. They are apparently not ravishing beauties, but rather fairly ordinary types who at first glance appear to be vacationing office ladies.

What, Japanese office ladies can’t be ravishing beauties?

Hanging out at a roadside snack establishments that can be commonly found in Okinawa’s rural towns, they spot players and set themselves up for seduction. One dependable technique is to reach over and grope the man’s groin while the two share a taxi.

Once the player falls into their trap, they will approach a team representative and demand several million yen to keep the scandal out of the sports tabloids. In many cases though, they are persuaded to settle for half a million yen in hush money.

Hopefully no one from SK got caught up in this during their training in Okinawa. In fact, if I’m not mistaken a couple of the Korean high school teams had winter camp down there. I’d hate to see a redux of what happened in China. 

From The Tokyo Reporter. Thanks to Cyrus, my friend and future cousin by marriage for passing this along.

It’s a little strange in retrospect, but when we first started EWC Jackson used to refer to the site as “a set,” to himself as “an actor on the set,” and to me as his “DP.” It was a bit abstract, but now that things are better between us, I can kind of see what he was getting at.

The only weird part is that he always called me Bruce. I never got how that fit into the whole thing. But nevertheless, here’s a fun look back at an audio clip I secretly made at the old office of EWC. I’m glad we can both laugh about this now.

jackson

What a bummer. It’s not that Kang Ho-dong gets me seething at the TV like some Korean personalities do, but it sometimes does bother me how ubiquitous certain entertainers are once they’ve become popular. You can find Kang pretty much doing exactly what he’s doing in the photo above on three or four Korean TV channels at any given point of any day. 

Regardless, he recently picked up Best Performer at the KBS Entertainment Awards. As far as award shows go this is one of the bigger ones, so it’s not like he won a Golden Globe or something you’re liable to find on eBay in a year or two. Basically, he won one of the two or three biggest Korean entertainment awards of the year.

However it shouldn’t be forgotten that he, during the Lotte Giants drive toward the playoffs, Kang decided he not only wanted to join in the fun, and not only become part of the fun, but took it upon himself to upstage the fun and become the full-blown center of attention. It set off a chain of events that ultimately ended with Lotte dropping from second to third place, which in turn led to the Giants getting swept out of the playoffs by Samsung. Thus terminating the dream season sculpted by Jerry Royster. 

People like Kang mostly because big head and is loud, which is interpreted as being indicative of people from the Gyeongsang area, which is where my wife is from and where I’ve spent my entire existence in Korea. Kang is actually from Jinju, home to a nice looking lantern festival and birthplace of Korean Cub Ha Jae-hoon. I guess I should be glad he didn’t get on stage and try to curry favor by pretending he was crying after he’d won the award.  

Item! from PopSeoul.

I wasn’t aware of this until I saw the Korea Times story linked on Baseball Think Factory, but there was some controversy at the Doosan/Lotte game in Busan Friday night. I was in Incheon at the SK/Woori game and didn’t see anything but a single highlight of the game ending home run on the news.

Apparently members of the “comedy” program “One night-two days” were filming on location at Busan’s Sajik Stadium. The show reserved 50 seats in the stands (the game was Lotte’s 18th sell out of the year), but ended up taking an entire section. Here’s a photo:

Nothing like filming on location where you really mix it up with the fans, eh? I’m sure they had big ideas, trying to come off as big Lotte fans, capitalizing on the team’s popularity to meet their own egoic desires. But look at the photo. Not a real fan within 20 feet.

The article says the seats takenstolen from fans were on the firstbase side. I can’t be sure, but I’m guessing this was smack in the middle of the Lotte fan section behind the team’s dugout.    The area is normally the epicenter of Lotte’s rabid fan base, this must have put a big hole in that.

Then, during the 5th inning stretch/field cleanup, the crew went on the field to preform some of their ha-ha-funny comedy. Better hold onto something. You’re going to fall out of your chair laughing…

My guess is these guys were supposed to have performed for five minutes tops. The article says they were on the field for ten. I bet it was even more than that. The players, who normally keep loose during the break by stretching and playing catch on the field, had to remain in the dugout while fans were treated to this:

After the break, Lotte starter Song Seung-jin, who’d thrown five scoreless innings in the game, promptly gave up three runs. According to the article Doosan starter Kim Sun-woo also struggled with his command in the bottom half of the inning. A long layoff will do that to a pitcher.

Unfortunately, I’m well-versed in these jerks. The leader of the show (photo at top)  is Kang Ho-dong, whose persona is largely based on the fact that he’s from the Gyeongsang region of Korea that Lotte hails from, hence his attempt at joining in the Lotte playoff frenzy.  He’s also known for his large head and makes a lot of jokes about that. He got married a year or two ago, so  he’s moved into a  more mature role, where he dresses up in formal traditional clothes,  interviews celebs in a tea room and pretends to be a sensitive older brother. However, recently I’ve seen him on a new, more active,  comedy program (probably “One night-two days”).

The show also features MC Mong, the  dork with the glasses,  who is also in my Top 3 Most Hated Korean Celebrities list. When I first moved to Korea I remember he caused a slight stir when he said he thought all gay people should be shot with a gun. He later apologized and said he was trying to be funny.

One of the announcers broadcasting the game had this to say:

“Fans should be put above everything in a stadium, but Friday night, the tables were turned. It is fine for entertainers to come to the stadium and enjoy baseball together, but they seemed to take advantage of baseball’s current popularity.”

Ya think? I’m sure two years ago these guys were hamming it up at a K-League soccer game. I don’t know if it’s fair to bash Korean entertainers anymore than other kind of entertainer, although I think in Korea, where people often strive to be of the same opinion and taste, entertainers end up aiming even lower than their American counterparts.

So with that in mind…fuck these guys, specifically.

Lotte ended up losing the game in extra innings and were swept in the series. With just one week left in the season the Giants are now two games behind Doosan for the No. 2 seed in the playoffs and will likely play Samsung in the first round instead of getting a bye and playing the winner of Doosan/Samsung. This was a big game. This kind of crap shouldn’t have been happening. It’s too bad a drunk foreigner (or Karim Garcia)  didn’t run on the field and blindside one of these guys.

Hopefully fans how ridiculous this was and boycott these idiots.

Sorry, but this sounds ridiculous.

Cameron Hughes is his team’s biggest fan. Depending on his mood, he might pull off one of the multiple team jerseys he wears and spin it wildly in the air, scream at the top of his lungs, and exhort fellow supporters to do the same. Or he might pull an old lady from her seat and dance her through the arena.

A big, imposing redhead with energy to burn, Hughes is a traveling “superfan,” paid by team owners to whip the crowd into a frenzy, create some fun, and generally manufacture team spirit for the locals.

There was an SK fan at the Lotte game last night. He was screaming and singing SK songs, holding up an old Inchun semi-pro jersey. All the Koreans around him were quiet and had this big embarrassed smiles on their faces. It was hilarious.

Something tells me no one smiles around this cat.

“I’m that guy—the funny, happy, dancing, possibly very drunk guy you’ve seen at the ballpark at least once,” says Hughes, adding that he himself never drinks on the job unless you count the three Red Bulls he downs as a pre-game ritual.

Baseball teams like the Toronto Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers pay him an average of $2,000 a game to do his thing, as do N.B.A. teams like the L.A. Lakers and New Orleans Hornets and N.H.L. teams like the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs. All told, he works about 80 to 90 major- and minor-league games a year, and difficult as it may be to believe, Hughes makes a comfortable six-figure salary just by being a crazy sports fan.

Wonder where he’s from?

“I basically just play myself,” says the 36-year-old Ottawa native. “It’s just amazing when you put on a team jersey that people are loyal to, how much they’ll cheer you and how much they’ll support you.”

Ah ha! Ottawa. I knew it.

From a Korea Beat translationof a Sports Chosun article:

A broadcast on February 11th of KBS 1TV’s news program Ssam (쌈) about the situation of sexual violence in sports has generated a huge societal reaction.

But no significant changes have been carried out. On the 17th the program will broadcast a follow-up titled “2008 Human Rights Report on Sports and Sexual Violence” and has renewed discussion of a situation which has not seen any substantive reform.

KBS announced on that there are previously unknown victims of Park Myeong-su, former head coach of Woori Bank’s pro women’s basketball team and accused rapist.

A producer of the show said, “during our research we met other victims, and the greater problem is that the team knew of them but covered it up. We have confirmed that the team wanted to protect its parent company’s image and forced its players not to reveal the truth about Mr. Park’s sexual attacks and other incidents.”

Here’s a link to a post that refers to the first program on the subject.

This is the final paragraph of a Korea Beat translation of a Joongang Ilbo story concerning the tourism surrounding the burning of the Namdaemun/Sungnyemun landmark, which some Korean media has had the gall to dub the Korean 9/11:

Unlike trips made for recreation or tourism, these trips to the scene of a tragic disaster are made for self-reflection and edification. Representative examples of this kind of tourism are Ground Zero; the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland where Jews were slaughtered; the Killing Fields of Cambodia; and Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the sites of atomic bombings.

This is so utterly offensive I don’t even want to editorialize on it. If you want to read a good in-depth analysis from Korea go here. The reaction speaks for itself and I can only hope some big mouth conservative talk radio host picks up on it and hammers the airwaves with it because this needs reach a large audience.

For the 99% of you who didn’t read us last Sept. 11 both Jackson and I lived in New York City during 9/11 and wrote essays about our relatively peripheral experiences here and here. My experience during Sept. 11 isn’t a card I play often, but this is over the top. And Sept. 11 is the least of these four events.

I realize the article concerns tourism and necessarily the events themselves. But of course by comparing the aftermath of these events the writer is exactly aligning them. Nobody died at Namdaemun. A drunken idiot burned down a landmark because he was angry at his own government. Aligning it with these genocides, each in which thousands upon thousands of people died, is in very poor taste.

Sadly this phenomenon isn’t relegated to the female professional sports world, but also high school, middle school and even elementary school level sports.

In the program, a sports insider testified that many of his fellow trainers said, “Having a sexual relationship is the first way to gain control of female athletes; violence is the second.”

These “control methods” are rampant in sports such as football, swimming, volleyball and basketball, to name just a few, where 90 percent of the training staff are men. The victims ranged from elementary school students to professional athletes, and they spoke of the effects not only on themselves, but also on their families and friends.

Just lovely, isn’t it? Tragically in a culture like Korea’s you can bet this is just the tip of the iceberg, and that this sort of thing has been silently happening for as long as females have played sports.

The program introduced the one time captain of a professional volleyball team who was warned to keep silent about the team’s coach raping nearly all of her teammates. She was told they would not be accepted in other teams if they raised the incident. The team was eventually dissolved.

Another almost identical case involved basketball players at a high school who had to keep silent about their coaches. After they testified, the coaches banned them playing or assaulted them.

There’s really nothing more I can say about this. I’m sure Koreans the world-over are as ashamed and disgusted as most. I’d hope there would be further investigations and that people will be punished. Don’t hold your breath though.

A 16-year-old male gamer infatuated with the gothic dress worn by the fictional princess in an online role-playing game has been arrested for hacking into the game company’s servers and scamming a boatload of virtual money.

The game, called Mabinogi, is inspired by Celtic mythology, of South Korean orgin, but played by people all over Asia. The game has a mild following in the United States. While the most of the stolen dough went unused, the suspect allegedly converted part of it into Web money, which he used to purchase books and software.

The suspect has reportedly fessed up to the crime. “I originally wanted the dress worn by the princess,” he admitted, “but I just ended up racking up a bunch of game points.”