I’ll admit that I’m not the biggest baseball guy.
Sure, I enjoyed going to baseball games in a previous life, and the atmosphere of a ballpark on a warm summer night is always welcome. But I’m not big on watching baseball games at home. I don’t know if it’s that I’m a Marlins fan, the slow pace of play or that there are 162 games, but I don’t find myself sitting down and watching a baseball game very often.
However, beggars can’t be choosers in today’s sports wasteland, so when it was announced that ESPN had the rights to broadcast one Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) game six days a week this season, I figured I would give it a chance. After all, it couldn’t be any worse than all of the marble races I’ve watched over the last couple of months.
So, I went to ESPN’s archives (I wasn’t going to wake up at some ungodly hour for this) and turned on a game.
Here’s what I learned after watching the Doosan Bears score a 5-2 victory over the LG Twins:
Bat flips
I knew going into this that bat flips were pretty common in the KBO, as baseball Twitter has been full of clips of flamboyant bat flips lately.
The topic of bat flips here in the States is a heated one, but I’m all for it. If you’re a pitcher and you don’t want the other guy to flip his bat after going yard, don’t give up the home run in the first place. I had high expectations of at least one over-the-top bat flip after a towering bomb.
Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. There was only one home run, which came in Doosan’s five-run third inning. If Bears first baseman Choi Joo-hwan flipped his bat, the broadcast didn’t show it, just him admiring his blast over the wall in right field. Disappointing.
Playoffs and deadened balls
The MLB has had issues in recent years over whether or not its baseballs are “juiced,” and it was only this winter when it had floated the idea of teams choosing their playoff opponents, to which baseball fans gave a resounding rejection.
The KBO’s playoff format is interesting to me, but I think it in the States it would meet the same reaction as the MLB’s proposal. Half of the 10-team league makes the playoffs, which begin with the fifth-place team facing the fourth-place team in a best-of-three scenario where the fourth-place team is already up 1-0 and only needs to win or tie (The KBO has ties after the 15th inning in the playoffs.) in order to advance. The winner of that faces the third-place team in a normal best-of-five and so on until a seven-game series against the first-place team.
It’s an odd system and one that probably wouldn’t work in the US, but it puts a lot of importance on the regular season, which I do like.
The KBO has also used “de-juiced” baseballs since last season, which resulted in less offense from a league known for high-scoring games. Whether or not that lines up with your tastes, I appreciate the league being open about it.
No fans? No big deal
From what I’ve read, the atmosphere at Korean ballparks is electric and full of loud, chanting fans. Obviously, though, with the COVID-19 pandemic, KBO teams are playing in front of empty stands.
But I didn’t mind, not in the slightest. Sporting events are always going to be cooler with sellout crowds, but if that is the only thing that I have to sacrifice just to have sports again, I’m all in favor.
And I’m not alone. In a recent ESPN survey, 65 percent of sports fans agreed that they would welcome sports returning if they had to be played in empty venues.
The game was still enjoyable, and there were still cheerleaders and mascots in the stands providing some background noise.
Sure, it was still weirdly quiet despite what I’m pretty sure was artifical fan noise, and there were bizarre cardboard cutouts of “fans” in the seats, but there was still some good baseball being played, which is significantly better than no baseball.
Other restrictions included players and coaches getting their temperature checked, no spitting, no high-fives and no handshakes.
Honestly, most of my enjoyment from watching the KBO came from just having something to watch after sports were effectively canceled in the US on March 12. With no return from the MLB, NHL or NBA in sight, it felt good just watching sports like I used to before the pandemic.
I probably won’t be waking up at five in the morning to watch more of the KBO, but it’s refreshing knowing sports are being played safely elsewhere in the world and that I can fire up a baseball game in the background if I want to.
Follow Brendan on Twitter @Bfarrell727 and contact him at bfarrell@alligator.org.
Stadium seats are empty as a part of precaution against the new coronavirus during a baseball game between Hanwha Eagles and SK Wyverns in Incheon, South Korea, Tuesday, May 5, 2020. With umpires fitted with masks and cheerleaders dancing beneath vast rows of empty seats, a new baseball season got underway in South Korea following a weeks-long delay because of the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
