Our friend and fellow coworker loves to go to the baseball games here, and today we found out why. Games are not very much like those in the states - while the actual game is played the same the fan experience is completely different. Stages are set up amid the seats and male cheerleaders and female dancers lead the crowds in chants and cheers throughout the entire 9 innings. Also, there is no such thing as a 7th inning stretch and they don't sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." We watched the Doosan Bears play the Kia Tigers. It was quite possibly the best baseball game I've ever seen in my life.
The Doosan Bears were the home team and we sat on their side of the stadium. That's right, they split the stadium in half and you sit according to team. The home side is on the first base side of the stadium. We actually got pretty good seats, we were in the first row of the second level behind first base right next to the stage. Everyone wears their teams colors and has color coordinated thunder sticks. The Bears wear white and the Tigers wear yellow, so there were two seas of color on either side of the stadium. The cheerleaders and a man playing a giant drum lead the whole color coordinated crowd in cheers for their team. When your team is up to bat, you cheer. When your team is not at bat...the entire half of the stadium is unusually silent while the other team's fans cheer. And despite the separation and severe loyalty to their teams people are still incredibly cordial. This was a sold out game and so we had two Tiger fans sitting next to us. They were the only Tigers fans surrounded by Bears fans but they were fun and nice and joked with us throughout the whole game.
The game itself was a very exciting baseball game. It started off with the Bears pulling into the lead 2-0. Then, in the 3rd inning, they gained 4 more runs via a grand slam...bases were loaded and the player hit a home run on the first pitch. The crowd was going WILD. The Bears lead until the 7th inning. By then it was 9-3 when all of a sudden the Tigers caught on fire and the Bears' pitcher lost all steam. By the end of the 7th inning it was 9-8 and the Bears had gone through four pitchers in a desperate attempt to stop the Tigers from catching them. In the 8th the Tigers tied it up and it was getting a little dirty - pitchers hitting players at bat, bases being stolen, etc. At the bottom of the 8th the Bears managed one more run and they brought in a fresh pitcher for the top of the 9th. That pitcher struck out one of the players, forced an out at first and then they caught a pop fly for the win.
The constant chanting and joyous, engaged atmosphere was unlike any baseball game I've ever experience back in the States. I'm loading two videos below - one of the Bears' fans during their chants and one of the Tigers' fans. It really was one great Saturday!
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