Baseball games in Korea

There might not be any American football in Korea, but there sure is a soccer and baseball culture. Although I have never been to a baseball game back in the states, I'm pretty sure I'm safe to say that baseball games in Korea are very different.

Currently, there are eight professional baseball teams in the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO). Each team is owned by a major tycoon of Korea- Samsung, LG, Kia, Hanwha, Doosan, Lotte, Nexen, and SK- and has their own cheerleading team.

The crowd in these games is very enthusiastic and just listening to them cheering their favorite team alone is pure entertainment. It seems like each player has his own chant, usually a famous song with the words changed to his name. I'm pretty sure I heard a chant to "Mary had a little lamb" and even "Pomp and Circumstance." And instead of vuvuzelas, the crowd has these blow up sticks that they beat together.

Even though you can drink alcohol at American baseball games, there are no restrictions whatsoever in Korea. Beer is sold everywhere- outside and inside the stadium. They even have young part-time workers (probably university students) who run up and down the stadium wearing a keg on their backs and selling draft beer. It wouldn't be Korea without soju, of course. Instead of peanuts and pretzels, vendors walk around with pizza and fried chicken ready for you to eat. If you go to the back of the stadium, you can see families who bring their own grill and are having a barbecue. I don't even think they pay attention to the game!

I've only been to the baseball stadium in Seoul, but I know the teams travel to other cities like Daejeon and Busan. The stadium in Seoul is located at Sports Complex station on the green line (#2). You can buy tickets at the game, but if you don't get there early enough, it might be hard to find any. Don't ever get fooled by the hustlers standing in front of the ticket booths. They'll tell you that they are sold out and will try to sell it to you for three times the price. If you want to be safe, buy tickets on Ticketlink. Other than the private booths and table seating, the costly seats are still only 15,000WON.