Dino Denouement

"The saddest day of the year is the day baseball season ends" (Tommy Lasorda)

On Saturday, July 13th, 2019, the day before my latest birthday, I saw my last live baseball game, at Changwon NC Park.  A muggy, yet perfect 74℉ (23℃) summer evening, with only a whisper of potential rain.

It was also the last destination in my Korean baseball stadium quest (kwest), which began on May 6, 2015, amid the cool days of spring at Hanbat Stadium in Daejeon, my home city in the center of the country, 104 miles to the west.  Four years, nine stadiums, ten teams.

That July 2019 contest had all the elements I love in a good game - a raucous crowd, an outside venue, an as-of-yet-unseen stadium, and the heady promise of new adventures.  I settled in with my scorebook along the third base side, to hear the Korean national anthem, Aegukga, played by a group of flutists, then headed up somewhere around the sixth inning to the upper decks also on the third-base side, just to catch a different perspective of the game and the fans.

The expansion NC Dinos were hosting the expansion KT Wiz and ended up getting pummeled that night, 13-3.  The ninth inning was a bit of a disaster, as the Wiz scored four runs on three errors to blow an already ridiculous blowout wide open.  Dino starter Drew Rucinski ended up going only four innings, before he was lifted, with his team down, 6-1.  A lively group of 10,805 fans, including a fair number of Wiz faithful along the third-base side, half-filled the stadium.  The cheerleaders danced, the Dino mascots ran about, and the announcers gave children in the home section microphones to announce upcoming batters.

But for all the antics on the field, the stadium was worth the trip in itself.  Opened only in March of that year, it cost twice the average price of any other stadium I'd been to, 20,000 Won, but was worth every bit of it.  As you walk up to the field, you ascend on ramps and staircases straight into the outfield bleacher area and are able to take everything in at once, gifted with a wide-open view of the entire layout.  No other sports stadium in South Korea has this open-wide feel to it, as the rest of them are perfectly-enclosed like the big USA concrete bowl stadiums of the 1970's. 

It's also got the smallest potential home base in South Korea, in the ninth-largest city of only one million, closest to Busan in the southeast corner.

Changwon NC Park very much felt like some of my favorite ballparks in the U.S., so I was not surprised to find out later that the global architecture firm Populous was responsible for its construction (the same firm that spearheaded the retro construction period and produced Camden Yards in Baltimore, Progressive Field in Cleveland, and Minute Maid Park in Houston, among other places).  This is the only baseball stadium that firm has designed in Korea.

The NC Dinos are also one of the more enigmatic teams in the league, an expansion franchise owned by the NCSoft video game development company (the rest of the teams are owned by the big corporations in the country).  The Dinos began playing in 2013, and have made the playoffs five out of the franchise's first seven years.  They even made it to the KBO series in 2016, but lost their so-far one and only chance to the Doosan Bears.  They're back at it again this year, four games ahead of those same Bears in first place in the 2020 standings.  That's an amazingly high yardstick they're holding up over the league.

They also have personalities galore.  One of their most famous alumni is third baseman Eric Thames, who went on to generate big buzz and big money in Milwaukee.  Thames landed with the team in 2014, and put up some remarkable numbers, most notably 47 home runs and 40 stolen bases in 2015, becoming the first KBO player to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in the same season.  He won the MVP award in 2015 for this.  He seemed to enjoy his time there.

In April 2016, Changwon apparently granted him honorary citizenship, and he responded by leading the team with another gigantic season (40 home runs) which took the team to the brink of a championship.  Few players have made a bigger impact in the KBO, yet several now have followed in his wake to return to big money playing in the major leagues in the USA.  One example is Josh Lindblom, former Doosan Bear now Milwaukee Brewer.

The 23-year-old lefty pitcher Koo Chang-mo is generating the most buzz right now for the Dinos, with his 6-0 record, and he's had plenty of help from two-year Dino veteran Rucinski (5-1) and newbie Mike Wright (6-2), as well as former Phillie center fielder Aaron Altherr, who's already hit 10 home runs, and is among the top five best foreign hitters in the league currently.  Then there's 8-year Dino veteran Na Sung-bum, an outfielder/designated hitter, who hits in the middle of the lineup, and who's usually good for 20+ homers a year.  The Dinos have talent.


And while that talent did not coalesce during that game in July 2019 (the Dinos left 12 men on base in a dismal offensive effort), they did make the playoffs later in the season as a wild card.  And honestly, I was having too good a time wandering about this new stadium, observing all the little touches of Chez Dino.  One standout structure that I couldn't help but notice was the gigantic beer garden-cafe overlooking left field, with several floors and porches overlooking the field.  Down below, in back of the ground-level seating, there were wide open concourses, so you never felt cramped, and were always close to the action below.  There were big lines for food, and heading into the gift shop at the end of the game.  I resisted the urge to join the crowd and pick up a plush Dino. 

There is a reason for the dinosaur-centric theme of Changwon, as the southern area of the country seems to be a dinosaur fossil hotbed (the Goseong Dinosaur Museum is also relatively close).  Specific NC mascots include Seri, a green Brontosaurus that wears a necklace, and Dandi, a blue Tyrannosaurus.  Yeah, that rocks about as hard as you think.

I had no idea what to expect from Changwon, the little sleepy port town modeled after Canberra, Australia, and even after staying there one night, I didn't learn enough about its main attractions, other than being on the coast, and their summer entertainers, the NC Dinos.  All the motels seemed to be in one area, and it had a definite "working port" kind of vibe, much different from the upscale Busan.  Apparently, the city has branded itself an "environmental capital."  Further research on the city revealed copious thought put into the flag - a tri-coloured pinwheel made of 'C' shaped wings, including blue, symbolizing the ocean, growth, and hope; orange, representing passion and creation; and green for nature and balance.  They've put a lot of thought into the town's bits and pieces.

After the game, I saw some of this "green aspect," as I wandered on the lamplit footpaths along the Haewancheon River, before settling back in my nearby motel for a nice, soothing post-game bath.

Changwon seems like a nice enough place to be, and I've heard that it actually has a sizeable foreign community.  On Sunday, my birthday, the day after the game, Pizzeria da' Genna (open since 1957!) served me one of the most satisfying Italian meals I've had in country, Pesto Mussels Vongole, and before I boarded the train, a Starbucks staffer gifted me a size bigger on my latte to compliment my cheesecake.  Small little touches like these made great gifts on my big day.

Full of cake and mussels, I waved goodbye to green and friendly Changwon, the NC Dinos, and boarded the train back to Daejeon, my Korean baseball stadium quest at an end.

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Speaking of small gifts, I want to thank each and every reader who joined me for a few miles on my blogging baseball journey, and I hope this series carries on into the future as something to be discovered by others.  I also hope all you readers can discover some magic in your own expectant journeys, your own quests.

Will this now long-ago 2019 birthday weekend game be the last one that I see?  Time will tell.

I expect I will see others, perhaps even pursue, and eventually fulfill another baseball quest, but you never know.  The next great disaster, the next daunting health crisis, the next sequestering world event, may be yet around the corner.

We must do what we can in the time we have.

The game is over, the lights are dimming.

It's time to go home.

KIA Tiger Kings

I was aware of the echoes of history as I made my way two hours south on a cloudy Friday, on July 12, 2019, to the southeast of the country to visit Gwangju-KIA Champions Field during my "Great Birthday Baseball Trip" of that year.

The KIA Tigers have won every KBO Series in which they've been involved.  They've also won 11 KBO championships (which, to be clear, is the most of any KBO club).

So they are etched into Korean baseball history, and tend to win a lot.  In fact, they are one of two teams I have seen live over the years who win more than they lose.  My scorecard confirms this.  In the six games I've seen them, they've won three times, tied once, and lost twice.

July, unfortunately, is a tricky month to plan any baseball trip, because that's the beginning of the rainy season, but I had to try, and everything ended up working out perfectly.  As it turned out, the Tigers were playing at home against Hanwha, so this game also marked the first time I ever saw the Eagles play on the road.

But there is other history as well that reverberates through the ages.  Gwangju is a seminal town simply for being the most "politically rowdy." (which resonates with our ongoing 2020).  The pivotal moment for this was the period of May 18-27, 1980, when scores of people were killed during a student uprising against the the military-led government of the time.  It remains a point of stubborn pride for the city, as well as a wound that never really healed, and really marks the beginning of the long, turbulent ascent to democracy in South Korea.

So it seems pretty fitting in a way that this history-soaked city should have the most-titled ballclub in the country, which established the KBO only in 1982 (two years after the Gwangju massacre).  Most of those titles came in the early years of the league (the Tigers won nine of their championships between 1983-1997), but still, that's a lot to hang your hat on.

Luckily, things were calm when I visited the ballpark on that cloudy day, and only 9,208 people showed up in a stadium that fits 27,000, but they did make a lot of noise.  Gwangju-KIA Champions Field was opened in 2014, and is one of the newer ballparks in the country, so it reminded me of the Samsung Lions' stadium, although the Tigers are one of the original teams in the league.  They used to be the Haitai Tigers, but became the KIA Tigers in 2002.

I took my time strolling about the periphery of the place, admiring the Tiger statuary and other decorations along "Gwangju Baseball Street."  I was familiar with a few of the Tiger heroes, especially pitcher Sun Dong-yol, who was the other half of the "Perfect Game" (which I wrote about in my Lotte Giants blog).  Sun was a big part of the 1980's-early 90's success of the Tigers, and he holds the record for the lowest  career ERA in the league, 1.20.  He also was a member of six of 11 Tiger championship teams.  He's one of the legends of Korean baseball.

Sun's number, 18, is one of two retired with the team.  The other is number 7, belonging to Lee Jong-Beom, a shortstop converted to center fielder who apparently was dubbed "Son of the Wind" for his speed on the base paths.  Lee holds the single-season stolen base record in the KBO, with 84, and is second all-time on the KBO stolen base list with 510.

Gwangju has more than its share of famous Korean baseball names.  Kang Jung-ho (the former Pirate who is in hiatus with numerous DUI's), Kim Byung-hyun (who played with both the Red Sox and Diamondbacks), Choi Hee-seop (former LA Dodger and longtime KIA Tiger), and Jae Weong Seo (NY Met turned KIA Tiger) all hail from Gwangju.

The current team seems to have a good balance between pitching and batting,  Former Houston Astro outfielder Preston Tucker has been with the team for two years now, and this year, the Tigers hired their first ever American manager, Matt Williams (yes, that Matt Williams of San Francisco fame).  So far, he has them contending above .500, in 5th place, right in the playoff mix for 2020.

It was a different story in 2019, however, (the Tigers missed the playoffs that season) but the team was only two years removed from their 11th championship in 2017.  On that steamy July night, I had the luck to catch veteran pitcher Yang Hyeon-jong, who struck out five on the way to his 130th league win (a 5-0 shutout by KIA).  Yang, who is also from Gwangju, has also had quite the baseball career, pitching 14 years for the Tigers, with two championships, and an MVP award for the 2017 series.  He also has three gold medals from the Asian games.  It's nice to see the homeboy made good in his own stadium.

As usual, I occupied my upper deck position behind home plate and enjoyed the show, (motto: Always KIA Tigers), marking down the action in my scorebook.  The first pitch was driven in via a KIA car (naturally) and the scoreboard was rocking the anime figures including a late-inning shell game of Kai Bai Bo (Rock Scissors Paper) which for anyone who hasn't lived in Korea, is how almost everything is decided here.  Just trust me on that.

The Tigers scored all their runs in the fourth inning, on two monster home runs which surprisingly didn't come off the bats of Na Ji-wan (13 years a Tiger, 209 career home runs) or Choi Hyoung-woo (308 career home runs, former Samsung Lion). Side note: Choi was the first player in the league to receive a 10 billion won ($8.5 million) contract when he signed with the Tigers in 2016.

As I alluded to earlier, the KIA fans were active all night on the third-base side with their yellow KIA boomsticks, and I counted three Eagles fans bravely representing on the opposite side, waving a giant Hanwha flag.  They were loud and proud but even they could not spur their side's offense, which mustered all of four hits for the night.

After two and a half hours of this shutout, we all poured out onto "Gwangju Baseball Street" abuzz with excitement to catch our buses, and I waved goodbye to my second-to-last stop on my Korean stadium quest, heading into the night to make more history.

I didn't see any sign of the stalwart Hanwha fans.  I assume they made it home safely.

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It's time for the ninth inning, last ups, and we're heading east toward Busan to catch the NC Dinos in the brand-sparkling new Changwon NC Park.

Bill the Wall! (in Suwon)

There is no mistaking Suwon Baseball Stadium

Because like everything else in Suwon, it pays homage to the great and mighty "wall."

That wall is the Hwaseong Fortress, constructed just before 1800, now a UNESCO World Heritage site, the tourist magnet which puts this city on the map.  Suwon is just 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of Seoul, and is easily reachable by the Seoul subway (and/or any number of trains), and thus I consider an extension of that supersized city, very much like Incheon.  Apparently, Suwon is the only remaining completely walled city in Korea.

And it is quite a sight.  I've spent a few times walking the length of it (3.5 miles/5.74 kilometers), up Padalsan Hill, over gates and traffic, and even all the way out to the wall's archery complex (which was unfortunately, closed on that day).

Suwon Baseball Stadium, which opened originally in 1989, and which was the home stadium for the now defunct Hyundai Unicorns until 2007, is currently the home of the KT Wiz, the league's latest expansion team.  The KT Wiz, formed in 2013, played their first season in 2015, and like most expansion teams throughout history, they have struggled, have yet to make the playoffs, and are routinely punching bags for the rest of the league, although they did rank as high as 6th last year.  Currently, in 2020, they are tied for 8th place in the standings (out of 10 teams).

You can't help but feel for any expansion team, especially for one as new as the Wiz, and you wonder when they will start to put things together and really start to compete with the big boys (i.e. any of the Seoul-based teams, like the Doosan Bears or Nexen Heroes, which are natural local competitors).

When I visited the Suwon Baseball Stadium for the first time on October 12, 2018, the KT Wiz were just finishing up a ninth place finish to the season, and were hosting the playoff-bound Nexen Heroes on a cold evening before what would be eventually 10,268 fans (the stadium holds almost 21,000).

I was on my way to Seoul to attend the annual international KoTESOL (Korea Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) conference (yeah, I know, that's a mouthful), and thought it made perfect sense to detour on the way up to the bright lights of the big city.

I ended up staying through eight innings before the cold got to me (it fell from 59℉ at 6 p.m. to 49℉ by 9 p.m. ... a five degree downward shift for Celsius fans) and I was also obsessed about getting the last train back to Seoul.  I made the train in plenty of time, and in checking the KBO app, found that I hadn't missed much.  The hometown Wiz were losing 8-5 when I left, and eventually let two more runs cross the plate to lose 10-5, before all was said and done.

To be honest, there were as many Nexen fans as Wiz fans at the stadium that evening, and they were loud and proud.  Park Byung Ho (formerly of Minnesota) hit his 42nd home run of the season during the third inning, which broke the 2-2 tie and put Nexen on top for the remainder of the game.  The KT Wiz mainly relied on their outfield for any offensive production, including leadoff hitter and left fielder Kang Baek Ho, who won Rookie of the Year with 29 homers that season, and the speedy center fielder Mel Rojas, Jr., who is still with the team as of this season.  Rojas, who has yet to play in MLB, is the son of Mel Rojas, who you may or may not remember playing for the Montreal Expos in the early 90's as the setup man for closer John Wetteland.

But mainly I was enjoying the overall atmosphere of the stadium, the fans desperately trying to keep themselves warm in the October cold, with their dances and cheers, and their frequent runs to buy beer, the two freakish wizard-monster mascots named "Vic" and "Ddory" (combine those and what does it spell?), and most especially the little touches of wall at the top of the stadium and scoreboard.  These little Hwaseong Fortress wall touches, more than anything, make Suwon Baseball Stadium stand out from its brethren, and really plays a constant unifying theme for this city.

Suwon lives, breathes, and plays in the shadow of that wall.

I like historical walls, and the lessons they teach about time and permanence.  Hwaseong Fortress is, as I've mentioned before, is one substantial stretch of concrete and stone through town, but there are all sorts of bits and pieces to discover, including an elaborate array of observation towers, guard chambers, crossbow platforms, beacon towers, and flood gates which cross over Suwoncheon Stream.  It's very photogenic, and you can step on and off at any point to wander to restaurants or park areas.  Not surprisingly, it took some damage during the Korean War, but was restored and mended.

A strong second draw to the city is the uniquely scatalogically-oriented "Mr. Toilet House," which explores the life and times of "Mr. Toilet," Sim Jae-duck, who built a toilet-shaped house (eventually made into a museum) to celebrate the philosophy of good toilet hygiene.  If you have the opportunity, it's best just to go and see for yourself.  The alarming statuary of various figures engaged in "number two" are in and of themselves worth the trip.

I've also enjoyed one of my favorite lunches at the Din Tai Fung Dim Sum restaurant (which has branches all over the world, and which is within walking distance from the Suwon train station) and ventured out on another cold November day to the Suwon World Cup Stadium to catch the finals of the Korean FA Cup (the Suwon Samsung Bluewings are actually one of the more successful soccer franchises in the country).  The restaurant had no wall decor that I can remember.  The soccer stadium definitely did.  That wall reigns supreme.

There's a lot to explore, actually, in Suwon.  Just not, as of yet, a winning baseball team.

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We are late into the game, and bound for the 8th inning.  Next stop is to the southwest of the country to Gwangju-Kia Champions Field, home of the most successful team in the KBO, the KIA Tigers.

Daegu Discovery

I am always stimulated and encouraged by my solo trips of discovery in the Land of the Morning Calm.

April 21, 2018 was such a day; it was a second chance for me to visit Daegu, just an hour southeast from my own city in the middle of the country, and my first chance to catch a game at Daegu Samsung Lions Park.

If the name "Daegu" rings a bell in our year of the plague, it's probably because you've heard of that city in connection to the Covid crisis in Korea. A member of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus became a super-spreader in the city, and was largely responsible for kick-starting the virus spread about the country, and the eventual quick government response to shut things down.

But all of that was far in the future when I went to Daegu, "Colorful Daegu!", on this April day.  I had been in the city only once before, and was interested in digging into old and new haunts.  I've always appreciated, in one historical aspect, how Daegu was the front line of the "Busan pocket," the last holdout in Korea during the war, before the North Koreans were pushed back all the way north.

The old haunts included the street dedicated to Kim Kwang Seok, an activist folk singer who, sadly, ended up taking his own life in 1996.  I'm fascinated with this area in Daegu, and with this singer.  It's a time portal to a turbulent era in South Korean history, when crowds of people were marching against dictatorships (which in this case was as recent as the 1980's) when Korea had yet to make anybody's radar.  Spoiler alert: they emerged happy with a fairly stable democracy.

Protests against authoritarian rulers is a recurring theme in Korea, even as recently as 2016-2017, when millions of Koreans took to the streets and played a large role in the eventual impeachment and ouster of influence-peddling President Park Geun-hye.  Geun-hye has a connection to Daegu;  she was born there in 1952.

But residents prefer to remember Kim Kwang Seok, and his tragic history permeates this street, and the area has become as much a shrine as anything.  His ballads, soft-spoken and folk music centered, with a 1970's feel, are such a contrast from the pop-generated, synth-dance K-music that dominates everything now.  I always feel at home wandering that area of Daegu, drifting along to the recordings of his songs, which are heard via outdoor speakers throughout that area.

But there were plenty of new haunts too.  One of the first on that hot April day included Daegu National Museum, which contained an array of materials from prehistory to the Three Kingdoms period ... ceremonial robes, bronze daggers, tiger-shaped buckles, and Silla-era pottery.  Most importantly for me during this long day-trip, the museum offered a cool respite from the day's heat, and a chance for me to charge my phone and read a short story from my "best of" series.

There is a tendency for me to go somewhere new, even in hiking areas in my own city, just to change things up and get a new perspective, and this is what I did with this April day in Daegu.  Using my various phone transport  and mapping apps, and my T-mobile money bus card, I become Marco Polo with a modern compass, able to unlock exact buses and routes and stops in front of places like this museum.

But the newest thing, and the centerpiece of the day's trip, was my eventual trip to the baseball stadium, the home of the Samsung Lions ("New Blue!  New Lions!"), which required a trip on the Daegu subway out to the eastern end of the city.

As luck would have it, I had arrived with 16,453 other fans for "Darin Ruf Appreciation Night" and enjoyed all sorts of celebrations, including videos from his family in Nebraska, and his son Henry Ruf throwing out the first pitch, as I settled in with my Burger King set and beer in the Sky level seating (yes, the stadium had a Burger King).  People were even allowed to play on the outfield before the game.

Ruf, a power hitting outfielder/first baseman, who bounced up and down with the Phillies for much of 2012-2016, found a three-year home with the Samsung Lions, and was clearly a fan favorite during his tenure there.  He led the league in RBIs in 2017, and was having a decent 2018. It was nice to see the Lions treat their foreign hitter so well.  What can I say ... I'm sensitive to these things as a fellow expat.

The Lions are rich in history, and in winning.  One of the original six teams (from 1982), the Lions have won eight times, mostly recently.  Half of these titles came four years in a row, from 2011-2014.  Samsung, of course, is one of the major corporations in the country, and they are not shy about splashing the money to get decent players.  I once thought of them as the N.Y. Yankees of the KBO, and in this aspect, they are.

One of the most famous Lions, and indeed, most accomplished Korean baseball players of all time, is first baseman Lee Seung-yuop, whose visage, massive left handed batting swing, and retired number 36 are clearly displayed in all their glory on the right field wall.  Lee Seung-yuop played 15 seasons for the Lions in all, and he still holds the KBO records in six categories.  He hit 467 home runs in the KBO (and 626 home runs overall between Korea and Japan), won League MVP five times, and the Golden Glove Award ten times.  He retired in 2017, only a year before I saw this Daegu stadium, and was responsible for four of Samsung's titles, as well as two titles in Japan.  He almost played in the United States, but never came over.  One wonders what impact he would have made.

There's a wide-open and very new feel to the Lions stadium, which was completed only in 2016, and holds 24,000.  Sparkling in the home team blue and white coloration, there's a picnic and camping area beyond the right field fence, and a nice open area in left field which showcases the green of a local hillock.  You feel like you're entering a palace of baseball as you approach from the subway, with a giant "Golden Ball" smashing into "Blue Flower" metal sculpture to get you all amped up for the game to come.

Happily, the Samsung Lions made good on Darin Ruf night, winning 4-1 over the expansion KT Wiz, and Ruf had a decent night, hitting 2 for 3 with a run scored.  All the damage occured in the fifth inning, as Lee Won-seok belted a three-run homer as part of a four-run inning, and Lion starter Tim Adleman moved slowly but surely through six innings, allowing only the one run.

The big picture is a bit dimmer, however; the Lions have suffered in their shiny new ballpark, not having made the playoffs since 2015, when they lost to the Doosan Bears in their last year in the old Daegu baseball stadium, which had a maximum capacity of 5,000 people.  In 2020, they're off to a bad start, in 7th place out of 10 teams and below .500, despite help from pitcher David Buchanan (another former Phillie) and infielder Tyler Saladino (former Brewer/White Sox player).

The Lions are looking forward to the return of former MLB relief pitcher Oh Seung-hwa, the "Stone Buddha," but he has yet to make an appearance this year, as he has been serving through 30 games of disciplinary action and is expected to return on June 9.  There is also the prospect of future stardom in rookie left-hander Heo Yun-dong.

But even if the Samsung Lions don't win, and that's certainly the case of late, they've got a beautiful blue and white stadium to play in, and plenty of stories of former glory to remember.  And they will always have Lee Seung-yuop.  New Blue!  New Lions!

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We're on to the 7th inning jnow, and a trip northward almost to Seoul to the Suwon Baseball Park, the home of the newest expansion team, the KT Wiz.