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.