Trail of the Lion King

Wednesday night and it was time for another dose of end of season fifth plays sixth baseball. I know that sounds like I’m less than enthusiastic about it all, but I’m not. The main attraction for me is just sitting outside on a warmish evening and watching a bit of sport, so I don’t need a game where the result matters or where there is a lively atmosphere to enhance the occasion. I’d be just as happy if the stadium was virtually empty, I think.

This game promised to have a decent crowd however and as it was between local rivals Doosan Bears and LG Twins, it was likely to have a competitive edge to it that their lowly respective positions in the standings wouldn’t normally bring about. For what it’s worth, Doosan had won their last four games and were closing in on LG for the fifth spot. That didn’t mean a lot though as neither team had any realistic prospect of finishing fourth and earning a play-off place.

Jen and I walked there, getting to the Jamsil stadium at twenty past seven, fifty minutes after the start. We were offered blue section seats near the action by a granny tout for less than their face value of 12,000 won but I fancied having a bit of distance between us and the fans banging their inflatable sticks so we just got a couple of 7,000 won outfield tickets from the box office instead.

Despite it being a derby, the stadium was half empty as we took our seats towards the end of the third innings. The score was level at a run each. It was a lot cooler than it had been at the previous week’s visit, hopefully a sign that Autumn had finally arrived. As you might expect Spring and Autumn are the best times to be in Korea.

Koreans often rattle on about Korea having four seasons as if it’s more than every other country has. What next? They have day and night? What they usually fail to mention though is the relative shortness of Spring and Autumn. This year I reckon that Spring lasted for a total of three days. At least that was the length of time between me having to have the heating on in my apartment and me needing to start-up the air-conditioning. Three days. I might have missed Spring altogether if I’d gone for a decent shit.

Lee Sang Yeol  was the starting pitcher for LG and he conceded again in the fourth when Kim Dong Joo hit a home run to make it two-one to the notional visitors. I’d normally post a photo of both starting pitchers, but unfortunately I’ve mistakenly deleted all my pictures from this game so you’ll just have to imagine what Mr. Lee looks like. Doosan were wearing their black away strip as they were the away team, but here’s one I’d taken at a previous game of home run scorer Kim Dong Joo.

Kim Dong Joo - Pretend he has his black away shirt on.

The lad who had started last weeks game against Nexen, Kim Seung Hoi, was pitching for the Bears. LG equalised in their fourth innings but I missed it as I was concentrating on my brie and crackers.

Kim Seung Hoi - Doosan Bears

At half time there was some game that seemed to involve trying to make your opponent move his or her feet whilst doing your best not to move your own. It was a bit confusing but apparently someone did enough to win a trip to the Philippines.

The 'Don't Move Your Feet' game

In the seventh innings Kim Hyun Soo managed to crack one to third allowing Jung Soo Bin to get around for the run and put Doosan back in front. Someone else got home in the seventh as well, extending the lead to 4-2.

Kim Hyun Soo - Doosan Bears

There had been quite a lot of small kids in the crowd, but most of them started to drift off at this point. I suppose 9pm is late enough on a school night. One of them had a gadget consisting of a plastic finger on a telescopic stick. It looked ideal for gesturing at fans and players or for poking his contemporaries in the eye. I was impressed. I could do with one of those at work.

It’s getting harder to invent things these days as most of the good stuff has already been thought of. In the past I’d came up with ideas such as a spoon with a hole in it for people who don’t like too much milk on their cornflakes and the ‘Ryanair coat’ which looked a bit like one of those puffa jackets but instead of it coming pre-filled with insulation you stuffed your socks and underpants into the lining instead to reduce your luggage weight. Sadly I was a bit slow off the mark in both cases and someone else is now hawking them around the appropriate trade fairs.

The good news about drinking at the baseball though is it allows my mind to wander as to what the world really needs and sometime in the seventh innings I had a bit of a brainwave. Baby wigs. As good as a hat for keeping the kid’s head warm but also serving the purpose of stopping baldy babies from being bullied at Mother and Toddler group.

Sadly, I was too slow again.

You can barely tell it's not natural.

I did think afterwards about adapting the idea for dogs, but someone had been there before me too.

I'm not sure about the tie though.

In the ninth, someone else got around for Doosan to make it 5-2. I didn’t notice who it was as I was too busy planning my baby wig empire whilst eating fake Ferraro Rocher chocolates. That’s the way it finished with Doosan creeping slowly towards to LG’s fifth place in the standings and me wondering just how long I’d have before I’d need to put the heating on.

This entry was posted on September 22, 2011 at 11:33 pm and is filed under Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.