Baseball in Korea, or How to Cheer Nonstop for 3 Hours

Now that the baseball season has been over for several weeks -- at least, the Kia Tigers have no more home games -- I am finally getting around to posting this. Being as how this is my blog, sports will never take priority. We should just be glad it's getting up here at all, and that's mainly credit to the cheerleaders.

To put it shortly, baseball in Korea is INTENSE. Korean baseball fans make American baseball fans look like golf spectators. I'm not sure how baseball became so big in Korea, but it almost seems shameful to call it the American national pastime when the Koreans get so much more excited about it. In America, you wander in at some point during the game, probably not at the very beginning. You get up at intervals to get beer, buy a chili dog, talk to your friends, whatever. You may or may not yell anything at the batter or the umpire. In Korea, you arrive on time. You get your fried chicken and beer before you take your seat, and then you stay there. And you cheer. Nonstop. For the entire 9 innings.

And there are cheerleaders. Yes, cheerleaders at baseball games. They have a very big job, leading a different cheer for every player who comes up to bat, among other team cheers and team songs. They dance, they do costume changes, they wear white gloves and enormous sparkly bows that resemble odd animal ears more than proper decorative headgear. The guy who is the head cheerleader yells the entire game, and I have no idea how he does not lose his voice halfway through. Fans all participate eagerly, never missing a beat with their blow-up cheer sticks. A baseball game in Korea is not a time to kick back and relax with your beer. That beer is crucial nourishment for the task at hand: leading your team to victory through the sheer force of your collective voices, proudly singing your team song while ogling skinny cheerleaders in tiny shorts!

They really do put us Americans to shame.