Sunday, March 22, 2009

Bang the Drum Slowly























Team Korea is in the World Baseball Classic final against the winner of USA v Japan, and the scrappy, talented team out of the Republic of South Korea has taken the WBC by storm. As Korea marched into a Saturday night semifinal match up against Venezuela, the Korean fans, for a few hours, turned Dodger Stadium into downtown Seoul. Beating their drums and waving their thundersticks, this overwhelming show of support and national pride prompted Venezuela's manager Luis Sojo to remark that, "For a minute, I thought we were in Korea."

The national pride displayed by the fans was mind blowing, and a 10-2 beat down of Venezuela proved that this team out of South Korea is no fluke. This Korean team, led by a manager you've never heard of, starring exactly ONE major leaguer. As Korea jumped up, tacking on 7 runs by the 3rd inning, you couldn't help but think of the disparity between major league names on both rosters. Venezuela featured 22 current MLB players. Korea featured an aforementioned 1. Throughout the game the fans never ceased in shouting their national pride loud and proud, and the drums were present throughout the whole game. A constant, pounding presence, which would continue inning after blowout inning.

Funny to think that Korea will be in the WBC final, and the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Cuba will not. Teams studded with MLB All Stars and well known managers and coaches will not be there at the end. But Korea will. And this team is no Cinderella, with talent clearly rivaling those of the teams they defeated to reach the finals. Mexico, Japan, and Venezuela all featured multiple MLB stars, yet game after game, inning after inning, and pitch after pitch, the unknowns from Korea gutted out wins and opened up eyes all around the world.

One might ask, why then are there so few Koreans in MLB? The answer is simple. South Korean players in the Korean Professional League must wait 9 years to free agency, and this free agency does not feature a posting process that brought names like Ichiro Suzuki, Daiske Matsusaka, and Hedeki Matsui from Japan to the US. This WBC has shown the world what Korean players are made of, and this is a good thing. Maybe now more Koreans will jump to the big leagues, and maybe, just maybe, more big league clubs will send scouts to the small Korean peninsula. One must look no further than former All Star Chan Ho Park, whose electrifying run with the Dodgers gave MLB a taste of what could be to come.

So here's to Korea winning it all. And maybe even teaching the rest of the world a lesson or two about passion and dedication.

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