“…Buy me some dried squid and KFC, thundersticks do the trick for LG…For it’s root, root, root like your crazy…”

A weekend after spending our anniversary in Pusan, we headed into the city to see what baseball is all about here in Korea. The game itself was pretty familiar, but the ballpark experience was wholly different.

First off, there was not a hot dog to be seen, since people generally pack their own snacks or buy some at the convenience stores (think 7-11) on the concourse. We saw a lot of families, some with blankets and pizza boxes to suggest this could be the place for a sort of urban-style picnic in a city with no grass.

It turns out Jamsil Stadium was originally constructed for the 1988 Olympics, and is now shared by the LG Twins and the Doosan Bears, two of the eight corporate-branded teams comprising the KBO. We saw the Twins take on their Incheon-based rivals, the SK Wyverns, in a battle over who would get my next Korean cellphone contract.

We had the hardest time finding our seats since the sections weren’t really marked, but once we did, it was clear we were in the heart of the LG fan zone. Everybody had thundersticks (which Wikipedia tells me are a Korean invention) and there were coordinated cheers on a scale I’ve never seen at a baseball game. Each player had an accompanying chant or song with his name worked into it, with fans young and old yelling before each pitch. We thought this enthusiasm would wane over time, especially once the home team fell behind, but the Twins have some persistent fans (though not quite as disciplined as their relatives up North).

It was a fun time, and we’re definitely glad we went, especially when LG pulled ahead 3-2 in the bottom of the eighth after trailing almost the whole game. The crowd went nuts, of course, and I can still hear the cheers for their closing pitcher ringing in my head long after that clinching strikeout.

Watch this in HD.