History of little league in Korea
*kids playing sounds* *baseball sounds* Oh hi Mr. Shin. Is that your son out there? *sounds continue for 2 seconds* What’s this? Oh… it’s your son’s previous game scorecard? You want me to interpret for you? Yeah I can do that. (Pause for 3 seconds) First inning… they had 4 strikeouts and an inside the park home run. Hmm, that seems wrong somehow. Second inning… They had 3 straight walks and hit into a triple play because the runner on first ran backwards and bumped into the other runner. Wowww, it’s like watching a Rockies game *joke sting*. 3rd inning seems alright… only two kids got beaned and there was a sacrifice fly. See, Mr. Shin? It’s like what Yogi Berra said! Everyone figures out baseball by the third inning *joke sting* (pause for two seconds) Oh you want me to see about the 4th inning? Well, there were 3 singles that got turned into homeruns because of errors. That’s actually pretty standard. Wait…that symbol in the 5th inning? That’s a… oh, that’s a sprinkler! The game was called off because the field’s sprinkler system turned on. I’ve seen that happen in Oakland Colosseum once *Joke sting*. (Pause for 2 seconds) You wanna know how they lost 22 to 10?!! Well I can’t tell you from this! This is the home team scorecard. I need the away team scorecard. Honestly I wanna know myself. This sounds like a Thurber story- *kids screaming sound* Uh… you should tell your son he can’t hit the third baseman with the base if he gets tagged out. They stopped allowing that in the 80s. *Joke sting* *end sounds*
As you can tell from screaming kids, we are talking about little league or as its known in Korea, little baseball. But don’t dismiss it as a boring kids game. Korea fields some damn good teams, so let’s talk about it since the season’s starting today. Just… tell your kid that the ball go over the plate and no they can’t roll it to home base *joke sting*.
Background
Little Baseball had been around since the Korean Empire days, essentially getting a quick start when the government created a team to play against Japan in 1908. The conditions were pretty rough in those days and teams couldn’t even field 9 players or even have enough gloves so players used their base hands. There was a comedy about it in 2002 starring Song Kang-Ho called YMCA baseball if you wanna learn more about the early days. During the Japanese occupation, various middle and high schools created teams and held tournaments. In the 1920s the Chosun Daily and Donga-Daily sponsored middle school tournaments, which doesn’t seem surprising since they were also sponsoring marathons. In the 1930s the Japanese cracked down on Korean tournaments and made it mandatory that any future tournaments get permission from the occupation authorities. After the war and the Korean war, high school baseball took off and became so popular it had to be decimated when the KBO took off in 1982.
Little Baseball has a recent origin. When Taiwan won the Little League World Series in 1970 and the team came to Korea, the government forged an ad-hoc team to play against them. This led to the formation of Little Baseball and in 72 the federation joined the World Little League. Korea’s first win in Little League baseball came in 1984 and they won it again in 1985. But the league itself struggled and almost folded until it underwent a revival led by Han Hee-won and Han Young-gwan, chairman of Samhwa Suji the paper and plastics company in 2006. See, kids? That’s how a millionaire is supposed to act; not just buying yachts and ketamine. *joke sting* So nowadays there are more little baseball teams and dedicated fields being built. But with the low birth rate, they might not get used that much. But the revitalization has paid off with a victory over Chicago in 2014’s championship. Korea has also won in intermediate which is 13 to 14 year olds. Of course this pales in comparison to Taiwan which has won 64 times and even got banned in 1975 because they won too much. Yeah, the league management is full of sore losers *joke sting*.
If you’re in Korea and have a child that wants to play little baseball, swing by Littleleague dot co dot KR and you can check their signup info and all that stuff. I think there’s some age certification process you’ll have to go through to keep out the 16 year olds pretending to be 12 again. I recall that was also a Thurber story *joke sting*.
Famous players
So, let’s talk about some of the Little Baseball alumni. Unfortunately, the Little Baseball website doesn’t have a listing of famous players who are now in the KBO which is a shame. You’d figure they’d have that front & center to show parents this is the ticket to the big league but I guess it’s not a priority. Anyway on Namu Wiki they had a decent if not great list. I saw Yoon Suk-min the Kia pitcher and now TV sports guy. There’s also Landers ace Kwanghyun Kim with 180 career wins, Gold Glove 1st baseman and slugger Park Byung-ho, fleet foot KT Wiz center fielder Ahn Chi-Young, and rookie of the year NC Dinos Park Min-woo. Not a bad alumni list, even if it doesn’t have Park Chan Ho or Ryu Hyung Jin.
TV show
Just as I was writing this script, I came to learn of a TV show about little baseball called Our Neighborhood Baseball Captain starting next week in which KBO legends Park Yong-taek, Lee Dae-ho, Kim Tae-kyun, and Na Ji-wan directly select 10 year old players from their respective clubs' hometowns to form a team and play actual league games. It’s given me some Kim Yeong Kyung volleyball show vibes, but I think it might go in a different direction since that show’s about getting players into the big league. The StarNEws had this to say about the show: Above all, attention is drawn to the chemistry with commentators and novice coaches by maximizing baseball's dynamic fun with unique luxury shouting. Yeah… (sarcastic voice) over-the-hill adults shouting at kids all day. That’s some good TGI Friday action *joke sting*. If you’re interested, you can watch the action slash farce on KBS 2. My electric dollars at work *joke sting*.
GOTW
K1 football is on international break, which means we get the men’s team playing against Cote d’Ivoire on Saturday at 11PM. If you’re at the bar, ask them to tune in for ya. The next big game is Changwon LG Sakers hosting 3rd place SK Knights at 2pm on Sunday. You could say this is a good predictor for the playoffs which are only a few weeks away. Speaking of basketball, we’ve got Busan Egis hosting Suwon Sonicboom tonight at 7. Both teams are clawing for a playoff spot so you’re going to see some good basketball. In K2 one interesting match caught my eye. Yongin is hosting the Suwon bluewings at 2pm on Saturday. Could this be the trap game that breaks the Bluewings’ win streak? We also have the start of the KBO season with all teams playing at 2pm on Sunday! The Lotte Giants were the best preseason team so their game against the Lions could be a primer for their season. Are they going to live up to the hype?
In ice hockey, we’ve also got HL Anyang in the championship round against the Hokkaido Red Eagles on Saturday at 2pm. The Red Eagles have been beating the breaks off Halla all season so this could be their toughest trophy yet. Better get there early if you want tickets! But if you can’t, the game will be on Naver sports.
The WK-League starts April 4th so you should keep an eye for games but if you check on Naver sports like I did on Thursday, you’ll see they still use Changnyeong even though the team moved to Gangjin which is 300 kilometers away. Oops *joke sting*. Well that’s better than Daum sports which doesn’t even list the WK League. Goes to show the league has more to do to raise its profile. Speaking of footie, some of the amateur city tournaments are kicking off this week and next weekend, so if you’re looking for a field to play on with your mates, you might be out of luck.
Ending
Thank you for tuning in today. We hope you learned something about Korean Sports because if you didn’t, you set the sleep timer too soon *joke sting*. Pass this pod on to anyone interested in Korean sports and especially rookies because trust me they need every ounce of help we can pour on them. If you don’t believe me, spend 5 minutes on Living in Korea subreddit *Joke sting*. If you wish to read along or contact the show, visit our website at hwatingsportspodcast dot com or our Facebook page and everything you need is right there. Give our podcast 5 stars if you have time. Music notes like the opening song thanks to DumiAFava. You can reach him on Instagram @daf_daffy247. Cover art thanks to our cycling expert James! A shoutout to our listeners in Getxo Spain, home of the Arenas Club futbol team with the best sailboat logo I’ve ever seen! They’ve sailed into the 3rd division this season, wow! This is the end of Season 4! Look for us again sometime in April! Thanks for listening!
(AI voice) Guests of the Hwa-ting sports podcast get medical supplies at Graham’s medical kit giveaways in up-n-coming Namyangju! Need bandages? He’s got ‘em but they are 6 years old! Need a slightly used dental kit? He’s got you covered but clean it first. Got a headache? Check out his ancient vicodin collection! Not responsible for any alleged herpes infections! Warranty expires when Graham leaves.
Notes
Little Baseball in Korea - NamuWiki
Remarkable achievement after 29 years: Little baseball league : Korea.net