Korean versus American Baseball Games

Kamari Koonce

When the on-campus business organization called “Glitters” mentioned that they were planning on taking the international students with them to see a baseball game in Korea, I registered as soon as possible. For those who do not know, baseball originated in my home country: America. It is also second behind football as the most watched sport in America. Although I am American, I am not a huge sports fan or baseball fan in general; however, I wanted to see what a Korean baseball game would be like. In my experience the baseball games in America are incredibly boring and hard to watch in person let alone on tv.

             There are many similarities between American and Korean baseball. It is true that the rules are still the same and both are very long games. A positive part of the Korean games that I noticed is that those who catch homerun balls in the stadium can keep them just like American games too. Additionally, in America there are many professional baseball players that are idolized and I could tell that it was the same case at the game I went to in Korea.

Although there are many similarities between American and Korean baseball there are some striking differences that I want to share with you too. For starters, when you enter any professional sports stadium in America you must throw away any food or drinks that you may have in your bags. You are often forced to buy overpriced food and drinks in the stadium that can sometimes be 3 times the normal price in this situation. However, in Korea, you can bring outside food inside the stadium, so you’ll save yourself a lot of money if you go to games often. Another difference is that Koreans have cheerleaders and a man on a microphone that will hype up the crowd with dances. Meanwhile the only sports that have professional cheerleaders at American games are football and basketball. Likewise, the Koreans create unique songs for their favorite players and sing them while they are playing at bat. While Americans do have a few traditional songs that are played and games, they are usually only played in between innings rather than throughout the whole game.

So, the verdict is out: you may enjoy Korean baseball much more than American baseball. I truly hope that you will consider visiting a baseball game while you’re studying in Korea. There is something so magical about standing alongside the cheering crowd even if you don’t always understand what they’re saying. Who knows? You may completely disagree with me about Korean baseball games, but you will never know until you actually visit one day for yourself.