Baseball season has started around the globe

and with an 0-4 Red Sox, a 2-3 Mariners and a Blue Jays team that is actually doing well I'll skip discussing the American league (and while we're at it the National - anyone else bet on the Cubs to take it all this year?) and look to baseball on the peninsula.

My local team in the Samsung Lions (corporations sponsor teams and so it's their name, and not the city name, that appears on the team logo's and jerseys, making it very difficult to figure out who plays where).

There are currently 8 teams:

Samsung Lion (Daegu)
Hanwha Eagles (Daejeon)
Lotte Giants (Busan)
SK Wyverns (Incheon)
Kia Tigers (Gwangju)
Doosan Bears (Seoul)
LG Twins (Seoul)
Nexen Heroes (Seoul)


While baseball is the number one sport in Korea, stadiums are comparably small, with the teams in Seoul holding 28000 and the stadium in Daegu a mere 10000 (though it was built in 1948) and turnout on weekdays can be low. However, unlike soccer the local teams are actually popular (people watch Manchester United or Real Madrid but no one watches or goes to the Korean league games). While Major League baseball gets some TV coverage and the Japanese leagues are quite popular (were it not for their archaic rules on foreign players the Japanese leagues could give the US ones a run for their money, and steal a few top players at the same time) the Korean teams are still number one for the people here.

However, the games themselves are somewhat amateurish compared to their US (and Japanese) counterparts. Part of it is, as in Japan, only three non-native players can be on a team (Japan is 4 I believe) and they must be a mix of fielding and pitching. So for example Samsung has an American infielder and two pitchers from the US and Panama and all the rest are Korean. This does limit the quality of players. Also, quite a few top Korean players will go to Japan and a few of the best will go straight to the US, where they will make more money and play in a higher calibre league. These factors make sure that the league will never compete seriously with the US Leagues. However, it is comparable to a Double-A game and is a fun day out.

I'm hoping to go see Doosan (a Seoul team) play Samsung on Sunday afternoon. If it works out I'll blog more then.