The Los Angeles Dodgers of Dokdo

[source]

Southern Californians, as of late, have been subjected to a near daily soap opera surrounding the divorce of the McCourts, the uber-rich couple that own the L.A. Dodgers, and the resulting forced sale of the iconic baseball franchise.

I love me the Dodgers — though I'm first and foremost an Angels fan — but I haven't really followed the McCourt saga. Where it got interesting for me, however, was when it was announced yesterday that one of the handful of suitors for the boys in blue is a well-known Korean company:

A consortium led by South Korean retailer E-Land is among the short-listed bidders vying to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers, Yonhap news reported on Monday.

The Dodgers said late last week that a preliminary round of bidding had been completed and all parties would be notified of the results.

The E-Land consortium is one of the short-listed bidders for the Dodgers, Yonhap reported, quoting an unnamed industry official. [Reuters]

With legendary has-been Park Chanho having put Dodger Stadium on the Korean tourist map, there is already an affinity toward the Los Angeles club. One wonders, though, what kinds of tie-ins with Korean stuff we might see if E-Land takes over the Dodgers.

They could sell kimchi dogs,
 although that name would
 probably lead to considerable
 misunderstanding. [source]

We should expect thunderstix, a Korean invention already popular down the 5-Freeway in Orange County. Maybe Kimchi Night, where all ticket holders are given a panchan-sized portion of the pungent stuff (though this brings the danger that it might be thrown at the players if the spectators suddenly have a bout of Shakespearean scorn).

Maybe hot dogs with kyŏja. Or the best idea ever at a baseball stadium: 2000-won beer.

[UPDATE: No, comely cheerleaders and bat girls would make 2000-won beer the second best idea ever.]

We might even see a nightly parade of K-pop stars throwing out the first pitch with their stick-like girlie arms. And maybe some of the female stars might try it, too.

Perhaps the first North-South summit involving the Prodigious Progeny can be held while he and the leader of South Korea take in a Dodger game (though that sounds eerily close to the climactic scene of Shiri, and Kim Jong-un is better known for liking that other b-ball... maybe Lotte can buy the Lakers).

But my bold prediction is a name change. Just as Arte Moreno decided that the name "Anaheim" didn't have enough cache as a team moniker and so he decided to change the name of the Orange County home team to "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" [obligatory spitting on the ground in disgust] to raise awareness of the Angels franchise, maybe E-Land will decide that the Tokto issue needs its profile raised, and we shall see what's up there in the title.

Stranger things have happened.

UPDATE 2:
Apparently E-Land's bid has the backing of former Dodgers president and owner Peter O'Malley (who knew there were so many Irish Angelenos?), and vice-versa:

Peter O'Malley's bid to buy back the Dodgers is supported by financing from the South Korean conglomerate E-Land, two people familiar with the Dodgers' sale process said Monday.

If the O'Malley bid is successful, E-Land Chairman Song Soo Park would become a major investor in the Dodgers, one of the people said.

The ownership group also would have investors from Los Angeles. O'Malley has had discussions with Tony Ressler, a minority owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and co-founder of Los Angeles-based Ares Capital, according to a person familiar with the talks.

Foreign investment is not necessarily an obstacle to MLB ownership; the Seattle Mariners' ownership group includes a significant Japanese presence. In November, O'Malley told The Times that he wanted to lead an investment group in which he would return as the Dodgers' chief executive. ...

Under O'Malley, the Dodgers were pioneers in international baseball, particularly in Asia. In 1994, three years before O'Malley sold the team to News Corp., Dodgers pitcher Chan Ho Park became the first Korean player to appear in a major league game. ...

E-Land has expanded its business interests from fashion into such areas as hotels and resorts, restaurants and construction, according to the company website.

According to the E-Land website, the company opened its first U.S. retail store in 2007 at a mall in Stamford, Conn., under the brand name "Who A.U." The slogan for the brand: "California Dream."

This really would be a California dream. Although a lot of people would be asking of E-Land, "Who are you?"

...

Batting 0.20

Are there any well-known Korean celebrities in America who don't get arrested for DUI?

Our latest (the last one I can actually remember is Daniel Dae Kim, here in Hawaii back when "Lost" was still on the air, so maybe I'm exaggerating the frequency in my head) is Cleveland Indians star Choo Shin-soo.



The newscaster says that Mr Choo was confused about his left and right during the sobriety test but, um, that's not so uncommon for many Korean learners of English. God help us if every Korean tourist to America gets accused of being drunk because they can't follow the directions the cop is giving them (or because their paused English makes them sound inebriated).

Mr Choo apparently also thought an arrest — his blood alcohol level was 0.20, four times what it is in South Korea and 2.5 times what it is in Ohio — would mean deportation.

His arrest is only the latest involving a Big League baseball player, and this has prompted Major League Baseball to look into whether they should be doing something about this:

Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association reportedly have discussed implementing an alcohol policy as part of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement currently being negotiated.

Six Major League players have been arrested for allegedly drinking and driving this calendar year -- including two in recent weeks. While those incidents have brought the issue to the forefront, several reports this week suggest a program to address problems with alcohol abuse has been a discussion point between MLB and the union for some time now.

Currently, there is no specific system of punishment from the league if a player is arrested for driving under the influence one or more times, nor is there a league-operated treatment program for alcohol abuse.

Anyone who knows me knows I have a deep-seated hatred of drunk drivers. It only angers me more when celebrities are let off the hook in part because they are famous. I don't know what will happen, but if Mr Choo somehow gets off with a slap on the wrist for driving with a 0.20% BAL, I hope he realizes he needs rehab and/or a chauffeur.

Ballsy game

Attica!

I hope this doesn't become a rite of spring, the foreign resident running drunk and stupid onto the field where a baseball game is being played. As some noted at Korea Beat, please, oh please don't let this be an English teacher.

I guess this is what happens when you mix cheap beer (for which Korean ball parks kick ass over their American counterparts) with stupidity. Still, if a drunken oaf is the worst thing the cops have to worry about, that's not too shabby (read hear to see what I'm getting at).

In conclusion, I guess this is as good an excuse as any to recount my last experience at a Korean ball game.

Asian players in MLB favored over Latin American players?

Ozzie Guillen of the Chicago White Sox thinks so:

Chicago White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen thinks Asian players are given privileges in the United States that Latinos are not afforded.

In his latest rant, the outspoken Guillen also said that he's the "only one" in baseball teaching young players from Latin America to stay away from performance-enhancing drugs and that Major League Baseball doesn't care about that.

He said MLB cares only about how often he argues with umpires and what he says to the media.

Guillen said it's unfair that Japanese players are assigned interpreters when they come to the U.S. to play pro ball, but Latinos are not.

Echoes of the tensions in LPGA? A little? Sorta? Not at all?

Anyway, Mr Guillen doesn't actually mention Koreans (the article doesn't mention it anyway), but his comment would seem to include Koreans (and Taiwanese and others). Heck, maybe Mr Guillen also means Koreans when he says Japanese.

But if what he's saying is correct, then perhaps he has a point. And that point should not be to yank — heh heh, yank — the interpreters (and teachers) from the Asian players, but make sure that the Spanish-speaking players have them if they need them.

The NYT on Japan and Korea's baseball rivalry, one year after the World Classic

On the first anniversary of Korea's nail-biter of a loss to Japan in final game of the 2009 World Baseball Classic (which I wrote about here and here), the New York Times has a write-up that talks up the rivalry between the two countries, even as many South Korean players enjoy profitable careers in Japanese baseball (not unlike Canadian hockey players on American teams in the NHL):

The South Korean pitcher who gave up the extra-inning single that gave Japan its second straight W.B.C. championship continues to pursue his craft — with the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. The player who had the winning hit — Ichiro Suzuki — is hoping that his markedly improved Seattle Mariners will find their way back to the postseason. And the intrigue over what really happened on March 23, 2009, continues to percolate, at least in these two countries, which are intense rivals.

The 2009 game was played in Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles before 54,846 boisterous fans. A year later, it is still being replayed in this part of the world, most recently in a prime-time Japanese television program, “The Man Who Betrayed His Country.”

The “Man” of the show’s title was the pitcher who lost the game, Lim Chang-yong. It was Lim who challenged Suzuki with the game on the line that night, even though he simply could have walked him. The score was tied, 3-3, in the top of the 10th with two outs and runners on first and third when Suzuki came to the plate. On a 1-0 pitch, the runner on first took second on defensive indifference.

All Lim had to do at that point was intentionally put Suzuki on first base and go after the next hitter. Instead, he challenged Suzuki. And after Suzuki fouled off four straight pitches — methodically eliminating the pitcher’s possible escape routes — he drove Lim’s eighth pitch of the at-bat to center field for a two-run single. Japan claimed the championship after South Korea went down meekly in the bottom of the inning.

It makes for a good movie, methinks. But don't expect it to be made in South Korea — unless South Korea wins the next WBC.

Take me out to the ball game...

In late July I went to a baseball game at the Olympic Stadium complex (종합운동장) in Chamshil (Jamsil) with four friends that included three French people who were curious about America's (and lately East Asia's) pastime. While I explained all the plays and odd rules, we watched Samsung whoop LG's ass.

North American baseball fandom is centered around a geographic following, whereas Korean baseball (following its Japanese counterpart) is a mixture of corporate and regional affiliation. For example, the Minnesota Twins are the Minnesota team, cheered on by people all across Minnesota (and perhaps the nearby Dakotas, Iowa, and Manitoba), whereas the LG Twins are, well, more associated with LG than their Seoul location. For teams from the provinces, as I understand it, the regional association can be a bit stronger.

So for me, cheering on the Angels is a no-brainer, since I'm from Los Angeles of Anaheim Orange County, but with LG-versus-Samsung, I could go either way. Every single cell phone I've ever owned in South Korea (plus my pre-iPhone cell phone in Hawaii) has been an LG. My service provider is LG, too. So's my refrigerator. But I own a lot of Samsung products, too, including an air conditioner and a couple televisions. I once drove a Samsung rental car.

So my loyalties lay instead with whomever is going to put on a better show. Samsung played quite well, and I couldn't help but cheer their expert plays, but the problem was we were sitting in the LG section, and LG sucked that night. Not the best situation, and "B" kept hitting me in the shoulder, her way of reminding me that there were drunk LG fans all around us.

[above: fans in the Samsung section.]

So this (above) is where we should have been sitting, with the well-behaved fans of Samsung and their blue thundersticks, on the other side of the stadium. Instead we were amongst a bunch of red thundersticks, which were occasionally orchestrated by these lovely cheerleaders. Yes, for those of you who have never been to a Korean baseball game, there are cheerleaders, and they do try to get the crowd going. "B" kept asking me to get pictures of these cheerleaders (I still haven't figured out exactly why), so the three dozen or so I took isn't me being a lech.

[above: I do wish I'd been at the proper angle to get a clear picture of any one of these girls' chest with "Twins" written across it. Because that, in my childishly salacious mind, would be funny.]

Indeed, objectification of women is no small part of Korean baseball. You may have noticed in the uppermost picture that Samsung has a bat girl. I always thought this role was filled by a young boy who aspired someday to be in the big leagues, but I'm not really sure since in California all I can afford are the nosebleed seats, too far for even my telephoto lens to verify who is picking up the bat.

I guess there's nothing wrong with a bat boy being a young woman, though I fail to see the function of her showing off her midriff. And truth be told, I think I'd prefer a bat girl over a bat boy.

Besides the enthusiasm, the cheerleaders, and the exposed tummies, another thing that I love about Korean ball games (and Korean movie theaters, for that matter) is that they haven't yet adopted the American practice of price-gouging spectators (or moviegoers). Food and drink (including beer) can be found at down-to-earth prices, although the fast-food joints ran out of their combo specials pretty quick (yes, this bewildering KFC with the Korean food items on display really did have a full KFC menu).

We all had chicken sandwiches, snack cookies from the convenience store next door, and later a beer.

[above: 한식? Apparently "KFC" stands for "Korean Food! Come in!"]

The French and "B" all found the game quite interesting, even if "our team" lost. I was quick to point out the shared similarities between Korean ball games and American ball games, such as "the wave" and, lately, the kiss cam.

I was just about to put my camera away when the kiss cam popped up. The camera crew, via the giant TV screen, highlighted about four couples who were, under pressure from the crowd, expected to kiss. Hopefully they were people who were actual boyfriend-girlfriend or spouses (of each other), and not random strangers sitting next to each other.

The fourth couple was the mixed-race couple shown above and below, which is why I took the pictures. Now, the meme among many foreign residents, especially in the K-blogs, is that the male-dominated Korean social structure supposedly loathes such pairings. If this is true, the only explanation for the stadium cameramen focusing on such a couple would not be to get them to smooch, but to provide easy identification so that drunken spectators could hunt them down on the subway after the game. Right?

As it turns out, the girl was quite embarrassed to be kissing this guy in front of all those people (a typical reaction, by the way, even among those not engaging in forbidden love), and you can see that she moved away from him in such a way that it would be harder for him to fulfill his duties.

All in all, it was a fun evening. No post-game violence (though "B" says sometimes rival fans who have had too much to drink occasionally go at each other on the train ride home), parking cost only 3000 won (it's $15 or $20 at Dodger Stadium and $10 at Angel Stadium), and the French went away feeling that baseball is indeed a fun game to watch, but le football remains superior.