On Being Worse Than Boston
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| Rainbow |
LG Twins vs. SK Wyverns
Munhak Stadium
Korea Professional Baseball
Incheon, South Korea
6:30 PM
Outside of the Game:
I very excitedly got up and did not drag myself and all my possessions to a new train station and hotel this morning. I luxuriated in bed for a while, and then puttered around happily in my bathrobe for even more time before heading down to the buffet in the restaurant basement. Thus fortified, I decided to head out for a morning of sightseeing.
My hotel was literally in the middle of the palace district, so I just decided to pick a direction and start viewing. Jongmyo Shrine was my first stop, but apparently you could only visit by guided tour on any day but Saturday, and there were few English tours available. I got a ticket for the next tour, but I didn't imagine I was going to make it back in time, and I planned to come back the next day when it was free-range sightseeing.
So I headed slightly north to Changdeokgung, which did not require tours to visit. The castle complex was quite crowded in the early afternoon, and judging by the chatter, visitors from all over were present. I wandered around for a while, when I came to the entrance to Changgyeonggung, yet another castle complex. It was adjacent to Changdeokgung, but you needed a separate ticket to get in. There was also a "secret garden" tour for the Changdeokgung, but that one was by guided tour only as well (with even fewer tour times in English), so I just went with Changdeokgung. These grounds were a little less extensive than the other castle's, and it turns out that the Japanese turned this place into a zoo during one of their occupations, which the Koreans reverted to its original designation after their "guests" left, for some reason. It is odd, because once I knew that piece of information, it was almost impossible to see the grounds as anything but a zoo. It's weird how knowledge clutters perception sometimes. I kept expecting to see lions in a cage, and not the queen's quarters.
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| Changsdeokgung |
I did, indeed, blow my tour time for Jongmyo, because I spent most of the afternoon walking around Changdeokgung and Changyeonggung, so I resolved to come back the next day. I took the short walk back to the hotel to swap out into my game bag and get on my way.
The trip out to Incheon would be the longest I would have to make from Seoul. It was about an hour and a half out to the stadium, but it was only one subway transfer, so it wasn't that bad. I had to swap from the Seoul subway system to the Incheon subway system, but it was all in one station, and I didn't even have to go through any gates. It was a Friday, and the subways were pretty crowded on the ride out. It was interesting as the crowds started to wane the further I got away from downtown Seoul, but then they surged back up again on the Incheon line going towards the game. I got to the stadium in good time with nothing of note.
So in doing all these baseball trips over however many years now, I had not had any sort of weather problems, per se. In fact, in even looking back to my entire extensive baseball-watching career, I think I have only experienced one complete rainout, at a minor-league game in upstate New York. Since the trips have officially started, the closest there has been was a rain-shortened game in Boston at Fenway Park that I just attributed to Boston being Boston.
But someone finally took the title away from them. To be fair, it was getting late in June at this point, and July is known as the rainy season in Korea for a reason. They get torrential rain, sometimes for days on end, and it just makes the decision to not have any domed stadiums a little more puzzling. Regardless, I had been living a charmed life up until this point, and it all eventually came due that evening in Incheon.
After the rain delays earlier in the trip, I wasn't even that particularly concerned when it started raining. The crowd all donned their rain gear and everyone was setting up for the long haul. Eventually the rain got so severe that they suspended play and put out the tarp two batters into the second inning, but that just got the crowd to retreat to the more-expansive covered areas at this stadium and grab some food at the concession stands.
It wasn't even that long into the rain delay before all the TVs in the hallways cut to the head umpire, who held up his fingers in an "X" indicating that the game was called. At this point, a lot of people started breaking for the exits to try and beat the crowd back to the subway. Nothing else to do for the evening, I went back out to the field. A lot of people were still in the stands and apparently not accepting the called game at face value. As a consolation prize, a number of Nexen Heroes players came out to slide from third to home on the rain-covered tarp. This was greeted with much good-will by the crowd, and then, in the most rowdy behavior I'd seen in the beer-soaked crowds of Korea, someone ran out on the field to get a slide in himself. He was quickly pursued by a couple of security personnel and taken off the field. Perhaps emboldened by their compatriot, a few more people decided to take their chance on the field, and eventually the field got covered in security and police trying to track them all down.
Order was restored and the wet crowd sadly headed for the gates, and on the long subway ride back to the hotel, all I could consider was the failure.
The Stadium and Fans:
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| Home plate to center field, Munhak Stadium |
Despite the unfortunate weather situation, Munhak Stadium had a lot going for it. It was one of the only stadiums that would be perfectly at home in Japan and probably could pass muster in the MLB, as well. I got the impression it was one of the newer stadiums, or at least one of the most recently renovated, as the "Heroes" franchise had moved around in the near past.
Say what you want about the place, it had personality, and a little bit of whimsy. Even the subway stop had branding for the stadium, something that curiously was absent for all the other stadiums in Korea but was near-ubiquitous in Japan. Munhak is part of a larger athletic complex, but it stands alone and has its own identity. Parent company SK must be on something of a capital "G" Green kick, because there is a huge bike rack outside encouraging fans to ride to the park, and the day I went there was a big Green fair outside the main entrance. In addition, in dead center field along the main walkway, there is a small room built in that talks about energy efficiencies and other Green topics.
The outside of the stadium seemed to be more familiar to me as the outside of a ballpark. There were concessions and ticket booths at regular intervals... and a movie theater of some sort. The main entrance to the stadium was a sweeping ramp up to the second level done in astroturf, and clamoring all over the ramp itself were little super-deformed (giant heads, tiny bodies -- an animation style popular in Asia) player cartoons. The kids area also extended out to the exterior, with a kid-sized train running from inside the park to out and back again. There was even a practice field for fans just behind the main entrance ramp to the park.
Particularly noteworthy to me was a truck delivering Glenfiddich to the stadium that I saw during my walk-around. You get bonus points for having single malts at your stadium, because that's just common sense. Sadly, I was not able to locate the liquid in question, and I strongly suspect it was only available in the VIP areas behind home plate.
The stadium had two honest-to-goodness decks of seats from first to third, and a double-deck of bleachers in the outfield. One area of seats out in left field was a picnic field (also unique to Korea), and in right there was a section of seats with tables built in, mirroring similar sections behind first and third. In keeping with the whole "Green" corporate theme, the batters eye area out in center field was done up in shrubbery and trees.
Unlike most other stadiums in Korea, the interior walkways weren't just some cramped way to get from point A to point B, but were lined with concessions, shops, and other attractions. The SK Wyverns had the first full-on merchandizing team store that I saw, with the team name dropped on everything from pencils to phone covers, with an extensive selection of t-shirts (which surprisingly most other teams did not have available).
There also was a huge PowerPuff Girls-themed kids area called "Wyverns Land Kid's Zone." There was the aforementioned kiddie train in addition to a simply humungous baseball-themed bouncy castle and other play areas. For the older folks, there were hand-casts of players, areas with a history of the franchise and its achievements, and plenty of places to sit and eat from any of the varied concessions stands in the stadium.
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| Lost-looking mascots |
Not quite done with the gimmicks yet, on the home stage on the first base side, there was an hydraulically raised boat built into the stage that the MC used to raise up to get the home crowd going at the start of the game. Even though the weather was looking awful, the stadium was pretty full nonetheless. As once again the home team was just from across town, there was a sizable LG Twins cheering section as well, along with their MC and cheer squad.
As with Korean baseball crowds, they came prepared for the weather, and were more than happy to sit out the rain, even when it got intense. They just retreated inside and got something to eat or drink, or took their kids to the play area to pass the time. They were suitably upset when the game was called.
At the Game with Oogie:
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| It will clear up any second... |
One thing the place had going for it was that it was perhaps the first stadium in Korea that I went to that seemed to have a sufficient number of ticket windows ready to go. Although I was all prepared with my tried-and-true method of ordering tickets, I was immediately foiled by a college-aged woman at the counter who spoke fluent English, so getting the ticket was a non-issue, and for some reason, it made me feel a little sad.
I got a seat right by the home stage, and I feel it was not just because I was there early, but the foul weather that fulfilled its promise to ruin the evening had something to say about it. By game-time, my section was filled up, rain or no, with the usual mix of young people and families, drinking beer.
The Game:
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| First pitch, Twins vs. Wyverns |
Not much to it. The Wyverns, despite a walk, had a no-hitter through two, while they had a single and a double to their credit. Of course, since the game was scratched, none of this "officially" happened.
The Scorecard:
Twins vs. Wyverns, 06/29/12. Rain-out.
Well, obviously not a lot to record here, except I had to record a game cancelled by rain for the first time ever on a scorecard. Curse you, Incheon. I filled it all out because I had nothing better to do on the long subway ride back to the hotel.
The Accommodations:
I was at the Hotel Sutton again, and deliriously happy at not having a train or plane to catch that morning.
Besides my dry cleaning waiting for me in my room when I got back from the game, dripping and disappointed, there wasn't a lot to mention. As I had some extra time because of the early end of the game, I took an extra special long soak in the tub and watched a bunch of television while I worked out what exactly I was going to do if the game the next day got rained out.
2012 Korea
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