Live sports during the COVID-19 pandemic? Bat flipping as a cultural custom? More home runs? Players having a role in determining the fate of umpires? All of this can be found by watching the Korean Baseball Organization, or the KBO.
With all other sports leagues on hiatus due to COVID-19, the KBO has become the trendiest league among sports fans. This is especially true for baseball fans who anxiously wait to find out if and when the Major League baseball season will happen. Since opening day on May 5, the KBO has been in full swing, broadcasting at least one game a day, six days a week on ESPN.
Yes, baseball fans will have the ability to view these games with our favorite ESPN baseball voices, the likes of Karl Ravech, Jessica Mendoza and Boog Sciambi. Only difference? The times. Many of the games will be broadcast at times such as 5:30 a.m. Nonetheless, America’s pastime continues to air on ESPN, just overseas and with few differences.
Notable differences in the KBO
Bat flipping as a cultural custom
As the avid baseball fan knows, bat flipping is considered showing off. The rule of not flipping the bat is one of the more conspicuous unwritten rules of the game of baseball. When it is done, animosity towards that player takes center stage. The only time it is even done in the major leagues is on towering, no-doubter home runs. In the KBO, it is not only accepted but a cultural norm.
Back in 2016, ESPN Daily host Mina Kimes did an investigative story on bat flipping in the KBO and found that on an otherwise uneventful routine ground ball play, up goes the bat as if a game-changing Jose Bautista ALDS home run was just hit. It’s simply a natural impulse among players, not bothersome to pitchers. Lee Bum-ho, who has been an infielder for the KBO’s KIA Tigers for the last decade, says, “I don’t realize that I’m doing it. Asian players—we have to put our full strength into the swing.” What is viewed as an excessive celebration in America baseball is considered an every play move among hitters in the KBO.
Umpiring Crews facing demotion
In just the first week, a whole five-men umpiring crew—yes, five—were demoted after just one series, barely one week into the KBO season. After a series between the KBO’s Hanwha Eagles and SK Wyverns on May 8, all five umpires of the series were demoted to the minor leagues in what was referred to as “retraining” according to Yoo Jee-ho of Yonhap News.
Hanwha Eagles outfielder Lee Yong-kyu said, “Even though it’s only been three games this season, a lot of players are really unhappy with the lack of consistency on ball-strike calls.” While the KBO may be ahead of other leagues in certain areas of the game, umpiring is one issue where the league seems to be behind the curve.
“[The] new umpire director is more of [an] outsider than [an] insider right now, not necessarily protecting his peers,” said KBO Insider Daniel Kim. It is unthinkable for MLB umpires that in just the first week into the season they could face demotion, but in the KBO this is nothing new. “It has happened before. One area that is not really catching up is the umpiring,” said Kim regarding changes in the league.
Playoff Format
First place means everything, more than MLB’s simple reward of home-field advantage. Of the 10 teams in the KBO, five advance to the playoffs. The No. 1 team in the league gets a free ride to the best of seven championship series. Meanwhile, the No. 5 seed will have a seemingly insurmountable hill to climb. They will battle it out in a best of three first-round series where the No. 4 seed will only have to win one game. Whichever team wins that series will face the number three seed in a best-of-five series. The winner of that will face the No. 2 seed in another best-of-five series with the winner advancing to face the No. 1 seed in the best-of-seven Korean Series.
The takeaway here: regular-season record especially matters in this league. Since 2002, only two teams have won the pennant and not won the Korean Series. Regular-season record is everything.
Games won’t last forever
Fans will not have to stay up all night for 18 inning marathons, as games are limited to 12 innings—after that, they are counted as a tie in the regular-season record. As for the playoffs, if the score is still even after 15 innings, the team with the higher seed is just credited with the win. Another reason why playoff seed is everything.
Expect to see more contact, more bashing
Despite MLB seeing records in home runs this past season, fans watching the KBO can expect to see more all-around offensive production. First off, the KBO uses a universal designated hitter. The KBO apparently deadened the juiced baseballs—something they are ahead of the curve in doing over the MLB—as the league went from 1,754 home runs in 2018 to 1,014 home runs in 2019, according to C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic. Nonetheless, fans can expect to see more offense in the KBO, as I have noticed significantly more aggressiveness at the plate with balls being put in play and fewer pitches being taken.
KBO fans get really into it
With the absence of crowds so far in the KBO season, there still seems to be no shortage of noise as each KBO team has something MLB teams do not have—cheerleaders and a drummer. The crowd gets into it and few, if any, stadiums in the MLB measure up to this level of a stadium atmosphere. A loyal American KBO fan of the Lotte Giants said to Kimes, “MLB is like opera, and KBO is like rock n’ roll.”
The KBO so far
Amongst the differences, this is the same game of baseball that has existed since the 1800s; three strikes is still an out, six outs is still a full inning and nine innings is a full game. The KBO has been going on for three weeks now, but it is not too late to get into it as the season is 144 games, plus four rounds of playoff baseball.
The team standings so far are a strong indicator as to why the NC Dinos have become the most popular bandwagon among American fans. The KBO might not be the MLB, but it is providing fans with what baseball has given fans during times of crisis from World War II to after 9/11—hope to carry on through a healing wound. In these past three weeks. since the start of the season on May 4, the KBO has given off the same intimate feel the game of baseball has to offer. It will continue to do so as the season rolls on. Here are the KBO Standings and Stat Leaders in the first few weeks of play.
