Rant #2,401: Bang and Blame

Baseball fans, gear up for the new baseball season!

No, not the baseball season in the United States.

ESPN plans to carry about a half-dozen or so games from the KBO--the Korean professional baseball league--during the early hours of the morning, trying to feed into the frenzy of America not having its national pastime to while away the time.

Our own Major League Baseball is completely shut down now--as are all the affiliated and unaffiliated minor leagues--so we here have nothing as far as baseball is concerned to fill our idle time.

Experts have said that our mental health is one of the things that have suffered as we have gone through this pandemic, and baseball has proven time and time again--from the World Wars through 9-11--to be the antidote to help us cope with what is happening in our world.

But this time, the season never even got started, and like the other sports, it has been shut down completely until further notice, a notice that might not come in 2020.

To compare what goes on in the United States and what goes on in South Korea during this pandemic is, again, like comparing apples and oranges, but the naysayers have been blaming our response for weeks and months now.

They point to Asia, which supposedly was on top of this from the beginning, as the bellwether, the model that we should be using to combat the coronavirus here.

The problem with that is that things that they can do over there we could never, ever, do over here.

First of all, the Koreans have to be always prepared for the worst, because they are thisclose to their main protagonists, the North Koreans, who will presumably do anything to thwart the world, no matter what the cost.

Just over the past few days, the North Koreans supposedly had gunfire with the South Koreans. You can't imagine how close the two countries are unless you have been there. Take it from me, a mountain range separates the two countries, which puts South Koreans maybe a few miles away from their neighbors. When my wife and I were there a few years ago, we could not believe how close we were, at one point in our trip, to the North Koreans.

Thus, they are always on red alert, and I mean always. They have safeguards in place that we could never have in this country to make sure that their citizens are safe. Our interpreter told us that there is virtually no street crime in Seoul and the rest of South Korea because people simply don't hurt their fellow countrymen in any way--their sights are on the North Koreans 24/7, 365 days a year. They need to be united and strong, so why commit any crime, even petty crime, against their fellow countrymen?

The South Korean government also tracks the every step of their citizens through their cell phones. They know where you are at any moment, since everyone has a cell phone in South Korea. And the South Koreans don't care if Big Brother is watching them; they are brought up to believe that Big Brother may be watching them, but they are also protecting them, too.

And again, their total focus is to be wary of the North Koreans, so they generally don't care that what we would call their "rights" are being abridged.

That is not to say that the South Koreans are docile. They protest one thing or another in generally peaceful gatherings on a regular basis. We saw protests about one thing or another when we were allowed to shop in the downtown area. These protests are well organized and are almost expected on a daily basis by the South Korean population. The police are prepared, and will take action is anyone steps out of line.

You simply cannot compare South Korea with the United States, and those that do, well, they should get a hobby. It really is like comparing apples and oranges.

But back to baseball ...

When my wife and I were over there, we learned a lot about the culture, and that included about baseball over there.

Like in Japan, baseball is the No. 1 sports activity in the country. Seemingly everyone is into baseball ... but not the KBO. In fact, attendance has declined for several years, and it certainly isn't going to pick up now that play is ready to resume in that league--

But television numbers are way, way up, demonstrating that the South Korean people are ready for baseball of any kind.

When we were over there, we learned that even their own league is looked at "second rate" by the South Korean people. The country, however, absolutely loves American baseball, to the point that gear from MLB--hats, shirts and other items--is readily available in many department stores in the country, while you really have to search out similar stuff from their own league.

I learned that the hard way, when I wanted to buy some Kia Tiger gear, but found that I could not find anything anywhere (I ended up getting some hats later on in the trip and when we arrived home).

In fact, the country's national team is not the Kia Tigers or any other KBO team--it is the New York Yankees!

No matter where you go, and no matter who you see, they appear to be wearing some form of the interlocking N-Y on their hats, shirts, bags or on some other part of their attire. We were told that not only do they idolize the Yankees, the reason they do is that the Yankees, to them, represent America. They are very western in their culture--Seoul actually resembles a miniature, newer Manhattan--and the Yankees, to them, represent all that is good in America.

In fact, when you speak to Korean children, as we did, when you say you are from New York, their eyes light up like you would think they do on Christmas morning. Even little kids know what New York is, and what the Yankees represent, to them at least.

What a change from just 70 years ago, when the Korean War was being fought, and they hated us as much as we hated them!

But back to baseball, with nothing much to show us as far as sports are concerned, ESPN will be showing these games in the middle of the night, what with the 13 hour time difference.

The league is competitive, has sent several players to our own major leagues, and currently has probably about a dozen or so American players on its teams, which can only have three foreign-born players on each team roster.

If you stay up to watch, you will see a league which, over here, would be considered double A or maybe touch the Triple A regarding talent, but it should be a fun respite from what we are going through--and something that the MLB might be able to use as a template when they can come back and play.

No fans, constant health checks, wearing masks while on the bench, etc.

And if one player or official tests positive, the league shuts down for three weeks while monitoring is going on, and then reopens, unless there is a full outbreak, in which case it shuts down in total.

it's a new world, and you bet that MLB will be studying what goes on there and adapt it as they try to get their own league going.

And not only will MLB be watching, but so will U.S. government officials. You just know that they are aching to get back to our normal life, and sports is part of that, so they will be watching to see if they can adapt the South Korean model of putting sports into play for our own needs ... which go way beyond athletics.

When, or if, that will happen in 2020 is still pretty much up in the air, but for lack of anything else, KBO baseball is going to be what we have for the foreseeable future.

Let's go Kia Tigers! Let's go Kia Tigers!

It is all we have right now.